Truth by Consensus?
Found on a professing Christian’s blog:
“Scripture is written word. It doesn’t become truth until it is read and interpreted. That interpretation is a personal opinion. To think that there is some sort of “universal” interpretation that does not rely on individual interpretation is naive. We only get close to that when the interpretations of many individuals all agree; then we can be fairly certain that we’ve hit upon a real truth. So, when I ask for your position, I’m asking for your interpretation of the Bible in order to see if it matches up with my interpretation. If we can agree on our interpretations, we’re closer to discovering the truth.”
When I first read that, I thought that perhaps by ‘truth’ the author was referring to our application of the truth already in scripture rather than ‘truth’ itself, as the words express. After explaining to the author that truth is already contained in scripture and interpretation is mostly about discovering the inherent truth, I received a distinct affirmation of the ridiculous assertion that God’s truth is indeed about our consensus of what we think it means, and that scripture is not truth until we decide what that truth is, and the larger the consensus the better.
This is not to say that every passage of scripture is perfectly clear to our human minds. We do need to study a bit – the context, other passages that speak about a topic/subject, and even consult outside research tools that aid in obtaining a more complete understanding of what we read. Indeed, as the author of the above quotation rightly asserts, we do need to be involved in reading and interpreting scripture. Even when we are so involved, we need the Holy Spirit (our embedded instructor) to illuminate the inherent truth of scripture to our minds and hearts.
The matter at hand, is not whether scripture interpretation is needed, but whether or not the written word, the words in the Book, contain truth.
I give you the words of Jesus shortly before his crucifixion:
“For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. . . . I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. . . . Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.” – John 17:8, 14, 17
Who among us believers would deny that Jesus spoke the very word of God to His followers? (I hope that’s a rhetorical question.) Assuming a resounding YES, the only question left is whether or not God’s word (truth) made it into written form. Paul told young Timothy:
“All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.” – 2 Timothy 3:16-17
Did God ensure, by divine inspiration, that what was written would actually contain truth? Paul certainly thought so. It takes a very low opinion of God to believe that He was unable to make that happen!
Perhaps my young friend will discuss the matter further here, but I doubt it. I am confident he will be reading this (he knows where I live in Blogland), but since I’ve been asked to just ‘go away’ for being a trouble maker, I somehow doubt it. Maybe what he said at his place about wanting to discover truth was well, just ‘words’.
Two Questions
If I am looking for a doctrinally sound church to attend, I would ask:
“What is the Gospel that is preached?”
Considering all that is passed off as gospel by spiritual ‘con-men’, that is not the Gospel of Christ as declared in Scripture, this question is critical.
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The second question is for the person I have recently met who professes Christ:
“What is the Gospel that you believed?”
Considering the multiple thousands of people who attend counterfeit ‘churches’ where the pure Gospel of Christ is not preached, and where thousands ‘accept’ Christ for all the wrong reasons, this is also an important question.
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“Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, 1Co 15:2 and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you–unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures.” – 1 Corinthians 15:1-4
Trojan Horses
Even if you haven’t read much classic literature, you probably know the story of the destruction of the city of Troy. they have made several movies, one in the not too distant past. Christianity has had it’s own Trojan Horses throughout history, and like the original, great destruction has resulted, inside the walls of Christianity.
The early Romans were polytheists. They had a god for hunting, they had a god for buying, they had a god for selling, they had a god to protect them on a journey. They had all these gods. Well once Christianity was declared the religion of the Roman Empire, it was necessary to dispense with all of this in some way but rather than take a strong stand against idolatry and such superstition, the church simply assigned those responsibilities that once belonged to Roman deities to dead saints. For example, instead of a god to protect you on journeys, St. Christopher took over that responsibility. And you had the merging of Roman pagan superstitious idolatry with Christianity. The Trojan horse of Roman religion was allowed to remain inside the walls, as it were, of Christianity, it infiltrated and destroyed the Christian faith.
In the eighteenth century rationalism came to Europe. During the time of rationalism, which is also known as the enlightenment, coming out of the Dark Ages man believed that he could solve all problems with his own mind. He began to worship his mind. He felt that he had the mental capacity to understand everything and solve all problems. God, it was believed, didn’t interfere in the affairs of men when men were so supremely intelligent they could handle their own affairs. At best, God created the world and just let it go. And now it was up to man. And so they decided that since the mind of man was ultimate, anything that the mind of man could not conceive or understand wasn’t true. And so they went to the Bible and anything that didn’t seem rational, reasonable, logical, intellectual was eliminated and thus all the miracles in the Bible were denied. And then they began to deny the great supernatural spiritual truths about God and Christ and the Holy Spirit and theological liberalism was the product. What happened, the church opened the doors and pulled in the Trojan horse of rationalism, intellectualism and the enlightenment and they came out, opened the gates and the place was flooded until the church lost its faith totally and European Protestantism became liberal and dead.
Today the church is still opening the gates and pulling in more Trojan horses filled with deceitful and devastating enemies. And the world is seeping into the church in myriads of ways. We could mention the erosion of moral values, the acceptance of the break up of the family and divorce as normal, the selfish pursuit of money and status even now has a gospel identified with it, the prosperity gospel. We could mention the Trojan horse of pragmatism or psychology. We could mention the Trojan horse of mysticism, intuitive pursuits of truth. The church has pulled in a myriad of Trojan horses and they are letting the armies of enemies in to run rampant in the church.
There is a tolerance today for every kind of aberration in the church and it is therefore full of Trojan horses, letting the invading armies in to confuse and destroy. The only way to defeat a Trojan Horse is to recognize it early and not let it inside the walls. That’s called discernment. Discernment is separating Divine truth from lies and half truths. It’s not open lies that destroy from within, it’s half truths – the lies that roll through the gates of the city inside the Trojan Horse.
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NOTE: Above adapted from the sermon series A Call to Discernment by John MacArthur.
Recognizing Counterfeits
“I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things, to draw away the disciples after them.” – Acts 20:29-30
Here we find Paul warning some Ephesian brethren what was going to happen when he left them. False teachers (fierce wolves) would attack from outside the church and false teachers would arise from within. Paul didn’t tell them it “might” happen, he said it “will” happen. Both types of false teachers have the same goal, to draw away disciples after themselves.
Their chief tactic is scripture twisting; “speaking perverse things; concerning God, and Christ, and the Gospel; distorted things, wresting the Scriptures to their own destruction, and that of others; things that are disagreeable to the word of God, and pernicious to the souls of men.” (John Gill 1697-1771)
Countless books have been written about false religions, dangerous cults, and spiritual ’snake-oil’ salesmen, sometimes by the counterfeiters themselves (about other counterfeits and Christs true church).
How do you tell the genuine article from the counterfeit? You can try and read the countless books, but how do you know which ones to read, which author to trust?
I have a suggestion – why not start with the infallible book by the infallible author – the Bible. After all, the chief tactic used by false teachers everywhere is to distort the written word of God. When you know the real deal, and a ‘poser’ enters the room, spiritual ‘flags’ pop up, warning bells sound.
The more scripture you know, the easier it gets to spot ‘em. You listen to what they say (they always have a lot to say) and something doesn’t ring true. Examine their words under the light of scripture and if they’re ‘playing Twister’, you’ll know. The deeper the written word is ‘hidden in your heart’, the sooner you will spot them. The sooner they are spotted and dealt with, the less damage they inflict. The less damage then inflict, the easier it becomes to restore believers who have been deceived.
Knowledge of the written word of God is key to the gift of discernment.
Truth, Lies and Horseback Riding
You are probably thinking that’s a rather silly title for a blog post. Maybe, maybe not. If it stimulated your curiosity to the point you are actually reading this, it accomplished the desired goal of the author. Therefore, it makes at least a little bit of sense. Agreed? No on to the point. . .
Months ago, maybe even years ago in some cases, while studying various aspects of Christianity in light of scripture (a favorite pastime of mine), I began to see beliefs in Christendom that had little or no scriptural support, and that some of those questionable beliefs had achieved the status of ‘doctrine’, and to disagree with them was labeled minimally as growth hindering misunderstanding of scripture, and blasphemy deserving of Hell at the other end of the ‘error spectrum’. I had then, and then still have now, a soul deep conviction that God wrote the Book and therefore what was taught as truth, but didn’t agree with the context of scripture, was wrong or false in some measure and in some cases, was an outright lie.
The unavoidable question brought to this inquiring mind was, “How did these falsehoods and lies end up so widely believed by professing Christians? The answer arrived at after a considerable amount of studying scripture, researching a range of historical resources, and comparing them both to widely held beliefs of professing believers was. and IS, precisely this:
The ‘accepted’ lie always rides in on the back of truth. Without an element of scriptural truth upon which to hitch a ride, the lie never survives.
A prime example from the early church would be the Pelagian heresy that denied any adverse effect of Adam’s sin on the rest of mankind that was birthed after the Fall. That lie didn’t get very far and was condemned as heresy. the ‘Semi-Pelagianism that followed acknowledged that Adam’s sin affected of us, but man is still able in and of himself to cooperate with God in the salvation of his soul . That was also condemned as heresy (at the Council of Orange), but is in fact alive and well in both major camps of Christianity. No segment of Christianity has ever admitted to being Semi-Pelagian, although a synergistic Gospel is by nature, exactly that.
There you have one man’s explanation of the connection between truth, lies, and horseback riding. The initial lie, without an element of truth, failed. The second lie, while admitting ’some’ truth, made a modified version of the first lie perfectly acceptable, and even pleasing to human sensibilities.
There have been other examples of lies riding in on the back of truth, some with a longer history of ‘acceptance’ than others. The two most damaging to both the cause of Christ and the souls of men are 1) that Christ established a single religious organization as the only true church with an ‘infallible’ human as head of that church and 2) that God ‘accepts’ us unconditionally, WITH our sin.
Both have a segment of truth. Christ did declare he would establish His church on earth. God does LOVE unconditionally – it’s His nature and one of His divine attributes.
The church that Christ established is made up of those persons for whom he died, from every tongue and tribe and nation – those whom He purchased with his own blood. We weren’t put on layaway!
If God could ‘accept’ us into His Kingdom WITH our sin, His Son died in vain. The first point of the Gospel is that Christ DIED for our sin!
"A Spoonful of sugar. . .
. . .helps the medicine go down”
Sugar with medicine is intended to prevent the recipient of the medicine from spitting out that which he/she needs.
Too much sugar might counteract some of the healing benefits contained in the medicine.
All sugar and no medicine is nothing more than a placebo without the ability to assist in healing the body.
Think about that axiom again in the context of speaking truth with love . Compare ’sugar’ with love and ‘medicine’ with the truth of scripture.
I know, pretty sophomoric comparison, but maybe it makes a point. I can’t get it out of my head. Maybe it’s the Reader’s Digest version of the Al Mohler article I read recently.
Scripture on Passing Judgment
“Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment” (John 7:24)
He who justifies the wicked, and he who condemns the just, both of them alike are an abomination to the LORD” (Proverbs 17:15).
“And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them” (Ephesians 5:11).
No Truth Without Love, No Love Without Truth
This is a short excerpt from an Al Mohler commentary found here.
“Courage is far too rare in many Christian circles. This explains the surrender of so many denominations, seminaries, and churches to the homosexual agenda. But no surrender on this issue would have been possible, if the authority of Scripture had not already been undermined.
Liberal churches have redefined compassion to mean that the church changes its message to meet modern demands. They argue that to tell a homosexual he is a sinner is uncompassionate and intolerant. This is like arguing that a physician is intolerant because he tells a patient she has cancer. But, in the culture of political correctness, this argument holds a powerful attraction.
Biblical Christians know that compassion requires telling the truth, and refusing to call sin something sinless. To hide or deny the sinfulness of sin is to lie, and there is no compassion in such a deadly deception. True compassion demands speaking the truth in love–and there is the problem. Far too often, our courage is more evident than our compassion.”
Again, the the complete article is here.
Christians and pastors of Christian churches have been accused of spending too much time talking about homosexuality, and not giving ‘equal time’ to other issues they (Christians and Christian pastors) consider sinful. There is probably a measure of truth in that, but what that measure is – who knows? One could also argue that to the degree that homosexual agenda is thrust upon us (crammed down the throats of all Americans) such an imbalance is completely and logically warranted.
As believers we would do well to adopt, as a principle for discussion, the mantra “No Truth Without Love, No Love Without Truth”.
Answering tough questions. . .
“I think it’s a serious mistake to evaluate answers to difficult questions by imagining whether a non-believer is likely to respond positively or not. Jesus never did that. He simply proclaimed the truth. That’s the same approach we need to take. If unbelievers reject the answer anyway (and some always will, regardless of the cleverness of our strategies), then that’s not necessarily an indication of failure on the ambassador’s part.” – Phil Johnson
