1. Those who are united to Christ and effectually called and regenerated have a new heart and a new spirit created in them through the power of Christ’s death and resurrection. They are also further sanctified, really and personally, through the same power, by his Word and Spirit dwelling in them. The dominion of the whole body of sin is destroyed, and the various evil desires that arise from it are more and more weakened and put to death. At the same time, those called and regenerated are more and more enlivened and strengthened in all saving graces so that they practice true holiness, without which no one will see the Lord.
2. This sanctification extends throughout the whole person, though it is never completed in this life. Some corruption remains in every part. From this arises a continual and irreconcilable war, with the desires of the flesh against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh.
3. In this war, the remaining corruption may greatly prevail for a time. Yet through the continual supply of strength from the sanctifying Spirit of Christ, the regenerate part overcomes. So the saints grow in grace, perfecting holiness in the fear of God. They pursue a heavenly life, in gospel obedience to all the commands that Christ as Head and King has given them in his Word.
Series: The 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith Church: Redeemer Baptist Church, Jonesboro, AR Date: February 28, 2024
43 But it is not so among you. On the contrary, whoever wants to become great among you will be your servant, 44 and whoever wants to be first among you will be a slave to all. 45 For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
~Mark 10.43-45
Topic: Submission and Service Series: Spiritual Disciplines of the Christian Life Church: South Caraway Baptist Church, Jonesboro, AR Date: March 08, 2023
For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with goodness, goodness with knowledge,knowledge with self-control, self-control with endurance, endurance with godliness,godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love.For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being useless or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
~2 Peter 1.5-8
Topic: Introduction and Overview Series: Spiritual Disciplines of the Christian Life Church: South Caraway Baptist Church, Jonesboro, AR Date: January 11, 2023
65 Lord, you have treated your servant well, just as you promised. 66 Teach me good judgment and discernment, for I rely on your commands. 67 Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I keep your word. 68 You are good, and you do what is good; teach me your statutes. 69 The arrogant have smeared me with lies, but I obey your precepts with all my heart. 70 Their hearts are hard and insensitive, but I delight in your instruction. 71 It was good for me to be afflicted so that I could learn your statutes. 72 Instruction from your lips is better for me than thousands of gold and silver pieces.
The ninth letter of the Hebrew alphabet is teth (ט), and in this ninth stanza of Psalm 119, the psalmist repeatedly affirms the essential goodness of God. Five out of the eight verses in this stanza begin with the Hebrew word tov (טוב) which means good, pleasant. It is a seemingly small and insignificant word, but it is perhaps one of richest words in all of the Hebrew language. This is especially so when it is used to describe God, because goodness is a primary attribute of His character. For our psalmist, however, it would seem to be much than this; in his view, God’s goodness is the sum total of all that He is. As our psalmist puts it in verse 69, “You are good, and you do what is good.” Or as we often say in the Bible Belt, “God is good! All the time!”
In other words, goodness is who and what He is; He is the source and standard of all that is good. There is no one and nothing that is good outside of Him. As Jesus says in the Gospels, “No one is good except God alone.” (Mark 10.18) This is why our psalmist prays, “Teach me good judgment and discernment, for I rely on your commands.” (verse 66) Literally translated, it reads “goodness of taste”, where the word taste refers to moral and ethical discernment. The law of God is a reflection of His perfect goodness, and when we live according to its precepts, we enjoy the goodness that God intends for us. This is why the Apostle Paul affirms that the law is good, holy, and just. (c.f. Romans 7.12, 1 Timothy 1.8) It is also why our psalmist affirms, “Instruction from you lips is better for me than thousands of gold and silver pieces.” (verse 72)
The reality, however, is that Christians are often so quick to doubt their conviction that God is fundamentally good. In fact, this is a point of weakness where we regularly come under the enemy’s attacks. Satan is incredibly adept at getting believers to doubt their belief in God’s thoroughgoing goodness. It is a strategy of his that goes all the way back to the garden, when he tempted Eve to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The clear implication of his words in Genesis 3.5 is that God is not good, that God is holding out on Adam and Eve by restricting them from eating of the tree. And his strategy hasn’t changed since that first sin; he still continually attacks the Christian belief that God is ever and always good in every way. This is why the Apostle Paul tells us, “In every situation take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.” (Ephesians 6.16) The shield of faith is the firm and steadfast conviction that God is good and trustworthy.
This is why our psalmist says here in verse 65, “Lord, you have treated your servant well, just as you promised.” When we hold fast to the conviction that God is good, then we will rest by faith in the promises is God’s Word, and no matter what obstacles or difficulties or challenges may come against us, we will continue to walk in faithful obedience. (c.f. verses 69-70) In fact, it is in the trials of life that we are forced to rely on God and His goodness even more; as our psalmist puts it in verse 71, “It was good for me to be afflicted so that I could learn your statutes.” Literally, it was tov, not that the affliction was tov, but that what resulted from the affliction was tov. Or as it says in the Letter to the Romans, chapter 8, verse 28, “We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.”
The perspective of the psalmist in this stanza, especially in verse 71, is so radical and counter to the prevailing sentiments of our culture. The culture would have us believe that good, or the “good life”, is the absence of difficulty, trial, or trouble, that it is a life of ease and comfort and prosperity. However, this is not the perspective of our psalmist, nor is it the perspective of the Bible more generally. In this stanza, the psalmist wants us not only to know but to believe with conviction that God is the ultimate and highest good, that He is the source of all good, and that He is working out every detail and every circumstance for our good. But, of course, the good He is working in us is not our ease or our comfort; on the contrary, it is our growth into Christlikeness. And according to our psalmist, the good of Christian maturity is more effectively cultivated in our lives during times of testing and trial. As our psalmist says in verse 67, “Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I keep your word.” Or as the Apostle James puts it,
Consider it a great joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you experience various trials, because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking nothing.
In many ways, the nature of theological discourse, especially when it comes to navigating areas of disagreement, is like a crucible. It very quickly burns away every veneer, every façade, every pretense, and it reveals in no uncertain terms the condition of a person’s heart. It exposes the quality of person’s character in ways that no other interpersonal endeavor seems to. In my last post, I suggested that no matter how stark our disagreements may be, we must still engage our opponents Christianly. We must cultivate the virtues of Christ-likeness even when we are required to address questions of Biblical interpretation about which we hold strong convictions or for which we have the most zeal. Our Lord Jesus Christ is the exemplar par excellence when it comes to interacting with people with whom we have sharp and pointed disagreements, and as His disciples, we would do well to consider His conduct in these matters and do likewise.
Of course, a cursory reading of the Gospels quickly reveals that Jesus was not afraid of theological debate. There were many occasions where things got quite heated in the discussions that He had with the religious leaders of His day, and Jesus certainly did not hold back in His rebuke of them. He variously referred to them as a “brood of vipers” (Matt 12.34, 23.33), as “hypocrites” (Luke 12.56, 13.15), even as “sons of their father the devil”(John 8.44). To our modern ears, this sounds overly harsh and smacks of contempt. Moreover, it appears to be nothing more than a kind of ad hominem attack, which is a logical fallacy that attacks the person rather than engages the substance of their argument. However, Jesus was a master of language and rhetorical strategy; therefore, He cannot be charged with any kind of personal malice or fallacious argumentation. Upon further study of these exchanges, it becomes clear that Jesus’ disagreements with the Jewish religious were, in fact, quite substantive, and that these disagreements were a large part of the motivations that led the Jewish leaders to plot for His death by crucifixion.
Further reflection on these scenes is beyond the scope of this article; however, the question remains: to what extent are Jesus’ interchanges with the Jewish religious leaders exemplary for our approach to navigating disagreements in theological discourse? Does our pursuit of Christlikeness require that we emulate the rhetorical strategies of Jesus against the Pharisees? Are we supposed to treat our theological opponents with the same attitude and method as Jesus? In answer to these questions, I would like to offer the following thesis: Jesus’ interactions with the Jewish religious leaders of His day are not an example for how we should address our disagreements in modern theological discourse. And in the space remaining, I would like to offer three reasons in support of this conclusion.
First, Jesus had the proper authority to rebuke. The question of Jesus’ authority was the driving force in the majority of His conflict with the Jewish religious leaders. In Mark, chapter 1, and verse 22, we read that the people “were astonished at his teaching because he was teaching them as one who had authority, and not like the scribes.” Jesus possessed inherent authority as Messiah, and this was a direct threat to the Jewish religious establishment. This was the primary point of contention between Jesus and the religious leaders. In fact, the differences in biblical interpretation that separated them were not even that significant by comparison. The religious leaders rejected the messianic claim of Jesus, and that rejection pushed them to conspire for His death as early as Mark chapter 3. So, in truth, the conflict between Jesus and the religious leaders was never really a theological one to begin with. It was through and through a question of authority and submission, specifically the messianic authority of Jesus and the refusal of the Jewish leaders to submit to Him. Therefore, we must conclude that the rebukes that He spoke against them were aimed, not at their theological disagreements, but rather, they were meant to provoke the religious leaders to repentance and submission.
Secondly, Jesus had the necessary character to rebuke. We confess that Jesus is the second person of the Trinity incarnate, fully God and fully man, born of the virgin Mary, born without sin. He was “tempted in every way as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4.15). He lived a sinless life in perfect obedience to the Father. He was not given to vices like pride and arrogance, contempt, scorn, guile, etc. Even in His anger, He was without sin. This means that the rebukes that He levied against the Jewish religious leaders came from a heart that was perfectly righteous and holy. He was genuinely driven by love for God and by love for His opponents; He championed the truth for the sake of the truth, not for personal gain or one-upmanship. His motives were never mixed, never polluted, never turned toward self, but always meant to bring His opponents to repentance and faith. This is the ideal to which we must aspire; however, on this side of glory, we can never be certain that our motives are perfectly pure. As long as we live in this fallen world, our attitudes will necessarily be mixed with sin, which is why we be ever conscious, always examining the motives of our hearts before venturing to rebuke those with whom we disagree. We should submit ourselves to the examination of the Spirit, praying as the psalmist taught us, “Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my concerns. See if there is any offensive way in me; lead me in the everlasting way.” (Psalm 139.23-24)
And lastly, Jesus had the ideal context to rebuke. It goes without saying that the world has changed since the days of Jesus and His first followers. His was a culture that was primarily oral, where theological discourse was a public affair, where disagreements were hammered out in face to face dialogue in front of a crowd of onlookers. By contrast, ours is a culture that is primary literary, where theological discourse is a written affair, where disagreements are hammered out in books and journal articles that are subject to peer review and the editorial process. Of course, the proliferation of social media has all but circumvented those processes; avenues for both formal and informal review are nearly nonexistent in the facebook realm, the twitterspace, and the blogosphere. But there is a big difference between discussing our theological differences in face to face conversation and taking anonymous potshots from behind a computer screen. When Jesus launched His rebukes against the Jewish religious leaders, He was operating in a open and public context that required active listening and clear argumentation. It was a context that had natural checks and balances in the form of the watching crowds. He knew His opponents, and they knew Him; there was no hiding. The point is this: context matters. In other words, context determines how we navigate our theological disagreements. How we discuss these matters in face to face dialogue is very different from how we handle them on social media or in the pages of published scholarship.
In conclusion, there is a vast difference between the rebukes that Jesus levied against those who had rejected Him as their Messiah and navigating our theological disagreements within the body of Christ. And what we must affirm is that Christians are called to navigate their disagreements with attitudes and approaches that are counter to the ways of the world at large. We are called to be different, we are called to righteousness and holiness. We are called to the way of love. It is natural and easy to love those with whom we agree, but it is whole other challenge to love those with whom we disagree, even when that disagreement is relatively minor. We must learn to love others theologically. The example of our Lord Jesus Christ demands nothing less than this.
In my previous post, I began to outline the general contours of a biblical ethic for theological discourse. The ability to discuss questions of theology and biblical interpretation Christianly, especially where there is disagreement, is a primary indication of a person’s maturity in Christ. However, so often in this current cultural climate, godly virtues like humility, gentleness, kindness, love, and grace are glaringly absent from most (online) theological discourse. In addition to that, the proliferation of social media has created a practical cacophony of voices making it nearly impossible to know which ones are faithful and true. As Christians, we are called to contend passionately for the truth, which necessarily includes calling out those errors which are in direct contradiction to the clear teaching of the Bible. And so, the question remains, how can we contend for theological truth without being unnecessarily contentious?
The fact is that false teaching has always been a plague on the people of God. From Mosaic prescriptions that lay out the consequences for those making false prophecies to the writing prophets and their warnings about those who offer false promises of peace and security in the face of judgment to the warnings of the New Testament Gospels and epistles even to Revelation’s descriptions of an eschatological false prophet, the Bible is consistent in calling the people of God to be on guard, always watching our lives and our doctrine closely. However, we are also responsible for the lives and doctrine of each other within the community of faith. We bear a mutual responsibility for each other’s souls as we pursue biblical faithfulness, and when a brother or sister wanders off the path of truth, when they are swept up by the deceptions of false teaching, then we are called to the ministry of a loving rebuke that we may point them back to faithfulness.
The challenge, however, comes in identifying exactly what is and what is not false teaching. It has become common practice it seems to label our theological opponents with ideological and emotionally charged epithets that end up causing more confusion than clarity, which results in even more division. Labels like false teacher, heretic, liberal, etc. simply cannot be thrown around carelessly. Merely holding a different theological conclusion than someone else does not mean that they deserve to be identified as a false teacher. This is why we need a clear definition of what false teaching is. False teaching is any teaching that contradicts the primary and essential truths of the Bible. It is any doctrine that stands contrary to the fundamental essence of the Gospel. This has been the common understanding throughout the history of the church, but it would seem that in the current cultural climate many people have forgotten how to distinguish between friend and foe.
We desperately need to recover the discipline of theological triage. The ability to appreciate what is primary and what is secondary or tertiary is an ability that seems all but lost in most theological discourse. The threat of false teaching only applies at the level of the primary, those core truths that if compromised place one outside of the Christian faith. Historically, these primary doctrines have been defined by the classic creeds of the early church. These creeds (e.g. Apostle’s, Nicene/Constantinopolitan, Athanasian, etc.) were forged in the crucible of theological controversy, so they are helpful in identifying what does and does not constitute false teaching. Of course, they do not replace or supersede the authority and sufficiency of Scripture, but they can be helpful in clarifying the contours of Christian orthodoxy. Clearly, as it was then so also now, any teaching or doctrine that falls outside of these bounds is rightly called heresy or false teaching, and anyone who holds, affirms, or promotes this kind of doctrine must be rebuked for their error. With that being said, in what follows, I would like to outline a few biblical priorities that we must keep in mind as we engage each other in these matters.
The first priority is the priority of the local church. The local church is the primary locus of God’s redemptive and sanctifying work, and this includes the ministry of rebuke. It is in the local church that we are taught sound doctrine. It is in the local church where we submit to pastor-elders who keep watch over our souls. It is in the local church where we hold each other accountable and consider how we might provoke one another to love and good deeds. All of the commands that instruct us to correct and rebuke false teaching are addressed to the local church. This means that the local church is the right and proper context for hammering out our theological differences, for wrestling with the text of Scripture. It should be a safe place where people can ask questions, where they can express their understanding of particular issues and questions without fear of judgment or ridicule, and when necessary, where they can be pointed back to the way of biblical truth by correction or rebuke. In other words, it is not our job as pastors or as church members to police the theology of all Christians everywhere. Rather, it is our job to maintain biblical faithfulness within the context of the local church community where God has placed us.
The second priority is the priority of relationships. Relationships matter. What we must realize is that the Great Commandment to love God and to love people is not two but one. These are two sides of the same coin, to halves of one whole. Loving God necessarily includes loving others, and we can only do this in personal intimate friendships. When these relationships are grounded in mutual love for God and for each another, then and only then can we be assured of a person’s intent, that they are for our good and not for our harm, that they only wants what’s best for us. This unwavering trust is the currency that must be spent in speaking words of rebuke to one another. Outside of this basic assurance of a person’s good intentions, our rebukes will almost always come across as harsh, demeaning, belittling, and divisive. This is why the greater the relational distance that exists between us and our theological opponents, the greater amount of grace we must be willing to show them. This means giving the benefit of the doubt; it means taking our opponents at their word. And it means attributing questions or concerns first to misunderstanding, differing emphases, or lack of clarity before immediately impugning, slandering, and mischaracterizing someone’s biblical fidelity and devotion.
The third priority in the ministry of rebuke is the priority of repentance. Repentance, restoration, reconciliation. This must be the guiding principle, the primary purpose, in every church discipline situation. This is especially so when it comes to the ministry of rebuke. There may be occasions where a stern rebuke is necessary and warranted, but we are not simply trying to win arguments for the sake of being right. We are not engaged in a game where we need to win theological points to defeat our opponents. If false teaching is any doctrine or belief that would invalidate the Gospel, then we cannot pretend that these questions have no consequence. We are engaged in a spiritual battle for the soul, that we might turn them to Christ. This is why doctrine matters; this is why we must contend for the faith. It can never merely be a question of who is right and who is wrong. Every theological conversation must be guided by the primary desire of both parties to be more like Christ, to submit more to Christ, to trust more in Christ. This is why we must be ready and willing to repent and seek forgiveness, and it is why we must engage our theological differences in ways that invite others to do likewise.
And finally, the fourth priority for our theological discourse is the priority of Christlikeness. We are called to demonstrate the virtues of Christian character in every situation, in every interaction, in every conversation. Even when we must speak hard words, we are not permitted to speak them harshly. We cannot give into attitudes like hate, bitterness, or pride. We cannot treat our theological opponents, no matter the severity of their error, with derision or disregard or contempt. We must always seek to “speak the truth in love” even when that truth is confronting. Of course, there are plenty of examples in the Gospels where Jesus had to deliver hard words, and to our ears, his confrontations with the Pharisees may seem downright combative or argumentative. I will consider these examples and how they relate to theological discourse in my next post; however, suffice it say here that tone matters. Even when we must confront those who are descending into grave theological error, we must endeavor to deliver our rebukes with the virtues of Christ-like character, not the least of which are grace, humility, and love.
Faith seeking Understanding 