Sola Scriptura!

What Does Sola Scriptura mean? Well, a while back during a little thing called the Protestant Reformation (you might have heard of it, it involved a guy by the name of Martin Luther?) some fairly brilliant men under the direction of the Holy Spirit came up with a brilliant idea….. the Bible is the only source for divine knowledge and revelation. Why is that you may ask, because it IS God’s revelation to man. According itself, it is the complete and total revelation of God to man. Does it completely reveal all of God to man, by no means. But is it all God is going to reveal to man before his return, yes.

Most are probably wondering at this point “But I thought Jesus was the full revelation of God to man”. The answer is yes he was! He was the “word made flesh.” John 1:1 refers to Jesus as “the Word”. Christ was the full revelation of God to man, and how do we learn about Christ…..you guessed it, the Bible! So both Christ and the Bible are God’s full revelation to mankind because Christ was the “word made flesh” and the Bible is how we gain knowledge of Christ.

So, wouldn’t it be in the same line of logic to presume that since we as Christians are Christ followers, and since we learn of Christ’s life (and thereby how to follow him) from the Bible, shouldn’t we pattern our lives, doctrines, theology, and yes, Churches off of what the Bible says? I pray that everything up to this point reeks of common sense to those who are reading, it should.

 You may ask  what if you have a situation the Bible doesn’t address definitively, example:”Well, the Bible doesn’t state verbatim that I as and 18 year old can’t go out and drink excess amounts of Michelob Ultra with my friend at Joe’s HaHa House on Friday nights. So, that can’t be sin because the Bible doesn’t say it specifically.” ( That may sound absurd, but we all know how the human mind works) My reply would be that while no, the Bible does not state that exact sentence verbatim, it DOES say that 1) We should not get drunk (Ephesians 5:18) 2) We should submit to the laws of our government (Matthew 22:21), and the drinking age here is 21. So, by these to statements we can definitively conclude that the above situation would be sinful. And THAT is how you can apply the Bible to anything, by seeing what it says about parts of whatever situation you may be in. There are no special cases in which the Bible does not speak  to at least some part of the circumstances. If such cases exist, then the Bible would be insufficient, but until such case is found, Sola Scriptura remains valid.

The next question that is begging to be asked is “What if someone receives a new Divine Revelation from God?” To be clear, I don’t mean someone discovers God is calling them into ministry or He is prompting them to adopt, or leading them towards a specific church, etc. God absolutely prompts our spirit through the working of the Holy Spirit. But, He leads their spirit through what they read in His word. My return question would be “What valid “new revelation” has ever been received?” The most popular “new revelations” that I have heard of are from the likes of Benny Hinn, Jose Louis, Robert Tilton, etc. Quite a prestigious crowd huh? My youth pastor once told me that God will never tell anyone anything contradictory to His word, the Bible. Makes sense right? I mean, would an author write a book on the “top 10 reasons you should build the home of your dreams”, only to declare at the 1st book signing that he adamantly believes everyone should tear down their houses and live in tiki huts because it is more environmentally friendly. By the same token, God would not give us the Bible and His son living out and fulfilling the Bible, only to reveal to someone in a “special revelation” something completely contradictory to the Word.

The same truth applies to Church doctrines and policies, if their validity cannot be found soundly in the Bible, they are useless. If our doctrines do not expressly pertain to Scripture, then of what good are they. Are we adding or subtracting from the Word of God in our policies and procedures, if so, we need to read what the Bible says about that and repent immediately. I do not understand what is so offensive about drawing a straight line from our theology to the Bible, its what the apostles and disciples did when they were working in the early church. If Sola Scriptura worked for them, shouldn’t it work for us as well?

Continuing Education- The Christian That Reads

Have you ever been in an argumentwith a Mormon? The sad thing is that most Christians that have, probably lost miserably and may have even been forced to consider that the Mormon argument is plausible. Why is that? I would like to humbly submit that most Christians are woefully uneducated when it comes to things pertaining to Christianity, the Bible, and religion in general in the modern world. Some may say that the problem lies in Pastors and Sunday School teachers not doing a good enough job in educating their flock. While that may be true to some minuscule degree, I believe the main problem lies in the majority of Christians’ unwillingness to continue to study about their God and his interactions with today’s world after they receive salvation.

It is vital to the Christian walk and to the Body of Christ that Christians “continue their education”.  What I primarily mean by this is that we should be READING Christians. But before we even think about picking up books at the local LifeWay, we should first devout ourselves explicitly to the study of the one good and perfect book, the Bible. Once we are well versed in it, then and only then should we branch out into other sound Christian authors. What having a strong, biblical foundation does is it enables us to view everything else we read through the lense of the Bible. This way, when we come across something heretical, or wrong, we immediately see it for what it is, and do not accept it as truth. A reading Christian without a strong biblical foundation is like a child watching the infomercial channel, they are willing to believe anything they read because they have no foundational truth to compare it to.

Secondly, once we do have a strong biblical foundation, we must be sure to read good, biblical authors whose writings will edify, not tear down, our faith. The best way to do this is to seek the advice of a pastor. They will know what authors write truth and what authors don’t. For starters, I would suggest men like Mark Driscoll, Randy Alcorn, Tim Keller, and Gary Breshears. These men write about culturally relevant topics that provide Christians with great intellectual ammunition for conversations in the real world.

Finally, once we are reading and learning about how Christianity is interacting in today’s world and ways we can further the gospel, the next step is to make what we have learned about part of our conversations. It is very easy to read, and then forget. I’ve always wondered why when Christians gather together, we wretched sinners saved by a grace we don’t deserve, our conversations are predominately dominated by such inconsequential topics as football, interior decorating, and the color of the carpet in the sanctuary. While there is certainly a vital place in our conversation for such topics, why do we not talk more about things such as apologetics, problems Christianity is facing, the pastor’s latest sermon, what we are learning in our walk with God, etc. We need to be more engaged and in tune with what our brothers and sisters are going through in their lives, sharing with them what we have learned through our studies so that all of us are better equipped to do the work of the gospel.

I do not mean to write to discourage, I think we are moving towards a more educated and culturally relevant Body of Christ. Instead, I wish to encourage us to keep going and not settle for the mediocrity of getting our weekly doses of Christianity on Sundays and Wednesdays. We should actively be pursuing knowledge of God and his interactions with man FIRST in the Bible and second in other Spirit guided authors.

The Revolution Conference

This past weekend my church’s youth ministry attended the Revolution Conference at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. I must say without a doubt, this is the best youth conference I have ever had the pleasure of attending. The teaching by Dr. Russell Moore and Dr. Albert Mohler was nothing less than phenomenal. I am an avid reader of Dr. Mohler’s numerous blogs and I listen very frequently to Dr. Moore’s podcasts and I have to say, as good as they are on itunesand paper, they are exponentially better in person. What’s more amazing is the reason their teaching is so wonderful to sit under: they both could care less what you think of what they have to say, it is based on the word of God. So, if you have a problem withwhat they say, your only recourse is to take it up with the One who wrote the book that they draw all of their knowledge from(and fyi, disagreeing with Him has historically turned out badly).

The conference consisted of 2 sessions led by Doctors Moore and Mohler, respectively, 2 sessions led by Alex and Brett Harris, authors of the book “Do Hard Things”, and 2 elective sessions. My church group went to “Understanding The Post- Modern Culture” with Dr. Travis Kerns and “Understanding The Emerging Church” with Dr. Barry Joslin. As I have stated earlier the sessions with Drs. Moore and Mohlerwere phenomenal, likewise were the 2 elective sessions with Drs. Kerns and Joslin. Both men did a great job of taking 2 largely abstract concepts and making them understandable for youth. I was impressed however, that they did not “dumb it down” but instead expected the students to think hard to absorb 2 very difficult concepts. The result I believe was a huge success. Our youth group really grasped the Post-Modernism session and, after a little review and some more explanation from our youth pastor, understood the session on the Emerging Church as well.

Overall, I would say the conference was 80% positive. The only issue we came away with was that of the Harris brothers. Let me be clear, they did a very good job and there was absolutely nothing heretical in anything they taught. Our youth group’s only issue was how loosely based their teaching was on the bible. There were only a small scattering of ties back to the Bible and even fewer back to Jesus Christ who, as one student put it was “the very person we [came] all the way up here to learn about!”. They talked about the need for youth to grow up early and begin to “do hard things”, yet they never fully clarified exactly what “hard things” they were talking about. The biggest issue however was the neglecting of the person and work of Jesus Christ. Aren’t we called to do hard things for his glory so that others may know him? Is it enough to just get a job early and make money and not backtalk our parents? Is that hard enough, or should we not do the hard things of studying the word, growing in our faith, sharing our faith, being salt and light, and learning to imitate Christ in every way? I fear that many of the students at the conference came away with merely a moral life lesson instead of a paradigm shift towards following Christ, no matter how hard it gets. Yes, there is something to be said for speaking to ones audience, and over half of this one was comprised of 7th and 8th graders, but still, at a conference about challenging youth to think deeper and harder, is it too much to ask of them to tie doing hard things and their Lord and Savior Jesus Christ together? Is it too much to ask for them to see that the kinds of hard things we should be doing are those that will bring others into a saving knowledge of His redemptive work on the cross? These are a few questions i felt were left unanswered.

I do not mean to sound overly critical. I learned a great deal from this conference and the Harris brothers did a good job, I just wonder if it could have been done better. To quote Phillip McBryde, “The Capshaw Baptist Student Ministry definitely took a lot away from the experience.  What was Biblically sound, we absorbed and learned from.  What was not, we Biblically disagreed with and put a lot of thought into what should have been said.”

We thank Boyce college and The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary for putting on such a great conference, and for challenging us to think deeper. We greatly enjoyed it and look forward to coming back next year!

Suffering and the Christian Life

This past Wednesday my senior pastor, Zach Terry, graciously allowed me to fill in for him in our church’s adult bible study. I from the books of Job, 2 Corinthians, and Romans on the purpose of suffering. By the grace of God and the power of the Holy Spirit, I was able to lead our adults in exploring the purposes God has for suffering in the Christian life.

We began with the story of Job in the Old Testament. We discussed how Job’s suffering was suggested by God and that its limits were set by God. The purpose of Job’s suffering was to grow his faith. We see that through the extended period of trial, Job’s faith in God as redeemer is made rock solid, and as Romans 5 says, Job’s “hope does not disappoint (him)”. From the story of Job we learn that when we c0ntinue to have faith in the sovereignty of God during times of suffering, our faith grows exponentially.

From there, we moved on to the story of Paul. We talked about how the early church went through 300 years of government endorsed persecution, and after 300 years grew so large that it became the official religion of the Roman Empire. Paul was killed during those 300 years. We saw how Paul had every reason to hope in himself because of his standing in society (Philippians 3:4-11) but instead he chose to give up the easy life for a life of suffering with the hope of Christ. He suffered greatly for that choice (2 Cor. 11:22-28). However, Paul stated that his “present suffering is not worth comparing for the glory that will be revealed in [him]” ( Romans 8:18). But, that “present suffering” was not what present suffering is for most Christians today. It was not being made fun of for reading the bible, going to church, or not swearing; rather, Christians in Paul’s time would have faced being impaled through their rectum on a sharpened pole and then being set on fire to light Emperor Nero’s courts. Yet, the body of Christ still grew. Many new Christians are being brought into the body of Christ by going through the “Romans Road” witnessing format. The body is edified by reading Paul’s letters to early churches. So, through Paul’s suffering the body of Christ is still growing. Much in the same way, when we suffer and glorify God through it, we strengthen other believers and witness to the lost.

We ended the session with the ultimate example of human suffering, the redeeming act of Jesus Christ on the cross. We discussed how Christ’s suffering was not just physical, but moreso spiritual because “he who knew no sin became sin on our behalf” (2 Cor. 5:21). Through belief in this act of suffering, all who are lost can be saved. Similarly, our suffering, should we glorify God in it, is a powerful witnessing tool to draw others to the saving blood of Christ.

We know that as Christians we are called to be like Christ in all we do. We also know that Isaiah 53;5 states that Jesus was a “man of sorrows, well acquainted with grief”. So, if we are truly followers of Christ, suffering will be an integral part of our lives.

This is a cursory overview of what was included in the sermon on Wednesday night, if you are interested in reading more, my notes are attached.

the-purpose-of-suffering

The History Illiterate Christian

Bruce L. Shelley makes an interesting point when he states that “One of the more remarkable aspects of Christianity today is how few….professed believers have ever seriously studied the history of their religion.” When I read that I became amazed at how I, an 18 year old student who feels the call to go into vocational ministry in the local church, know next to nothing about the religion I base my entire existence upon. It seems sad that such a large percentage of Christians, myself included, have been content just to settle for a weekly dose of Christianity on Sundays, and never pursue knowledge on our own. Outside the occasional devotional or Bible reading, most of us fail to think anything of the set of beliefs that we claim as “governing our lives”. Who came up with them? When were they put into practice? Have they ever been challenged as they are today? Why just these certain books in the Bible? These questions and many more most Christians have no clue of how to begin to answer.

Why should we seek to learn the answers, some may ask. Well, without knowledge of the history of Christianity, we cannot adequately defend its validity over other false religions. For instance, mormonism began in the early 1800’s and is based off of a man’s vision and translation of some golden plates given to him by an angel in a vision. A christian with some knowledge of history can respond that Christianity as a movement dates back to 1 A.D. In fact, the death and resurrection of the central figure of Christianity, Jesus Christ, was so significant that it marked a new way to record years. B.C- Before Christ. A.D- the Latin-Anno domini meaning “in the year of our Lord.” Knowledge of the early church, the Roman persecution, the martyr’s, the evolution of Christian theology, the Reformations, and all the seasons and storms the church has weathered gives the Christian a much more solid base to stand on when defending their faith.

Think of an avid fan of a sport. Any real, true die-hard fan of a sport will be able to tell you more than who won the championship last year. They can tell you how the sport started, how the rules have evolved, great teams from the past, etc. How much more then should we care about the history of what we base our eternity on?

Suggested reading: Church History in Plain Language- Bruce L. Shelley                                                   

                                        Historical Theology- Alister McGrath

Relativism’s Truth: Yours, Mine, or Ours?

I recently was reading an essay by Gordon Lewis on Relativism. The more I read, the more I realized how rampant this philosophy growing in my high school. What makes it so dangerous is the fact that it is not a bold defiance of moral law, but rather a slow degeneration of the innate congnizance of right and wrong.

Relativism holds that there are no absolutes, and therefore no objective truth. A quote from Lewis summarize the point best. “To insist objectively that there is no such thing as objective truth is self contradictory.” Furthermore, Philip Johnson holds that “relativism about truth does not lead to tolerance. Rather, it leads to the conclusion that social conflicts cannot be resolved by reason or even compromise, because there is not common reason that can unite groups that differ on fundamental questions.”

If there is one topic you see pushed in high school, it is tolerance. Racial, religious, social, economic, and and many other forms of tolerance are preached by both students and faculty alike, and they very well should be. Tolerance is a necesity in any social setting when it is used to unite people. It is an absolute moral good when used to edify the body of Christ through encouragement. In other words, we tolerate all nationalities, backgrounds, economic status’, social standings, and pay grades so that there “may be no divisions among [us] and that [we] may be perfectly united in mind and thought”, 1 Corinthians 1:10. Tolerance isn’t even the correct word for what Paul is depicting. When we see one another as the body of Christ, the aforementioned categories don’t even exist. However if you want to call that tolerance, then so be it, because tolerance in that sense is absolutely correct.

However, the type of “tolerance” I see being taught in my school breeds aloofness and ambiguity when it comes to relating to others. It causes dissension to spring up because of the lack of knowledge people have of one another. It promotes not closeness, but distance; not relationships but conflict; not knowledge of one another but ignorance of other’s conditions. The tolerance in my school states that we each act according to what we see is right, and we cannot point others out for being wrong because they are simply acting in accordance with what they believe is right. In other words: each of us have our own truth and we should  just stay disconnected from others because if we act on our truth and they act on theirs and our paths dont cross, no conflict will arise. That is not tolerance, that is boldfaced relativism. It is people refusing to follow the inner sense of right and wrong that has been endowed to them by their creator, and that is nothing but sin. The fact is that conflict will arise, it is inevitable. And when it does, we who hold to our personal definition of truth (because Heaven forbid we press our ideas upon others, because that is oppression) have no basis to work out our conflict the way God intended because the truth as God has defined it has become nonexistent in our lives. So we stay as far away from others so that our lives may never know the conflict with another person that can come in a relationship. But we also can never know the wonderful grace God gives when a relationship is made stronger by a conflict resolved through turning to His truth as the governing and definitive authority for life. So I ask, does the abolishment of absolute truth really make our lives better? Or, are we merely shying away in cowardly fear from the abundant life promised to those who give their lives to be governed by the moral absolutes of God’s Holy Word because we are afraid that the creator of the universe won’t be able to handle our problems.

The End Times: Err on the Side of Preparation

With all the crazy events going on in the world today, questions about the end times are popping up everywhere. The rapture seems have become a prolific topic in conversation, especially among students. A student from my youth group recently brought up a question about the end times. He asked which theory is more credible, pretribulational or post tribulational rapture. I would have loved to sit him down and explain every aspect of the book of Revalation so that all his worries would be assuaged. But lets face it, most of us that have read Revalation came out of it more confused than we went in. So I followed the prompting of the Holy Spirit and told him what I believed is the most relavant answer for those that are confused. I would encourage any students reading this to seriously consider the view about to be presented, as it is an effective way not to explain the end times, but to be as spiritually prepared as possible for them.

If I had to guess, most people presume that all Christians will be raptured before the period of tribulation begins. The reason I would guess this is because I myself thought that way for a very long time. This theory grew wiith the advent of the Left Behind series. It is called pretribulational rapture, literally rapture before tribulation. Let me be clear, there is absolutely nothing sinful about this view, in fact I pray desperately that this view is indeed correct. But, we cannot know for sure. Even the most theologically sound pastors admit that they struggle with theories on this issure.

What I would suggest to anyone struggling with this is to embrace a post tribulational rapture theory, rapture after the tribulation, and pray that you are wrong. But prepare to be right. Allow me to say it like this. If we prepare to suffer and endure the tribulation, and that is indeed what happens, then we are prepared for what is coming. After all, we know that “In this world, we will have struggles”, John 16:33a. So we must prepare for them, resting in the peace that we can “take heart, for [Christ] has overcome the world” John16:33b. To me, it just doesnt make sense that Christians from ages past would endure such unbelievable suffering, yet those that make it to the tribulation would be pulled out of harm’s way. So I believe we should prepare for the worst in case it should came, for then we will be ready. If we prepare to be raptured before the tribulation, we are giving ourselves an excuse to become lukewarm. How easy it is to think, “everything will be ok, I will be gone when that happens.” But what if we aren’t gone, and we have been believing we wont be here when things get bad. Then we are unprepared and it will be much harder. If we are prepared and the rapture comes before, then wonderful, we can rejoice that we were wrong. But I believe we don’t have the luxury of relying on a pretribulational rapture when we don’t know for sure if it will occur.

The Benefits of a Christocentric Biblical View

Six months ago my church called Chip Dean to serve as youth pastor. What he has taught in that time period has changed both my life and future ministry. He has taught us to view all parts of the Bible as directly pointing to Christ, hence the word Christocentrism. All of a sudden, the Bible became unbelievably easier both to read and to teach. Take for example the story of Job. Let’s assume we were going to preach a sermon from that story. Without a biblical view with Christ as the center, the points in the sermon may be as follows. Job was a good man. Job suffered because he loved God. We should see how Job was faithful in his suffering and follow his example.

What the average Joe in the congregation will pull away from that sermon is that he needs to remember how Job acted when bad things happened, and that he should follow Job’s example. There is nothing inherently wrong with those points. In fact, a sermon containing just those would best many sermons preached today, if only for the fact that they reference the bible. Those points are perfectly moral, but I believe that there is so much more to Job than suffering because we love God. Now let’s take a look at a Christocentric sermon from the same story.

First of all, God only allowed Satan to hurt Job to a certain extent, meaning God has power over satan. Job was chosen by God to suffer for God’s glory. How was God glorified? When Job held fast to the hope that God was in total control of his situation, Satan was defeated, thereby glorifying God. Now for the main point. Who does this story point to? Christ. How? Christ was also chosen by the Father to suffer for His glory. Then we have a chance to present the gospel, which is the ultimate purpose of preaching-evangelism. Christ became the full manifestation of the glory of God when he died as a sacrifice for all our sins and defeated Satan, sin, and death once and for all. That is a sermon humanity needs to hear.

What we have just done is take a story from the Bible with a sound moral truth, and used it as a springboard to preach Christ, the ultimate example of morality. See, when we just preach moral lessons, there are so many lessons that must be taught to even scratch the surface of what God desires us to be as Christians. And most people will have a hard time keeping up with so many lessons. But, when we preach moral truths AND tie them into Christ and the gospel, we have given the listener one solid thing to hold onto. Because Christ is perfectly moral, his character encompasses all moral lessons. In essence, if you preach Christ first, sound doctrine will follow because “sound doctrine conforms to the glorious gospel of the living God”- 1 Timothy 1:10-11.

I recently preached the above message on Job at my church. If you would like to see the notes or hear the audio, my youth pastor has posted them on his blog along with his comments. *Note* There are 2 audio files, one of the main youth service and another of the college ministry. The link is below.

http://storylineframework.wordpress.com/2008/09/27/teens-preaching-and-students-leading-as-the-gospel-of-jesus-goes-forward/