Wouldn’t it be great if there were a platform, a medium that was accessible by all, where differing opinions could be expressed? Where no ideology was privileged and no ideology suppressed? A kind of Mars Hill. One question though. Should this forum be public or private? If it’s private we have a problem. The owner would have the right to determine what, if anything crosses his line. If he allows people to agitate for genocide, if he leaves room for Neo-nazis, conspiracy theorists, child trafficking apologists, his customers might abandon ship. If, on the other hand, he doesn’t allow such things, suddenly the medium isn’t accessible by all.
Maybe then it would be best if this platform was owned by the government. That way no owner could determine what crosses a line and what doesn’t. But then you have this problem- the taxes I pay are being used to help propagate ideas I find reprehensible. Now Holocaust survivors’ taxes are building a platform for Holocaust deniers. Atheists are being taxed to pay for Christians to promote the gospel. Christians are being taxed to pay for atheists to evangelize their own unbelief. Child trafficking victims are being taxed to finance the propagation of the ideas of child trafficking apologists. Now what?
This conundrum, you may think, is being brought to you by the raging controversy over President Trump and the Sith Lords of Social Media. This controversy has revealed differing perspectives. A few of us want to do away with foolish public accommodation laws altogether so that decisions about who we want to do business with can be made freely. Crazy I know, letting people make up their own minds. A few of you believe the government should make all such decisions. Most of you hypocritically believe others should be forced to do business against their will and that you should not.
My point, however, is not about social media, or bakeries being forced to bake cakes for faux marriages. Rather it is about the largest platform in the country, which is controlled by the government, that actually exercises iron-clad control over content that is deeply offensive to many and that taxes citizens to pay for it all. It is the government school system. It is as if conservatives, fed up with Twitter’s silencing of opposing views are told “If you don’t like it, build your own social network.” And “Oh, by the way, we’re still going to make you pay for this social network.” Only this platform costs three-quarters of a trillion dollars every year. Trillion, with a t.
Conservatives are outraged over Twitter’s heavy-handed control over content, and at peace with the far more damaging iron-fisted control over education exercised by the government. We clutch our pearls over the President, the President I tell you, losing his posting privileges but think nothing of millions of little children being taught they are nothing but sophisticated germs, the fruit of random collisions of time, space and energy, being taught that they can decide for themselves whether they are little boys or little girls, being taught by the mere failure to mention His name, that Jesus doesn’t matter.
The Dark Lords of Silicon Valley are not to be trusted. They are disingenuous and diabolical. They are, however, mere teacup poodles nipping at the heels of liberty while the state is a rabid, steroid fueled Bull Mastiff. And we, fools that we are, think we can pet it into submission, train it into obedience, feed it into domestication. While its jaws descend upon our throats.
Yes and no. There is a perspective out there, driven I suspect more by psychology than theology, that looks down its nose at what is sometimes called “worm theology.” It suggests that we can be too down on ourselves, that looking too deeply into our sinful hearts is unhealthy and unbiblical. The Bible, however, gives a compelling portrait of our sinful nature before we are reborn (see Ephesians 2), and I would argue, after we are reborn (see Romans 7). To look more deeply into our sin is to look more deeply into His grace, and to respond more potently in love and gratitude. One thing most needful for me, and for the church in our age is a more honest, humble grasp of our own sin.
While it is likely not possible to overstate the scope of our sin apart from His grace (though it is possible to miss the blessing of that grace in stamping us with His image) nevertheless there is at least one way in which we can “over-repent.” We do so when we repent for things that are not sins.
There are at least two ways we repent for things that are not sins. First, when we in the church add to God’s law. The Pharisees, we remember, were infamous for what we call “fencing the law.” Here we take an actual law God has given, and to be extra certain we don’t commit that sin we make the law broader than God Himself did. The Pharisees were neither the last, nor the first to do this. Eve is the patron saint of this error. Remember when the serpent asked if God had forbidden Adam and Eve to eat of any of the trees of the garden she rightly replied that God had given them liberty to eat of any tree, save one. Her good beginning however soon came with a gloomy portent when she added, “Neither may we touch it.” God had said no such thing. Eve was the first to add to God’s law.
The second way we repent for things that are not sins is when we take on the burdens of the law from the world. They have their own law that often has little connection to God’s law. They are quick to condemn us, and sadly, too often we are willing to take on the stigma. Consider the tragic case of Joshua Alcorn. This young man some years ago took his own life, and left behind on social media his explanation for why. Joshua wanted to go through that process by which some men disfigure themselves and take in chemicals all designed to make him appear as a woman. His parents, professing believers, did not support either this process, nor the notion that Joshua was a girl trapped in a boy’s body.
The death is of course a terrible tragedy. The young man was struggling with deep despair. But the “lesson” we are called to learn, that too many professing believers have owned, is that Joshua is dead because of his cruel, narrow, believing parents. And we Christians are supposed to repent for our lack of understanding of those struggling with sexual identity. Trouble is, perhaps apart from Fred Phelps, I’m unaware of Christians lacking in understanding for anyone struggling with sexual identity or any other sin for that matter. I am aware that there are Christians, sadly too few, who are unwilling to call evil good in the boiling cauldron of sexual identity politics. The tragedy of the death of Joshua Alcorn was tragic because of Joshua’s death, not because we Christians won’t get with the program of our postmodern sexual free fall.
As when we in the church add to God’s law we end up distorting who God is, so when we embrace the world’s law as God’s law we do the same. We may weep for Joshua, and weep with his parents. We may not, however, add to or subtract from the law of God in the process. We have plenty of real sins to repent of without taking on the yoke of the contemporary zeitgeist. When we repent for things that are not sins, then we need to repent, for distorting the law of God, and therefore, His character.
All of us, I presume, from time to time change our minds. We know that we err, and we know that we grow in grace. At least part of that growth happens when we no longer believe the errors we once believed. Sometimes we add new information to what we believe. Sometimes we jettison old information. And sometimes we do both. I used to believe, decades ago, for instance, that the universe is many millions of years old. I now believe that it is less than ten thousand years old. That is progress.
Paul commands of elders that they, among other things, be sober-minded. I suspect that many of us give precious little thought to this command. Too many of us dismiss all of Paul’s qualifications. Even if we try to apply them, however, we often slide right over this one. We may assume “sober-minded” means the same thing as “not given to much wine.” We may assume that we don’t want elders who are given to whoopee cushions, joy buzzers and oversized clown shoes.
To be sober-minded, however, is to treat truth seriously, and to have a healthy doubt as to our own understanding of truth. It is all too easy to get confused here. Many churches have their fair share of “theology wonks.” These are usually young men who, happily, have a passion for theology. They read substantial books, and they engage in substantial conversations. You’ll usually find them at the church picnic, smoking a pipe, with a small cadre of acolytes sitting around them as they share their wisdom. They are contemplating the tug and pull of Nestorianism and Eutychianism. They are wondering out loud if maybe the hyper-preterists have it right, that Jesus may not be coming back again. They are expositing the proper procedure for stoning rebellious children.
A sober-minded person should think through the challenges of the incarnation. A sober-minded person should know the claims of all sorts of heretics, including hyper-preterists. A sober-minded person ought to contemplate the law of God. But there are two things a sober-minded person doesn’t do. He doesn’t practice experimental theology right in front of people. And he certainly doesn’t veer from this bedrock position to that one, dragging his sheep behind him. Indeed a sober-minded man, if he finds himself questioning some fundamentals, will grow frightened rather than excited, will grow more careful rather than more reckless, will encourage the faithful to look away, not to draw near.
If a man, for instance, suddenly “gets” covenant theology and now believes in baptizing covenant children he does not now take up this holy cause with the same zeal with which he defended the Baptist view just weeks before. A sober-minded man doesn’t, when he gives in to the biblical weight of Calvinism crusade for it just as he once crusaded against it. A sober-minded man instead thinks- “Wow. I once was so passionate about what I now know is error. Perhaps I ought not to lay hands on myself and become webmaster of www.don’t-listen-to-old-me-listen-to-new-me.com.”
One need not be the theology wonk to fail here. Neither does one need to be or aspire to be an elder to heed the call to sobriety of mind. Those who follow theology wonks are likewise not sober-minded. They are instead drinking a dangerous brew. If you are following someone who gives you intellectual whiplash, you would be wise to get off that bus. If your local guru is telling you about all the exciting things he saw on the other side of the Tiber, walk away. He leads sheep to slaughter, not to green pastures. It makes no difference whether it be sensual or intellectual delights. Only fools heed the call of the seductress. Her paths lead to death. Wisdom, on the other hand, is sober and steady. Heed her.
Thesis 58 We must fear God and obey all that He commands.
Ecclesiastes is one of the most difficult books in all the Bible. One key reason is that it is inverted. Much of it is an extended ad hominem argument. By ad hominem I don’t mean that Solomon is insulting his intellectual opponents. Rather he is embracing, hypothetically, an errant worldview, and then showing forth the necessary implications of that worldview. When Solomon says “Vanity of vanity, all is vanity” he is not saying that all is vanity. Rather he is saying that if there is nothing beyond the sun, if this world that we perceive with our senses is all that there is, then all would be vanity.
The bulk of the book is taken up with various explorations of attempts to find meaning under the sun. He looks at earthly wisdom, at pleasure, at work, at success. And each one dies a swift and brutal death when confronted with… death. If there is nothing beyond the here and now, there is no meaning in the here and now. Solomon looks unflinchingly into the empty chasm of meaninglessness and returns to tell us the horror of what he saw.
He does not, however, leave us there. Having left the world of matter and energy in a heap of dust he turns to remind his reader that there is meaning, and that there is direction. He finally tells us, truthfully, the sum of the matter- “Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is man’s all” (Ecclesiastes 12:13). After all the complications, after the hard work of tearing down our idols, Solomon brings us right back to the most simple of truths, to the direct, plain, eminently understandable calling of God on our lives- we are to fear Him and obey all that He commands.
It would be easy to find this conclusion anti-climactic. Of course we are to fear God and obey all that He commands. Every child knows that. There’s no disputing it. But what about… We may be willing to confess that this is our default position. The trouble is we think there’s a switch, and that sometimes circumstances cause us to flip it. Yes, fear God. Obey God. But if they threaten your livelihood, if they see you as a second-class citizen, if hardship comes, if this or if that, then it gets complicated. Then we have to figure out how to get what we want. God understands. He wouldn’t want us to be miserable and overrun.
Reformation happens not when we embrace a complicated, man-made strategy, but when we do the simple and obvious, when we fear God and obey Him. Consider the Great Reformer. When Martin Luther spent the night in his cell praying over his second appearance at the Diet of Worms his prayer was as simple as it was powerful. He did not ask for God to show him a way out. He asked God to recognize that the battle was His. Luther reminded himself that the end was in God’s hand, that all he had to do was fear God and obey. It is still true for all of us. It is the sum of the matter.
Friends,
Tonight, 7 eastern, we begin a new study The ABC’s of Theology. Need a basic refresher? Feeling a mite light in your theological credits? Better still, would you like to know God better? Tonight-why study theology? Join us online at RC-Lisa Sproul on Facebook Live, or in person at our home in Fort Wayne. All are welcome.
