The evangelical position on the Bible, that it is inspired, inerrant, and infallible, true in all that it teaches is true, from top to bottom. Our orthodoxy (right doctrine) on the Bible is orthodox. It is our orthopraxy (right practice) where we fail. Here then are several ways we in this camp tend to practice wrongly what we rightly confess.
First, we tend to believe the whole Bible is not for us. The great bulk of evangelicals are haunted by the spirit of Marcion. Marcion was an ancient heretic who wanted to excise from the Bible the mean and nasty God of the Old Testament. We, thankfully, do not go that far. We simply ignore the Old Testament, seeing it as a helpful collection of religious stories that, when it embarrasses us, can be safely swept away.
Second, we tend to see the Bible as a religious book from which we should glean our religious convictions. We miss that the Bible gives us true history. We might stand firm on Adam and Eve, on the flood (or we might not) but we miss that Adam and Eve were real human beings, just like you and me. That Abraham woke up grumpy some mornings, and might have had bad breath. We look at the people in the Bible as characters in a story that matters to us, rather than our ancestors, our actual family.
Third, we tend to see the law of God as simply sage counsel on how to be more nice to people. “Be nice” is the cardinal law to the evangelical. Our sermons thus reduce down to- “Here’s a story from the Bible. Here’s a story I found in a sermon illustration book. Here’s your application- don’t be the mean person, be the nice person.” Now I’m all in favor of being nice, when we’re supposed to be nice. But God’s law is so much broader, richer, even so much more nuanced than “Be nice.”
Fourth, we tend to see the Bible as a map to heaven. The Bible most assuredly tells us how to have peace with God. We are to repent of our sins and trust in the finished work of Christ on our behalf. It’s a good thing, a vital thing to grasp that He died for us, our sins imputed to Him on Calvary, and that He lived for us, His righteousness imputed to us. But we are not the center of the story. He is. The Bible is the story of Jesus Christ, the second Adam, bringing all things under subjection, and must be understood that way. The Bible is not just a mine from which we pull out proof texts for our systematic theologies. It is the true story of the victory of our King.
Finally, we tend to see the Bible as an aid to our piety. It is that, to be certain. But it is not a devotional. It is that by which we, His bride, are washed and purified. It is the message from the Maker of heaven and earth. It is not just to be affirmed but cherished, fed upon, breathed in, and lived out. May He give us the grace to do so.
If you find yourself in a grand quandary, chances are you are missing the obvious. No, I don’t mean that all difficult questions come equipped with easy answers. The point isn’t that every complex question can only be reached through muddling up simple questions. Instead what I mean is that most of the time we spend on real brain teasers would be better spent on kid’s play. Children, as a rule, don’t feel the need to understand the reasoning behind a rule. They only need to know the authority of the one making the rule. We are His children, and His reasoning is always perfect.
Consider the Christian and the homosexual lobby. We feel flummoxed, off-balance, precisely because it seems as if embracing what the Bible says on this issue will mean that the broader culture will hate us, be mean to us. It will mean being seen as hopelessly ignorant, behind the times and mean. Surely, we reason, there must be a way to look at this issue that will allow us to affirm our commitment to God’s authority while steering clear of the hatred of the world. I mean, how are we supposed to win the world to Christ if they hate us?
The reason we find the issue complicated is because we’ve already rejected the wisdom of God. He told us, over and over again, that loyalty to Him will mean the hatred of the world. He told us, not once, not ever, that the way to win the world to Him is to be sure we’re liked by the world. He told us, over and over again, that His Word is not only true but clear. He told us, not once, not ever, that God’s judgment on perversion is a thing of the past. To put it another way, when it comes to faithfully following Jesus, the hatred of the world is not a bug but a feature.
My point here isn’t to make yet another argument against the homosexual lobby. Rather my point is about we believers and our propensity to miss that which is clear and simple because we carry unbiblical and selfish presuppositions along for the ride. We deny the perversion of perversion because we’ve already perversely denied that we’re to be hated by the world.
If you’re thinking too hard, you’re trying too hard. Go back to the beginning and do the simple things. Not only is Jesus’ yoke easy and His burden light, but you don’t need a Ph.D. to know how to carry it. It is light because we don’t carry the burden of figuring it all out. It is easy because it calls us to simply trust Him, the one trustworthy being in all the universe. Trust Him. Give up on the dream of being loved by the world. Rejoice and give thanks when you are hated for His name’s sake. It’s simple.
Thesis 82 We must expect to be changed.
It is such a common take to have become a cliché. Many clichés, however, reach that status by virtue of being true. How many times have you heard a preacher say, “The indicative drives the imperative”? Well, maybe not that way exactly, but something like that. Throughout the New Testament we believers are told that we have been declared just, and so should live just lives, that we’ve been declared holy, and so should live holy lives, that we have been made the children of God and so should live as His children. What we are told, when it is true, should change not only what we do but what we are.
Which is where the preaching of God’s Word comes in. Our perspective on it has taken a significant tumble. We think the sermon is where the pastor, or someone he has chosen, shares their thoughts. We can find them informative, entertaining, inspiring. Or not. We sit in our pews assessing a performance before delivering our verdict.
A sermon, however, is no mere message. It is grounded in God’s Word, grounded in His authority and given with authority. It is that God ordained means by which we are increasingly changed into the image of Jesus. It tells us what He has said that we might be what He has called us. Understanding this not only ought to change how we prepare and how we bring a sermon but how we prepare for and how we listen to a sermon.
Consider it this way. I receive, from time to time, feedback on the things I write. I want to listen because it will likely help me in the future. But, however much I might give an ear, a reader has no authority over me as a writer. An editor, on the other hand, does. The reader may be wiser, have more insight but the editor has authority. I expect to be changed by the editorial remarks, even though the editor is far from infallible.
There’s a third ingredient in my writing. I may read books on writing. In fact, I have. Some of those books have even been written by professional editors. But those book writers were not my editors. They, again, even if they have far more credentials than my editor, are not my editor. I don’t expect them to make my writing better. I don’t give them authority, even though they might have that authority over writers they work with. So it is with the preaching of other pastors. They have authority over the sheep God placed under their care. The rest of us may benefit from their wisdom, but they are not the ones who will give an account for us.
We must then come as the sheep that are eager to be fed by the under-shepherd that the Great Shepherd has placed over us. We must come expecting to be changed by the authoritative preaching of His Word. The church will reform as we are re-formed by the ordinary means of grace and their extraordinary power.
Tonight, 7 eastern, we continue our ABCs of Theology Study, looking at U is for Unconditional Election. All are welcome in our home or on FB live, RC-Lisa Sproul. We pray you’ll join us.
First, confession time. I am not 100% confident that I have read all his more than 100 books. Most of them to be sure, many of them when they were in manuscript form. Like most people I too delight over my father’s capacity to make complex things clear. I too find his style engaging. I too come away from all his books the better for it. Which doesn’t mean I don’t prefer some over others.
I typically divide my father’s books into two categories- those he couldn’t not write, and those his publishers persuaded him to write. They’re all good, but there is something special about a book that came out of his own internal zeal. Not A Chance, for instance, grew directly, though not exclusively, out of a Christmas present I helped my mother pick out for him. She gave him a telescope. The joy he took in that led to reading widely on the philosophy of science and, coupled with his pre-existent penchant for piercing logic, out came the book. It is among my favorites. Faith Alone was another that burned inside him and had to come out.
Among my favorites, certainly in my top 5, are two that are not as well known. If There’s a God, Why Are There Atheists? and The Soul’s Quest for God. The former was one of his earliest books, having been released in 1974 as The Psychology of Atheism. He was still developing both his voice and his ideas, and that’s part of the pleasure. You can see The Holiness of God in its larva stage in its pages. The Soul’s Quest for God I love for its subject matter. My father’s skill at explaining things is only a small part of his gift. He could also, when he wanted to, move us with what he informed us of. Too many look to my father as a source of good arguments for good theology. This book demonstrates he was a good goad to a closer walk with Jesus.
My favorite, however, may be the most obscure of all the books he wrote. It is the one I could not put down. It is the one I was most eager to share with others (which explains why I don’t even have a copy anymore.) It spent not very long in print, either as a hardback or a paperback. It’s original title, Johnny Come Home. In paperback it was Thy Brother’s Keeper. It’s a novel, a virtual roman a clef. It tells the story of two young men, best friends who encounter Jesus. One leaves Jesus behind, the other goes on to have a national ministry. And it is very good.
With this book my father let himself free as he wrote. The beauty that undergirds the gospel is its foundation. The characters are real and well-developed, the story-line compelling. What I love about it most, however, is all that it showed me about him. The façade of a novel opened the door for my father to reveal himself as he did nowhere else. It was, as I read it in manuscript form as a teenager, the first time I realized that my dad wasn’t perfect, that he wasn’t as self-assured as he seemed. It revealed also, however, that in his humanity he was a beautiful man, redeemed by a beautiful Savior. I miss him. Not the charming teacher of theology. Him.
