Living Faith

Living Faith

The Bible teaches that we are saved by God’s grace through faith in Ephesians 2 and that we cannot save ourselves on the merits of anything we do.  But this does not mean our faith is to be a passive mental assent in the reality of Jesus Christ and what He accomplished for man through His sacrifice.

Peter wrote in chapter 2 of his second epistle that we are to strive to add many qualities to our faith such as virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, godliness and charity.  Peter went on to say that these qualities keep us from being barren and unfruitful in knowledge.  He also said those who lack these Christian virtues are blind and barren.  Peter then exhorts all Christians to give diligence to do these things, in other words, Peter said to make an effort to make these things a part of their faith.

James had much to say about faith in chapter 2 of his epistle.  He wrote by inspiration that “Faith without works is dead” (v20).  He went on to say that it is by works that our faith is perfected or made complete.  After giving the example of Abraham’s obedient faith, James went on to say these words in verse 24, “You see then that a man is justified by works, and not by faith only”.  James then concluded this teaching by again saying that a faith without works is as dead a body without a spirit.

Jesus said in Matthew 7:21 that, “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven.”  Those who have knowledge of and believe in Jesus enough to call Him Lord must do the will of the Father if they want to enter into the kingdom of Heaven.  Jesus says they cannot rely on their faith alone to get them there.  He went on to teach the parable of the foolish and wise house builders.  The wise builder who obeyed Jesus Christ was the one who built his house on rock.

Is your faith a living faith, complete with obedient service to our Lord and King, Jesus Christ, or do you have a faith which is inactive and dead?  We are commanded by God’s word to examine ourselves to see if we are in the faith (2 Corinthians 13:5).  A dead faith won’t save us any more than works alone can save us.  The two work together to produce a living, saving faith.

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Welcome to Church of Christ Articles

bibleThe objective of Church of Christ Articles is to enable you the reader to discover what preachers from the Churches of Christ are teaching.  The preachers study and come to their conclusions by studying the Bible.  Each of the men on who post on this site are all in agreement on what constitutes “Biblical Authority” and “God’s Plan of Salvation” and strive to teach accordingly.  However, on other topics, their conclusions may differ at times.  Consider those conclusions and as the Bereans, see if these things are so.

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Where Should We Stand on the Issue of Fellowship?

The Bible doctrine of fellowship is a difficult subject for many because of the strong emotions involved in personal relationships. No one wants to withdraw fellowship from anyone, especially their friends and family. Yet the Bible teaches clearly in such passages as Matthew 18, 1 Corinthians 5, 2 Thessalonians 3, and Romans 16:17 that sometimes we must. The Bible also teaches that failure to withdraw fellowship appropriately is equally offensive to God (2 Thessalonians 3:14). Such underscores the seriousness God has regarding the command.

Practicing this command is not easy to do either spiritually or emotionally. Because of this, some simply will not do what God desires: they will not withdraw fellowship when God’s word demands it. This kind of thinking places our love for men above our love for God and His word. These individuals need to be reminded that God comes first in our affections (Matthew 6:33, 22:37-38). We love God by keeping His commandments (1 John 5:2-3). Can we both love God and fellowship those who have left the faith? We cannot.

In contrast to the above attitude, there are those who abuse church discipline. These want to withdraw fellowship upon the slightest of indiscretions. To compound their error, they hold faithful brethren, who in patience and love continue to work with these individuals, in equal contempt. This view of fellowship is based upon the erroneous conclusion from 2 John 10-11 that mere personal appearances with certain people are enough to withdraw. In contrast, 2 John 10-11 teaches that we ought not to give aid and comfort to deliberate false teachers. If we do such, with support and encouragement, obviously we partake of their evil deeds.

2 John 10-11 does not suggest, however, that fellowship ought to be recursively withdrawn from anyone appearing with someone who is in error. Such a position would imply that faithful brethren would need to withdraw fellowship from themselves as there is always someone with whom we are in fellowship, who fellowships someone who fellowships someone (etc.) who is not in fellowship. Any doctrine of fellowship that implies that a faithful Christian need withdraw fellowship from himself is a false doctrine of fellowship! On the other hand, we have those who say there are no boundaries of fellowship at all. “We can fellowship everyone regardless of who they are or what they believe.” Such is an equally repugnant and unbiblical position to hold.

How ought we to practice the Bible doctrine of fellowship? We ought, on a case by case basis, to judge according to righteous judgment and not according to appearance (John 7:24). We ought to accept each individuals person without partiality (1 Timothy 5:21, James 3:17) until such a point in time as they prove to us individually that they have left the faith (1 Timothy 1:19-20). Such proof may take the form of their public writings, speaking, or other actions. If their actions are private, we are obliged to follow the procedures set forth in Matthew 18:15-20 until such a time as it becomes public. We have no precedent, however, to withdraw from someone other than dealing with their actions individually and personally. Nevertheless, when such has been proven that they have left the faith, we must withdraw.

Such a view of withdrawal is biblical, balanced, loving, and consistent with the Bible’s complete teaching on the doctrine of fellowship. It thus seeks to love God first in obeying His commands, and also our fellow man in respecting his personal situation without judging inappropriately. Practicing the Bible’s teaching regarding fellowship is not easy one way or the other. Let us not, however, seek to make it easy by either not practicing it at all, or by throwing out the proverbial baby with the bathwater and not having fellowship with anyone but our own clique. Instead, let us seek to judge each individual fairly, on a case by case basis, without resorting to a cliquish or devilish mentality.

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Philosophical Underpinings of the Emerging Church

In the Spring of 1994, I took a philosophy class titled, “Interpretation and Translation” in which I was exposed to a theory known as “Reader-Response Criticism.” This theory suggests that the meaning of any particular text is not so much what the author originally intended as much as what the reader personally experiences when reading it. This theory proposes that there is no one particular meaning outside of the context of the reader. The text could potentially have as many meanings as those capable of reading it. As a result, there are no right or wrong meanings; there are only subjectively understood meanings.

Such a method of reading applied to the Bible would produce any number of “legitimate” teachings. According to this theory, the important thing is not the intentionality of the author, but rather, the understanding of the reader. Consequently, the reader’s understanding becomes the ultimate legitimate “truth,” and it ceases to be of interest to talk about “right” or “wrong” interpretations. The only thing that would matter would be to discuss the various interpretations.

This approach to understanding literature is but one facet in a larger cultural movement that re-centers the search for truth upon the truth-seeker as opposed to the truth-Teacher. It reflects a fundamental choice as to whether we are going to think anthropocentrically (man centered) or theocentrically (God centered). Anthropocentric thinking has been (and is) presented to our culture in the postmodern philosophy of existentialism.

The fundamental tenet of existentialism has been expressed in the formula, “existence precedes essence.” 1 Basically, this means that the personal experiences of the subject (i.e. one’s existence) define reality (and all of reality’s accoutrements such as purpose, meaning, truth, etc.). The concept that reality can or should be defined in terms of absolutes (essences) is shelved. Postmodern philosophies tend to reject any epistemology that is not based solely on the individual subject.

Consequently, postmodern thinking is not concerned with the absolute truth or falsity of propositions; truth becomes a relative term that makes sense only in the context of one’s personal experiences. Paramount, rather, is the individual’s expression of those experiences. This expression takes the form of a narrative or conversation as an individual allows his personal experience to refine his sense of truth. 2 Hence, truth is anthropocentric.

Christologically, postmodernism prefers to focus on how the resurrection narrative affects one’s personal experience. This emphasis is also anthropocentric because it seeks to explore how one reacts subjectively to the resurrection narrative without presumption of any truth claims posited in the gospel accounts. Such thinking reflects the “existence precedes essence” doctrine of existentialism.

As “Reader-Response Criticism” was being touted secularly, a parallel postmodern theological movement emerged as well. Today, this movement is known as the Emerging Church. 3

The Emerging Church’s self-proclaimed effort is to engage the postmodern culture with the Gospel. This is laudable. However, it proposes to do this through postmodern methods and presumptions. The movement is extremely nebulous, and includes both individuals who have embraced the core tenets of postmodern thought, as well as individuals who are simply seeking to engage a postmodern culture with the Gospel in a postmodern way.

The method that the Emerging Church uses to do this involves: (1) a surface acceptance of pluralism; (2) engaging the postmodern individual in an open-ended conversational manner; (3) an avoidance of dogmatic assertions that are seen as a consequence of failed rationalistic methods (philosophical modernism); and (4) an effort to affect the postmodern individual through authentic personal behavior or example. Some consequences of practicing this method are: (1) more open forms of worship, (2) communalism; (3) ecumenism; and (4) concern for social justice. 4

The approach that the Emerging Church uses is appealing, especially to a postmodern culture. For the Christian, however, it is dishonest. How so? Eventually one’s commitment to absolute truth is going to surface into the “conversation” and the appearance of a pluralistic acceptance of all opinions is going to be exposed as a deception. At this point, one will be unable to avoid dogmatic assertions, and one’s behavior will be judged as inconsistent at best and hypocritical at worst. The individual employing the Emerging Church’s methods will then be forced to evaluate himself. Since he will come to the conclusion that he has been dishonest or inauthentic, he will ultimately decide to accept the methods of the Emerging Church as fundamentally true in order to be more consistent in his approach. Having accepted these methods, he will embrace a wholesale abandonment of absolute truth and the adoption of postmodern philosophy. This becomes painfully obvious when we contrast the basic tenets of Christianity with the Emerging Church’s methods.

The fundamental claims of Christianity are that Jesus of Nazareth died, was buried, and rose again to a new life. 5 To suggest, as postmodern philosophy does, that there are no absolute truths (or in a softer form, no “systems of truths”) reduces the New Testament’s claim to nothing more than how one personally feels about the subject, and makes out the witnesses of Jesus’ resurrection to be sophisticated liars.

This is a problem for the Emerging Church movement, as Scot McKnight, a self proclaimed member of that movement, says in Christianity Today. “Unless you proclaim the Good News of Jesus Christ, there is no good news at all—and if there is no Good News, then there is no Christianity, emerging or evangelical.” 6 Put another way, postmodernity’s rejection of absolute truth systems entails the rejection of the Gospel as an absolute truth system. This is the fundamental failure of the Emerging Church.

This highlights the choice that the Emerging Church must make between anthropocentric and theocentric thinking. To reject the Gospel as an absolute truth system causes one’s fundamental focus to be upon man instead of upon God. Emerging Church theology reflects this shift in thinking by focusing upon the gospel accounts as solutions to social problems (man vs. man) instead of theological problems (man vs. God). This focus upon the man vs. man conflict is fundamentally anthropocentric and existentialist in flavor.

Some of the specific terminology used in the movement also reflects its acceptance of existentialist thought. For example, the term “authentic” is employed to describe personal worship practices. Practices that are inclusive of individual participation—such as personal testimonies, liturgical reading responses, sharing meals, lighting candles, and prayer—are termed “authentic” inasmuch as they are perceived as involving the subject in the worship experience. Being “authentic” is defined, in fact, in a way that is consistent, not with objective truth, but with one’s personal feelings. Dogmatic propositional presentations of the Gospel message are considered “inauthentic” because they deny the personal feelings of the individual. 7

The application of these terms, authentic and inauthentic, were employed in existentialist thinking by Martin Heidegger. He suggested that authentic existence consisted in of one’s individual and personal acceptance of his unique, subjective, and independent existence from societal norms and standards blithely accepted by the masses. 8

The Emerging Church seeks to use that same concept, but in a theological way—namely, to suggest that one’s religious experience must be personal and subjective in order to reflect something meaningful. One’s personal involvement in spirituality is not encouraged because it is fundamentally necessary as a tenet of truth, but personal involvement infuses the subject with his own truth. In this way, then, the movement would have individuals disengage from the formal and dogmatic religion of the masses that currently presents itself in the form of evangelical Christianity. 9

The Emerging Church easily attracts individuals who are disenchanted with religious formalism. The problem is that it throws out the proverbial baby with the bath water. Instead of seeking to personally involve them based upon absolute standards of truth (the Gospel), the movement replaces absolute standards of truth with a subjectivist standard where truth only has meaning in relationship to the individual’s personal experience.

In contrast, while true faith approaches God based upon God’s absolute truth, it also must be done with a sincerity of spirit that is truly authentic (John 4:24). In such a model, however, authenticity comes not from one’s personal involvement independent of any normative teaching, but rather, in conjunction with it. One is truly authentic when one sincerely believes the truths that are taught in the Gospel and behaves accordingly. A mere personal subjective acceptance of the Gospel is neither sincere nor authentic because it denies (or at best ignores) the very claim the Gospel makes regarding the historical truthfulness of Jesus’ resurrection.

More questions need to be answered regarding the Emerging Church. Why is it critical of formal religion? What aspects reflect sound theological practices in contrast to denominational Christianity? How does the Emerging Church’s ecclesiology differ from the New Testament teaching of the church? This brief overview really has only served to introduce the concept of the movement, its self-professed relationship to postmodern philosophy, its ties with existentialism, and its anthropocentric nature.

The Emerging Church movement presents spiritual danger because of its de-historicizing of the gospel, making spirituality a wholly subjective matter, and relegating truth to each individual’s discretion. Its effect upon these foundational matters will reverberate with harmful consequences in other areas of Christian doctrine as well. We ought to reject any system (and this movement is a system, regardless of its proposed rejection of theological systems) that rejects the concept of absolute truth.

Endnotes

1. Jean-Paul Sartre, Existentialism is a Humanism trans. Carol Macomber, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007), p. 22. An online English translation is available at .

2. See for example, Eckhard Tolle, A New Earth (London: Penguin, 2005), p.71, “There is only one absolute Truth, and all other truths emanate from it…. The Truth is inseparable from who you are. Yes, you are the Truth.”

3. Carson, D. A., Becoming Conversant with the Emerging Church. Grand Rapids, Zondervan, 2005.

4. Scot McKnight, “Five Streams of the Emerging Church,” Christianity Today, 11 February 2007. Available online at . Accessed on July 8th, 2008.

5. 1 Corinthians 15:1-4.

6. Scot McKnight, “Five Streams,” 2005.

7. McLaren, Brian, A Generous Orthodoxy (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2004), pp. 107, 151.

8. Heidegger, Martin, Being and Time, trans. Stambaugh (Albany: State University of New York Press: 1996), pp. 169-170.

9. This is typical Kierkegaardian existentialist theology, his primary thesis being “Truth is subjectivity.” Kierkegaard, Soren, Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments, trans. Hong, New Jersey, Princeton University Press, 1992.

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The Faith of Moses

One can hardly begin thinking about the relationship of faith and Moses without considering the inspired penman’s comments in Hebrews 11:23-28.

By faith Moses, when he was born, was hid three months of his parents, because they saw he was a proper child; and they were not afraid of the king’s commandment. By faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter; Choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; Esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt: for he had respect unto the recompense of the reward. By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king: for he endured, as seeing him who is invisible. Through faith he kept the Passover, and the sprinkling of blood, lest he that destroyed the firstborn should touch them.

We learn from this passage that Moses’ faith began with his parents who defied Pharaoh’s command. That same defiance cropped up in Moses’ own life as he refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter and when he finally forsook Egypt. These things were not done for defiance sake, however, as the inspired penman tells us. Moses did these things looking to “the recompense of the reward” and “as seeing him who is invisible.” Moses was defiant toward Egypt because he believed in something greater than what Egypt had to offer; He believed in the existence of and the promises of God.

Nevertheless, Moses faith wasn’t always perfect. We find, in fact, there were several occasions when his faith wavered. We wonder where his faith went when we witness his flight after the Israelites rejected him as their leader (Acts 7:23-29). We ponder how he could, in the presence of God, doubt himself even as God promises to be with him (Exodus 4:10-17). We pause when we see his noble visage wrinkled with anger at the children of Israel and in disobedience strikes the rock to which God had simply said speak (Numbers 20:1-13). Despite these failings, Moses legacy is one of faithfulness. Let’s notice a few things in that regard.

First, Moses faith was a faith that faltered. We mentioned some of the times when Moses faith was less than stellar. He had times in his life when he gave up, had self doubt, and even deliberately disobeyed God. Regardless, with God’s encouragement, Moses found ways to return to the Lord. In Psalm 90, perhaps after the return of the 12 spies from the land of Canaan and God’s wrath with the disappointing report they brought, Moses prayed, “Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations” (Psalm 90:1). Moses realized that even in times when our faith falters, that it is only to the Lord that we can turn for ultimate comfort and refuge. So he says, “Return, O LORD, how long? and let it repent thee concerning thy servants” (Psalm 90:13). Yes, on occasion Moses’ faith faltered, but he always came back to God when he realized his wrong. We need to let the true spirit of penitence characterize our faith as well.

Second, Moses faith followed. From the time that God called Moses to bring His people out of the land of Egypt to the time that Moses’ foot set down on top of mount Pisgah, he followed the Lord. We remember many of the trials Moses had to endure: the mocking of Pharaoh’s magicians; the rejection of his message by Pharaoh; the complaints of the Hebrew people; the creation of the golden calf by Aaron; the rebellion of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram; the final lack of faith demonstrated by the 10 spies. In each of these times, Moses could have easily given up and thrown in the towel. Indeed at one point God Himself told Moses to just abandon the children of Israel and let Him make a nation from Moses Himself (Exodus 32:9-10). It was in precisely these times that Moses faith shined more brightly than ever when he dedicated Himself to following the path that God had laid out before Him. Under extreme trial, temptation, and trouble Moses’ faith came shining through like a beacon of hope among the fog of despair. What a tremendously faithful follower!

Finally, Moses faith was a faith that finished. While forbidden to enter into the Promised Land, Moses continued to serve God until such a time as his life was required. One can well imagine Moses walking up that rocky path to the top of Mount Pisgah and looking over into the land of Canaan. His time on earth was at an end and he had completed the task God had set before him. Yet his faith looked not finally upon an earthly plateau, but a heavenly one. We find Moses again in the gospel accounts speaking with Jesus about his death (Luke 9:31). We no longer see a Moses that is burdened by the cares of earthly life, but one who is triumphant over death and glorified, providing comfort and peace to One who would lead His people not out of a physical land of bondage, but a spiritual one. No doubt our Lord took comfort in this conversation when He declared upon the cross, “It is finished.” Like Moses, he laid down His burdens of physical existence to take up a glorious heavenly one. Moses faith was a faith that finished.

What joys and comforts the faith of Moses brings to the faithful child of God. Moses’ example gives us much to contemplate. Let us take up his banner of faith in our lives each day as we may falter, follow, and seek to finish the path of faith we each have before us.

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