What is Spiritual Maturity?
I’ve often heard people say that spiritual maturity has nothing (or very little) to do with growing intellectually in the faith. That somehow, true spiritual growth is defined by what you do and not how much you learn.
I have no idea what that means. Growth in Christ comes by the renewing of your mind (Romans 12:2). And that entails learning spiritual things.
Once we learn new things, we can put them into practice. Correct theology begets correct living.
The idea that a Christian can grow and live spiritually without loading up on Biblical truth is a strange one. But it’s a popular view often presented as a humble way to approach the Christian life. After all, doesn’t knowledge “puff up”? Isn’t living like Christ more important than mastering sound theology?
Not really. The Bible puts equal emphasis on both practical Christianity like praying, loving, and serving (1 Thessalonians 5:17; Galatians 5:14; 1 Peter 4:10) and loving the truth, which involves holding to it, preaching it, and guarding it (Titus 1:9, 2:1; Jude 3). You can’t have one without the other.
But these days many Christians can’t be bothered with the workings of sound doctrine. I suppose a dark history of burning each other at the stake over theology put a damper on the call for learning systemized truth.”Doctrine divides; love unites!” is as prevalent a cry as it ever has been.
Yet consider what the author of Hebrews had to say:
“…though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil. (5:12-14)
Apparently, he was expecting his audience to have matured enough in their faith to be teachers of spiritual truth. Instead he finds them still as spiritual babes, unable to discern good from evil, let alone teach the faith. They needed “the elementary truths of God’s word all over again” – the equivalent to baby milk, which is all their undeveloped minds could take.
Why is it so important to move onto “solid food”?
I can think of three reasons.
A Strong Foundation
“Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock.” (Matthew 7:24-25)
When you make Jesus’ teaching the bedrock of your faith, you’re invincible. Notice how Jesus says, “everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice” won’t be shaken? It’s about understanding (hearing) and doing (practice). You can’t practice what you don’t understand.
It’s also important to actually live out the things you believe in, to let your knowledge of the truth shape your behavior. Knowledge that isn’t acted upon leads to destruction; it’s like building a house on the sand (v 6). When the storms of life and the attacks on your faith begin to pummel you like a relentless tsunami, you can bet your house will be swept away in the chaos.
If we’re grounded and growing in the truth and power of Scripture, we can rise above any situation and help others do so too. Which leads us to:
Effective Outreach
We are all called to proclaim the gospel and the beauty of Christ (Matthew 28:19-20). But how can we do so if our knowledge of the Lord is thin? How can we win others to Jesus if we ourselves have little comprehension of man’s depravity, the nature of salvation, and God’s sovereignty over the entire process?
How can we mutually build each other up if we can never progress from the elementary truths of Scripture? How can our messages of hope to one another be anything more than fluff if we’ve never feasted on the meatier aspects of our faith?
It’s hard to win people to Christ; it’s even harder to raise a flock of healthy believers. The work is all the more cofounded by people who harbor weak doctrine and an unwillingness to learn the deep truths of God.
We need to continuously steep ourselves in the Word and fortify our doctrinal foundations in order to make more effective presentations of Christ and His truth (2 Timothy 3:16-17).
Defending the Truth
The Bible makes it clear we are to be ready with an answer for people who might ask why we believe what we believe (1 Peter 3:15). We must also be ready to teach the truth and refute those who stand in error (Titus 1:9).
Failure to defend the faith will allow others to steamroll over the truth with their heresies. This can be disastrous for people who have yet to hear and respond to the gospel.
A case in point? Roman Catholicism. If we can’t even present a correct gospel to people trapped inside this insidious and apostate system, if we can’t refute the numerous heresies perpetuated by the Roman church, then how can we expect Catholics to come to a true saving knowledge of Jesus?
We must be able to take a stand and effectively defend the truth when called for.
Now does this mean we should all enroll in Bible school and become masters of theological wizardry? Do we need to commit to unfailing memory every jot and tittle of Calvin’s Institutes or Wayne Grudem’s Systematic Theology?
While that might be very cool, not everyone has the mental capacity to be an RC Sproul or Augustine. But that doesn’t mean we should shy away from the deeper mysteries of the Bible. Rather, we must be compelled to learn continuously about Christ, to embrace His revealed truth, to cherish it, uphold it, and let it transform our minds and daily living.
We fail to do so at our own peril (Hosea 4:6).
State of Emergent-cy
For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.
2 Timothy 4:3-4
The emergent church has finally made it to Philippine shores.
I guess it was just a matter of time.
What is the emergent church? There’s no way to sum it up in a pithy one-liner. If you’re dying to know what all the fuss is about I suggest you go over and read what David Kowalski has to say about all things emergent/ing over at Apologetics Index. His definitions and summations are spot on.
But for those of you who don’t have time to read through several pages of material and want something in a nutshell, let me have a stab at it:
The emergent church is a movement in evangelical Christianity that seeks to do things differently, usually in ways that challenge evangelical church traditions.
I’d say that’s a very basic definition of what it is to be emergent. Mark Driscoll, himself an “emerging” pastor, sums it up this way:
The emerging church is a growing, loosely connected movement of primarily young pastors who are glad to see the end of modernity and are seeking to function as missionaries who bring the gospel of Jesus Christ to emerging and postmodern cultures. The emerging church welcomes the tension of holding in one closed hand the unchanging truth of evangelical Christian theology (Jude 3) and holding in one open hand the many cultural ways of showing and speaking Christian truth as a missionary to America (1 Cor. 9:19-23). Since the movement, if it can be called that, is young and is still defining its theological center, I do not want to portray the movement as ideologically unified because I myself swim in the theologically conservative stream of the emerging church.
So far, so nice. I myself gravitate towards conservative emergent thought, especially the idea that we should be missionaries that truly speak the truth in a culture that mostly despises it, in a way that is clear and not hindered by “old fashioned” sensibilities (i.e. I have long hair, wear an earring, but can and will make a coherent presentation of the gospel of Jesus whenever possible). It’s probably this part of the emergent movement that young people mostly gravitate to – the promise that there are new and exciting ways to express one’s faith and not just be a product of a legalistic and boring system.
But I reject emergent values mainly because of the liberalism and heresy that typifies most of the movement. Driscoll, a theologically conservative pastor himself, explains why he had to distance himself from his peers:
I was part of what is now known as the Emerging Church Movement in its early days and spent a few years traveling the country to speak to emerging leaders in an effort to help build a missional movement in the United States. The wonderful upside of the emerging church is that it elevates mission in American culture to a high priority, which is a need so urgent that its importance can hardly be overstated.
I had to distance myself, however, from one of many streams in the emerging church because of theological differences. Since the late 1990s, this stream has become known as Emergent. The emergent church is part of the Emerging Church Movement but does not embrace the dominant ideology of the movement. Rather the emergent church is the latest version of liberalism. The only differences is that the old liberalism accommodated modernity and the new liberalism accommodates postmodernity.
The liberal stream that Driscoll refers to is the real cause for alarm. And at this point in its development, it is a dangerous mix of post-modernism and heresy that is systematically attacking Biblical truth and undermining the Body of Christ.
I suppose that’s a pretty harsh summary for a movement that seems so bent on recapturing what it means to “live like Jesus” in a needy, dying world. As Driscoll mentions, US emergents have elevated mission work in their country and others across the world are following suit. It’s a good thing, for sure, to authentically reach one’s community for Christ by loving and serving people while proactively and unashamedly sharing the gospel (Galatians 5:13,14; 1 Corinthians 2:1-5).
The problem is, many emergents don’t believe in the Biblical gospel; many don’t even believe in a Biblical hell. And that’s not all; most of the emergent church’s key leaders have embraced relativism and liberalism in exchange for orthodoxy and the reliability of Scripture.
Albert Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, says of the movement:
“Unwilling to affirm that the Bible contains propositional truths that form the framework for Christian belief, this [emerging church] movement argues that we can have Christian symbolism and substance without those thorny questions of truthfulness that have so vexed the modern mind.”
And this is the heart of the emergent/ing brand: truth is unknowable, so let’s all stop making creedal propositions and start a conversation.
Emergent pastors and leaders have a real disdain for the idea of absolute truth. They teach that the Bible is ultimately a big mystery. That we should be “humble” in approaching the Word and not make big, definitive pronouncements.
Consider what Brian McLaren, the emergent movement’s principle spokesperson, has to say about the gospel:
“I don’t think we’ve got the gospel right yet. What does it mean to be ‘saved’?…. I don’t think the liberals have it right. But I don’t think we have it right either. None of us has arrived at orthodoxy.”
Compare that to Jesus’ declaration: “I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it (Matthew 16:18). The Lord sounded pretty sure that his gospel would have its desired effect. For McLaren to assert we’ve somehow missed the point after two thousand years of Christianity seems to undermine Scripture and all that the Lord has accomplished in history so far.
I recently had a conversation with a friend who attends an emergent church in The Fort. I asked him what they’re all about. He gave me the run down: they’re about reaching people in their contexts.
In this case, they’re reaching young people who have “short attention spans and communicate through music”. Which explains why they do church inside a bar with alternative rock bands holding down the stage. You can also sit and drink beer while worship is in motion; he once drank whiskey during a service.
Anyone can attend; the preaching is “inspiring and unthreatening”. The atmosphere is “non-judgmental,” my friend told me. The overarching idea is that his church is hip and cool, the preaching short and peppy, and you can be yourself, whatever you may be.
Which suits people of many persuasions, of course. Another friend of mine, a gay non-believer, informed me she attends this same church. I asked her how this came to be.
She basically finds it a really cool place to hang out (it is held in a bar after all) and besides the fact that she can drink alcohol while the worship service is in motion, she likes what she hears.
“Did you know that Jesus never once condemned homosexuality?” she asked me.
I was astounded. “What else do you like about that church?” I asked.
“It’s just really nice to know that God loves me.”
Indeed. This seems to be the trend. And it’s easy to see why people buy it. A fun, modern “church” where you can sip beer and listen to perky, non-confrontational messages and funky music sounds like a good deal.
Except it’s not anything like a New Testament church.
Yet emergent churches embrace this “anything to everyone” approach because it fits their pragmatic ideals. It’s rooted in the seeker sensitive philosophy that if you’re cool enough, if you rock like the world, look just like the heroes of the young, and preach (or dialog, as is the emergent buzzword) in non-threatening sound bites, then you can win people over.
Forget teaching about sin, the atonement of Christ, the holiness of God, and what it means to obey Jesus as unequivocal Lord; what do you want to do, scare people away?
Says McLaren,
“I don’t believe making disciples must equal making adherents to the Christian religion. It may be advisable in many (not all!) circumstances to help people become followers of Jesus and remain within their Buddhist, Hindu or Jewish contexts … rather than resolving the paradox via pronouncements on the eternal destiny of people more convinced by or loyal to other religions than ours, we simply move on … To help Buddhists, Muslims, Christians, and everyone else experience life to the full in the way of Jesus (while learning it better myself), I would gladly become one of them (whoever they are, to whatever degree I can, to embrace them, to join them, to enter into their world without judgment but with saving love as mine has been entered by the Lord.”
He adds,
“The problem with the critics [conservative Evangelicals] here is that they think they have a superior, timeless gospel that floats above any culture…”
McLaren can say things like this because according to him, truth is ultimately inscrutable. Yet is that accurate? If so, the gospel is truly unknowable and we conservatives really can’t believe in a “superior, timeless gospel”.
But what does the Bible have to say about itself?
“For the word of the LORD holds true, and everything he does is worthy of our trust.”
Psalm 33:4
“The sum of Your word is truth, and every one of Your righteous ordinances is everlasting.”
Psalm 119:160
“This is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.”
1Timothy 2:3-4
“Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
John 8:32
It would seem the Word of God is clear on how truthful it actually is. And it’s not some kind of unreachable truth that’s shrouded in mystery. Jesus promises that we’ll know and truly understand the truth – and it will set us free.
McLaren, of course, is not the only one who espouses such ideas. He and many others have jettisoned orthodox Christianity for a post-modern approach. And in their abandonment of sound theology they have opened the floodgates to gross error; error that can lead to damning results.
How much of the emergent movement has infiltrated the Philippines? I honestly don’t know. I see strains of it here and there; there are a couple of churches that seem to be leaning in the emergent direction.
I heard one local pastor preach and infer that theology and knowledge are not really that important to the Christian life; simple faith is what has the most potent and lasting impact. This may sound wise and appealing on the surface (especially to those who are tired of dead orthodoxy and “divisive” theology) but in reality it’s just another way of saying, “It’s OK to not pay attention to sound doctrine as long as your heart is in the right place.”
Which of course is nonsense.
Faith and knowledge go hand in hand; the greatness of your faith is informed by how much you know about God, his Word, and His character as revealed in Scripture. There’s no big mystery to it: the more you know about Him, the more faith you have. The less you know about God, the less your faith.
But things like knowing God, Biblical truth, and orthodox theology have little place in emergent churches. These things come across as outmoded, heavy handed, and too certain (not enough mystery).
Says Kristen Bell, wife of emergent superstar pastor Rob Bell:
“I grew up thinking that we’ve figured out the Bible, that we knew what it means. Now I have no idea what most of it means. And yet I feel like life is big again — like life used to be black and white, and now it’s in color.”
Tony Jones, another prominent emergent leader adds that we should,
“…stop looking for some objective Truth that is available when we delve into the text of the Bible.”
In abandoning the truth and clarity of the Word of God, many emergents have fallen headlong into serious error. We’ve already seen how far off the theological deep end Brian McLaren is. Doug Pagitt, pastor of Solomon’s Porch in Minneapolis, flatly denies the reality of eternal punishment for sinners in hell. And read what Rob Bell has to say about the virgin birth:
“What if tomorrow someone digs up definitive proof that Jesus had a real, earthly, biological father named Larry, and archeologists find Larry’s tomb and do DNA samples and prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the virgin birth was really just a bit of mythologizing the Gospel writers threw in to appeal to the followers of the Mithra and Dionysian religious cults that were hugely popular at the time of Jesus, whose gods had virgin births?
“But what if, as you study the origin of the word “virgin” you discover that the word “virgin” in the gospel of Matthew actually comes from the book of Isaiah, and then you find out that in the Hebrew language at that time, the word “virgin” could mean several things. And what if you discover that in the first century being “born of a virgin” also referred to a child whose mother became pregnant the first time she had intercourse?”
Riiiight.
I’m watching how the movement evolves here in the Philippines. I pray the extremes of emergent thought never take root. To now deny absolute truth and weave in its place a concoction of half-truths masquerading as Biblical wisdom is even more perilous than just being seeker sensitive. (A marriage of the two, which seems to be the happening thing, is probably our worst nightmare).
John MacArthur helps put things in perspective:
I believe the church has one function, and that is to guard the truth, to proclaim the truth and to live the truth. So you take the Word of God, you teach it, you proclaim it, you protect it, you defend it, and you live it, and that’s a church. The Word of God rightly divided, rightly understood.
That’s not the idea in a seeker church; that’s not the idea certainly in an emerging church. Everything becomes style and contextualization and everything is built around the manipulation of people’s hot buttons as if we were selling a product like any other product in our culture. This fails to understand that the only real power in the spiritual realm is Divine and that God works His power through His truth, and that’s all that matters.
Stand for the truth people. God bless.
Standing Forever
“The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God stands forever.” (Isaiah 40:8)
The Bible.
Either it’s true or it’s not.
Either it’s riddled with lies, tainted by men’s meddling fingers, tinged with heresy, and a false account of history…
OR
…it’s the truth of God, inerrant, infallible, and must be obeyed.
Think about that for a second.
If the Bible is false then it is not the Word of God. And if we don’t have the Word of God we must then give up our faith and walk away. We should close our churches, ditch our 6-day creation beliefs, forget the 10 Commandments, and move on to something else.
Why? Because the Bible is to the Christian what space is to the universe. You can’t have a Christian faith without the Bible. It is the foundation upon which our faith stands.
No Bible = No Christianity = No salvation = No heaven = No hell = No Accountability = No submission to Christ as Lord.
Which explains why there are many people who try to discredit the Good Book. If you can undermine the truthfulness of Scripture then you can pretty much destroy the Christian system. And if you can destroy the system, there’s no need for church, for following Christ’s audacious demands, for bowing the knee to the Creator God.
I can see how a “holey” Bible is appealing to atheists and non-Christians. It frees them from the “oppression” of God, the threat of eternal punishment in fire, the need to give up vice and worldly pleasure. It allows them to pursue their own agenda in this world minus a seared conscience.
It allows people to “move on” from so-called backwater ideas of deity and into 21st century, naturalistic enlightenment.
So the attacks happen and they are constant. They are fierce and unrelenting. And they are designed to dismantle Christianity and do away with God forever.
But…
…what if the Bible is true?
What if God really does exist and has revealed Himself through a first century Jew called Jesus?
What if Christ really did die on the cross and rose from the dead that we might be delivered from sin and punishment to eternal life in heaven?
If the Bible is true, then we need to be paying a whole lot of attention to what it’s saying.
There’s just too much at stake.
Your soul, my soul.
Eternity.
But is there even a way to know if the bible is true? A way to verify its claims or at the very least, look into it from a historical point of view and see if it holds up under scrutiny?
Surely if one can prove it to be a historically sound and bibliographically reliable document, one can – and must – look into its claims as divine revelation?
There are, of course, myriad questions surrounding the Bible. Its origins, reliability, and truth are all subject to regular debate. And for a book that claims to be divine revelation – God’s truth no less – it deserves to be put under the microscope.
What most people don’t realize is that for each provocative question about the Scriptures there are equally provocative answers.
It’s all about examining every angle. From the Bible’s reliability as a historical document to its proclamations, prophecies, and its fiercely moral teachings; from its claims about Jesus’ life and works to His death and resurrection; from its power through the testimony of the early church fathers who died for it to the genuinely changed lives of the countless who believe it – the Bible must be examined, dissected, and pored over to see why these things are so.
There’s nothing to be afraid of. Jesus Himself assured us of two things:
“I am the way and the TRUTH and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6, emphasis added)
“Then you will KNOW the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (John 8:32, emphasis added)
The following links should be a good start.
http://www.allaboutthejourney.org/bible-manuscripts.htm
http://www.citw.org.uk/claims.htm
Gospel Knowledge
I may not be a trained speaker, but I do have knowledge… (2 Corinthians 11:6a)
I am not a gifted speaker.
As much as I wanna be like Charles Spurgeon or John MacArthur, I’m faaaar from that mold.
I can’t instantly think of 5 different ways to say something to drive home a prominent point. I don’t have a deep reservoir of profound words that I can dip into every few seconds as I deliver a speech.
I don’t have one of those Richard Burton, auditorium-shattering voices.
I can’t make a morning reading of the Psalms sound like a Shakespearean soliloquy.
I have a very basic voice, the kind you hate to listen to when captured on tape and played over and over by an annoying sibling with a voice recorder.
I really don’t have anything in the way of oratorical power.
What I do have though is gospel knowledge.
And that, according to Paul, is enough.
You see, when you have gospel knowledge, you are in a position to devastate sinful lives with your words.
Why?
Because the gospel needs no embellishment. Its effectiveness isn’t rooted in a preacher’s oratorical skill. Its power is not dependent on human ingenuity or a man’s linguistic flourish.
The gospel is in itself “the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes” (Romans 1:16).
One need only deliver it and God the Holy Spirit will take care of the rest.
I don’t have a problem with this. Honestly, I love the fact that I don’t have to put on a show to get people to listen and respond to the gospel. Because if it were up to me, I’d do everything in my power to sound good, say all the right things, and be as attractive and personable as possible when preaching the Word.
Because as a human being, I tend to think I can influence a person’s response.
But the truth is I can’t make the gospel any truer than it already is. I can’t make the Bible any more powerful than it already is. The Word of God is active – it’s alive! (Hebrews 4:12 ) And when combined with the Holy Spirit’s regenerative work, it is the power of God for the redemption of all who hear and embrace Christ as Savior and Lord.
Consider Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 2:1-5:
When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power.
Paul didn’t rely on human wisdom and articulacy to preach the Word. In fact, he showed up in Corinth with trepidation. He was wary of the environment (Corinth was known for being a hub of Greek culture, highfaluting philosophies, and intense paganism) and perhaps he didn’t want to get embroiled in a superficial speech war with the city’s intellectuals.
Yet whatever Paul may have felt at the time, he knew only one thing – that his message would be Christ crucified. That would be enough to compel his listeners to salvation.
That’s not to say we can be shabby and ill-prepared when sharing the gospel. We ought to be presentable when preaching and we should choose our words wisely. There’s nothing wrong with being affable, clear, and enlightening when we communicate the gospel to others. In fact, we must make sure our presentation is coherent in order for people to properly understand the message.
But changing people’s lives, getting them to repent of their sin and trust in Jesus for salvation – that’s God’s job.
Our job is to simply preach the Word, even the hard parts.
And you know what this really means right?
It means more than a big slap in the face for people who pride themselves on worldly technique.
It means more than a fine argument against the error of contextualization.
It means, more than anything, that we have no excuse.
We are commanded to preach the gospel (Matthew 28:19-20). And with God making it abundantly clear that the gospel is powerful enough in and of itself to bring men to salvation, we really have nowhere to hide on this.
We can’t invoke the Moses Defense (Exodus 4:10-14). We have an obligation to Christ to deliver His good news to all people of the Earth and there’s nothing we can do to wiggle out of it!
But why fight it? We must not be ashamed of the gospel. For while it may not appeal to many men’s ears, there are thousands in this world who are destined to be saved through the cross. “For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” (1 Corinthians 1:18)
And so brothers and sisters, let’s us not retreat from our calling but let us celebrate the fact that God can use all of us, whether we can communicate well or have difficulty expressing ourselves.
Let us be thankful for the many Christian men and women who are gifted with impeccable speaking skills and can wield language with precision. These people have been given by God to the church to lead us, strengthen us, and help us on our pilgrimage. We should seek to emulate them as we continue on our Christian journey.
And while we may never become as powerful a preacher as Paul, Spurgeon, Edwards, or any of our Christian heavyweight heroes, we can rest assured that in preaching the gospel, our words can and will be used by God to accomplish His plan of redemption (Isaiah 55:11).
As long as we have gospel knowledge, we can turn the world upside down.
Me
Writer, designer, father of two, husband of one. Armchair theologian. Inconsistent blogger and photographer. Still, I try.Tweets
