Sanam Doctrinam

If you read my last post you know that I am expanding on a theme that our Pastor Teacher spoke on a few weeks ago in his introduction to 1 Corinthians.  He stated that the church has tried Isolation, Assimilation and Contamination instead of being truly sanctified as the Lord intends.

I spoke in my last post about the idea of isolation and how out of it grew (in most recent years) the legalism of some branches of the Fundamentalist movement.  In this post I would like to address the idea of assimilation.

The most recent iteration of this attempt of dealing with the World is seen in that of the so called “seeker sensitive” movement.  If isolation is the abandonment of the world, that is not doing as God says and living among the world, yet being not of it, assimilation and it’s modern variety “seeker sensitivity” tries to find “balance” in letting the world see that they can come join our little group and they don’t have to change that much.  It tries to be attractive, but not too worldly, making it easy for sinners to feel comfortable by not letting them know they are sinners.  That way they can be saved from what, again?

The problem lies in seeing the Worship service as a means of evangelism.  We are called in Scripture to gather to worship (read the Pastoral Epistles) and scatter to evangelize (Matt 28:18-20).  It is not that when we gather the Gospel is not to be preached, but our efforts for evangelism no matter the setting is not to woo the world by methods, but to share the Gospel as it is written, recognizing that it is an foolishness to the unbeliever (1 Cor. 1:18).  There is a fundamental misunderstanding of who (Who) does the saving when it comes to this methodology and this is where the church tries to assimilate the world into itself.

Therefore in this assimilation, sanctification (being set apart) is lost, and with it any distinction of what makes being a Christian any different that what the rest of the World is.

God is our refuge and strength,
A very present help in trouble.

Psalm 46:1

Last time I asked my Monday Musing readers for any topics they might like addressed. I got a response that mentioned a very timely issue: the global economic crisis and how we should respond to it and even gain encouragement through it. That’s a great topic, and one I’d like to address in today’s Musing.

It seems to me that when we are confronted with a difficult situation and especially one that is out of our control, we get the chance to roll back on our heels, and take stock of ourselves and what’s going on. I think the current economic situation affords us just such a chance.

Today, I’d like to share three reflections that I believe are apropos in our current experience.

The economic downturn gives us an opportunity to reflect on what is significant in life.

When the things in which we delight become diminished, our attention moves from what matters to us, to what matters. When the things that looked so sure become shaky and uncertain, we begin to look for solid ground. This is a good thing. Toys, trinkets, and a decent bank account can serve to numb our spirits to introspection. We can become so occupied with the things of this world, we don’t pause to evaluate the relative unimportance of that which we possess. Many times, brothers and sisters in Christ who live in the Third World have a clear advantage to us. I have heard credible stories of people who have nothing of the world’s goods, singing to God with the most euphoric joy in their hearts. I have heard of them walking three hours in their bare feet in order to attend a Christian worship service. They get it. They know what matters in life. They have learned the sufficiency of God in all of life. As the late Vance Havner pointed out, “A person isn’t fully qualified to say, ‘Jesus is all I need,” until Jesus is all he has.” A little bit of financial challenge is good to beckon us back to God Himself. The sons of Korah had it right in Psalm 46:7: “The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our stronghold.”

The economic downturn gives us an opportunity to reflect on God’s supreme control of world events.

Sparrows don’t fall, apart from God Himself (Matthew 10:29). Neither do economies. Tragedy is sifted through the hand of a sovereign God. Psalm 46:9 says, “He makes wars to cease to the end of the earth; He breaks the bow and cuts the spear in two; He burns the chariots with fire.” This might be frightening to one who does not know God through Jesus Christ, but for those who know God as their Father, it is a source of comfort to know that someone who loves us is ultimately in control. The book of Job tells us that even Satan is confined by the sovereign power of God. As Martin Luther aptly observed, “Even the devil is God’s devil.” The markets may seem to be flying out of control. Far from it. They are controlled by our sovereign, loving Lord. With the sons of Korah we can confidently respond to God’s words in Psalm 46:10, “Cease striving and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.”

The economic downturn gives us an opportunity to reflect on the ultimate source of prosperity.

God reserves the right, with nations as well as people, to shut off the prosperity faucet any time He pleases. Sometimes, prosperous people and nations can believe they got that way all by themselves. Such a perception is tragic, but economic troubles serve to confront us with the reality that God really does own it all, and parcels it out as He sees fit. God says in Psalm 50:10, “. . . Every beast of the forest is Mine, the cattle on a thousand hills.” When we are tempted to think of ourselves as the ultimate possessors of what we have, we need to return to the reality that we are stewards. God has entrusted what we have to us for a time and expects us to use it for His purposes. Will we respond fittingly with that which He has entrusted us?

When we’re caught off guard by a challenging and difficult turn of events, we rightly get a chance to evaluate our perspectives. Solid, biblical perspectives that we once held can erode and shift in times of ease. Challenges to our comfort serve as a strong elixir reorienting us to God’s opinion on things. May the current economic challenge do just this for us all.

Our Pastor-Teacher began his exposition of 1 Corinthians yesterday with an overview of the state of the church when Paul was writing this letter to them.  He used the three phrases in my title to describe what the church does instead of being sanctified.

You see according to 1 Thessalonians 4:3 God’s will is our sanctification.  Our Pastor pointed out that sometimes instead of sanctification, we go for isolation, complete and utter separation from the world without any interaction.  This is of course not what God has called us to.  How will we then accomplish the Great Commission? (Matt 28:18-20)  He also pointed out that in separating from the world to some degree we end up trying to assimilate the world into our context and eventually become contaminated by the world.

As he was preaching this, I was started to categorize, in my own mind, the contemporary shape of these different areas in the church today:

Isolation:  With it’s strict adherence to Pharisaical law keeping, the legalistic movement that grew out of the 1950s certainly has heralded the isolationist mentality.  From this has sprouted some of the most ridiculous un-biblical catastrophes ever heaped upon so called fundamentalism.  You’ve got your out-of-context, “abstain from all appearance of evil” which of course means going to the movies is a sin, but not molesting children behind closed doors, a la Bob Grey (Caution: I don’t know the entire content of this website, but they seem to have their facts straight on Gray) and your King James 1611 Only camp. (Don’t you know it’s the Bible that Paul used?)  Except you aren’t using the 1611 are you, because you wouldn’t even be able to read it well because it’s in old English, so read the translation notes at the beginning of your Bible sometime and find out that the translators knew that other better translations would come! (”Hey, why did they us “f” instead of “s”?!)

From this of course flourishes all sorts of hypocrisy as has been noted above and as has been well documented by Phil Johnson. (Audio)

I grew up in this sort of stuff and know of it well.  God’s design is not this.  As our Pastor pointed out yesterday, 1 Corinthians 5:9-13 states that we are to reject the man inside the church that is immoral, yet reach the ones outside the church with the Gospel.  Isolation does not keep in step with God’s command to reach the world.  In fact it legalism has done much more to cover up the sins within the church (per the article above about Bob Gray.)

We need Biblically balanced sanctification that keeps us pure, but keeps us engaged with the world we are to reach.

I will deal with this plus the  other two issues (Assimilation and Contamination) in future posts.  It’ll get messy before it’s all over…