Here's how it works in the aftermath of a sad but not-entirely-surprising fall

I'm here to help you.

1. If a man becomes a celebrity-pastor too hastily; and if he publicly and doggedly displays and defends traits that, if unaddressed, will (A) ruin him and (B) harm those he should be serving and (C) set a horrible example for those emulating him, it's wrong to say anything about any of that equally publicly.
2. If men who should know better promote this celebrity pastor and his ministry, thus effectively giving cover to his besetting sins, it's wrong to warn of possible dire consequences, let alone express concern for the ministries of the worthy men who enable him.
3. If the man does indeed crash and burn, it is wrong to say anything about it other than what a tragedy it is and how you hope he feels better soon. Specifically, it is wrong to mention that it was completely predictable, wrong to note that it could have been prevented, wrong to lament that those who had the man's ear evidently did not effectively issue corrective warnings — and really, really wrong even to hint that you yourself had tried to say something in a timely manner, and that it might have helped if those now dabbing their eyes with tissues had joined in when it might have counted for something, and express the hope that they might reassess how they approach such things.

Because if those people admitted their error and really did reform, things like this might not happen so often, ministries might be saved and saints protected, and fundamental needed systemic change might occur... which, come to think of it, would be a really great thing...

But anyway:

You're welcome.

You will embrace cultists and apostates, and you will like it

First: "Brigham Young University professor of Hebrew Donald W. Parry has been appointed as an editor for a new edition of Biblia Hebraica Quinta, the Hebrew Old Testament."

I think he should be required to provide some original Reformed Egyptian manuscripts first, with a lexicon.

Second: Dr. Francis J. Beckwith - Baylor University, heads the list among "over twenty other influencers in Christian apologetics as they equip you about the issues facing contemporary Christian witness," for the Evangelical Philosophical Society's ninth annual apologetics conference.


Now, I don't know where the Bible Society imagines itself to be, doctrinally. But the "Evangelical Philosophical Society"? As I have argued before (for instance here, and here), such muddling not only betrays doctrinal cluelessness about essential matters, it betrays a lack of love for the apostates/cultists whose throbbing consciences are further dulled by insinuations of "Peace, peace," where there is no peace.

Truth in advertising? "Church" changes name, removes cross

A Michigan church formerly known as Christ Community Church has decided to change its name to C3Exchange, and to remove its cross.

The pastor-thingie, "Rev." Ian Lawton, explains that these elements were making the influx of (presumably unrepentant) Jews, Muslims, homosexuals and atheists uncomfortable. Something had to change, and since they wanted to accommodate the organization to the current crowd.

(Does he still call himself "Reverend," or is that a reporter's slip? Isn't that an offensive term? It certainly is doubly inappropriate.)

Another Christian organization leapt to take over ownership of the cross.

My first response was to be appalled, and wonder how much self-parody one group of people is capable of. Has Lawton even read Mark's gospel, particularly the eighth chapter? Galatians? Gospel of John? Hello?

But then I found International Aid CEO David Wisen's response persuasive. In effect, he said Great, if they've stopped proclaiming the real, living, divisive Jesus as Lord and Christ, they should change their name and remove the cross. Exactly.

Which then led me to wish that many Presbyterian, Methodist, Baptist, and other churches would either plunge themselves into thoroughgoing institutional repentance - or follow suit.

Truth in advertising is a good thing... though apostasy, and sealing congregants' doom by withholding the very message they need to hear, isn't.

Jimmy Carter, my Obama

I was converted in February of 1973. I was pretty much apolitical, except that I leaned liberal, as most of my non-Christians peers did. (It has become fashionable again.)

So when the terribly lame Gerald Ford was opposed by this nice, idealistic man who boldly declared himself to be "born-again," as I recently had been, and asked "Why not the best?", I was persuaded.

Jimmy Carter.

Worst. Voting decision. Ever.



Now, the difference between my vote and that of professed Christians who trashed their distinctively Christian values to vote for their ideological enemy, Barack Obama, is that contrary information and thought-out Christian resources were not readily available. Those were the days of the monopoly of CBSNBCABC and the various Timeses. This hasn't been the case for years, and convincing information on Obama was readily available to every American.

Another difference is that it wasn't long before I began to realize my error, while Obamolaters continue in deep, defensive denial. (Another lesson: when you do something foolish and/or sinful, your choices are to repent and redeem, or dig in deeper and make it worse.)

Obama voters can't hide behind the unavailability of information.

So rose to power perhaps the most inept president ever, though that is a fairly rich field. Whatever his failings in office, his treacheries afterwards have sealed his legacy forever — barring a decisive and fruitful repentance soon.

Jimmy Carter is a man whose follies are visible and repeated globally. Worse, this is a man who has learned nothing, who has never been humbled, by his many failings, follies, and deserved thrashings. He is a living bad example, a warning sign in ancient flesh.

There is a book title that tells almost the whole story: The Real Jimmy Carter: How Our Worst Ex-President Undermines American Foreign Policy, Coddles Dictators and Created the Party of Clinton and Kerry. True, and amen.

But now Al Mohler adds a bit, and it's worth reading, if too polite.

So: Carter has betrayed his country, his denomination, and the Lord he professes to follow.

Who does that leave?

The question is not whether the Episcopal Church has jumped the shark

Rather, the question is whether it can even still see the dim image of a dorsal fin in the rear-view mirror.

For instance.

For another instance.

For yet another instance.

Biblical Christianity Statement on Mary

I read with mixed emotions — almost all bad — Chuck Colson's reflections on the passing of apostate Lutheran Richard John Neuhaus, co-perpetrator with him of ECT. Among other troubling and baffling things, Colson bubbles that the dithering of ECT has continued apace. Particularly, "We've been dealing with Mary for the last year and a half."

My. For a year and a half.

Well, I'm always willing to help.

So let me just step up and slice the Gordian knot for them. Here's my statement on Mary:

Mary, the mother of Jesus, is a pivotal yet relatively minor figure in the New Testament, of no more ongoing direct personal impact on the lives of Christians than any other exemplary (yet flawed) redeemed sinner depicted in the Bible.

There. Done.

Glad to be of help.

PS — you might find amusement in this old post on B2W, and my comments on it. Doesn't look like I've shifted much.

Afterthoughts on yesterday's post: on moral reasoning, and word-studies

Today, a two-item smorgasbord for your edification.

In Bad love, bad end - and the Cross, we looked at Solomon's apostasy, through the grim narrative of 1 Kings 11. Recall the first two verses, which will spark two further observations:

Now King Solomon loved many foreign women, along with the daughter of Pharaoh: Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian, and Hittite women, 2 from the nations concerning which the LORD had said to the people of Israel, "You shall not enter into marriage with them, neither shall they with you, for surely they will turn away your heart after their gods." Solomon clung to these in love.

First, love is not self-justifying. We're told twice that Solomon had love for these women. The same Hebrew word is used in both verses. Isn't love a good thing? In this case, clearly not.

Why not? Because Yahweh had forbidden these unions. Things are not moral nor immoral in themselves, as if by some inherent quality — like one action has lots of "midi-chloreans," the other doesn't. No, acts and choices are moral or immoral as judged by God. After all, there are no such things as brute nor neutral facts. There are only created facts, facts created, defined, and categorized by God the Creator.

So I can imagine Solomon "reasoning" exactly as I've heard sinning, apostatizing "Christians" "reason." Solomon could have said,

"Is not love a good thing? Has not Yahweh Himself commanded that we love our neighbor? Are these not lost women who need the light and word of Yahweh? Is it not to the greater glory of Yahweh that we expand our reach, that we reach out in love to these benighted souls? Think of the new opportunities I will have to bear witness! And who better than I, the servant of Yahweh, who has seen visions of Yahweh and heard His voice? Surely it pleases God for me to hold my arms out wide, to love broadly in His name! Hallelujah! Isn't Yahweh wonderful?"

Plausible, isn't it? And isn't this precisely the sort of "reasoning" we hear in rationalizing various sins — heresies, homosexuality, women pastors, rebellion against authority, refusal to involve oneself in a local assembly, and perversions of the Gospel?

Just one problem: all is dashed to shards by the command of Yahweh.

This love was not beautiful and glorious. It was ugly and destructive. Under no circumstances could it have been otherwise for Solomon. It stood condemned a-borning.

I think you can see many modern applications.

And so, I pass to you this principle, not for the last time:

Never try to use a concept
to cancel a commandment.

Second, leave Greek to people who know Greek. How many times have you heard people — even preachers! — say, "Now, agapē means God's sacrificial, self-giving, unselfish love of commitment to the good of others." Whenever I hear that statement... well, I wince. I cringe.

Now, it may be true that the love to which God calls us is just that: selfless commitment to others' good. That's fine. But don't say that that is what agapē means, as if this were a special word, as if all those ideas were inherently wrapped up in that term. Because they aren't!

For instance, in the Greek translation of this passage, verse two says εἰς αὐτοὺς ἐκολλήθη Σαλωμων τοῦ ἀγαπῆσαι. That is, "Solomon was joined to them to love them." The translator(s) used the verb agapaō. Can you plug in the notion, "joined to them in God's kind of sacrificial, selfless, self-giving commitment to their good"?

No. His love for them was sinful, and therefore selfish.

So the meaning we find in agapē is not inherent in the word itself. It comes from the ways the Lord and the apostles use, demonstrate, and describe it.

Best not to comment on Greek, unless you know Greek. And knowing Greek involves much more than using concordances to do "word-studies."

Bad love, bad end - and the Cross

So you're reading along in the story of King Solomon in 1 Kings, and it's pretty glorious reading. Good King David has a wonderful son, a godly man actually visited by Yahweh Himself. He asks for wisdom, and is given it in such a way that he stands head and shoulders above all the wise men of the East in his day. His works and his writings and his reign are glorious, blessed, and happy. What an idyllic scene.

And then you hit this:

Now King Solomon loved many foreign women, along with the daughter of Pharaoh: Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian, and Hittite women, 2 from the nations concerning which the LORD had said to the people of Israel, "You shall not enter into marriage with them, neither shall they with you, for surely they will turn away your heart after their gods." Solomon clung to these in love (1 Kings 11:1-2)

I say "you hit this," but really, it hits you. What depressing reading.

But what a solemn and needed warning. Was any man ever so blessed as Solomon? God had visited and spoken to him, not once but at least twice (1 Kings 11:9). Yahweh had blessed Solomon in every way imaginable: spiritually, psychologically, materially, socially, martially, politically (1 Kings 10:23-29). Solomon was in the best shape a mortal could be in. He was poised to be the greatest mortal ruler in all history.

And yet, what was the outcome? What was the result of Yahweh graciously meeting every one of Solomon's needs? Did this abundance of blessing produce godliness, holiness, contentment?

No.

Solomon's heart was weaned away from God by love — by love for the wrong women.

I wrote this in my Bibleworks notes at this point:

Listen up, my soul. You dream how great everything would be if only, if only, if only? Look at Solomon. Fear.

Nor was this simply a matter of folly. It was a violation of a specific command from God. What Solomon did was not merely stupid; it was immoral. It was wrong. It was wicked.

It was a sin against God.

Solomon could not have known all the misery that would come from his actions. But he knew it was rebellion against God. And, knowing that, he knew all he needed to know.

And so, for Solomon, healing could not come merely from regrets, nor from an inner, nagging, horizontal sense of guilt. He'd not deal with his acts merely by thinking of how he'd shamed his father (though he had), nor how he'd failed his nation (though he had), nor of how he'd made a fool of himself (though he had).

Solomon would need to see what he did as God saw what he did. He would need to see it first and foremost as a sin against God, as wrong because God said it was wrong. It was a crime against Heaven, it was rebellion against his King.

Solomon would need to come where his father did. David wronged his wives, he wronged his children, he wronged his nation, he wronged Bathsheba, he wronged Uriah.

Yet — though not denying any of that — what did David write, when brought to true repentance?

Against you, you only, have I sinned
and done what is evil in your sight,
so that you may be justified in your words
and blameless in your judgment (Psalm 51:4)

What made David's sin sin, and not just mean or bad, was God. God said it was sin. That, and not human consensus nor enlightened self-interest, is what made it sin. As D. A. Carson has often said, in every sin, God is the most offended party.

Solomon would need to confront his sin in that dimension. Then he would need to go back and tear down all the works of his sin. He would need to tear down the idols, the altars, the dark and noisome fruits his rebellion had borne. He would need to "Bear fruit in keeping with repentance" (Matthew 3:8).

Hence the Cross of Christ, where sin was not bruised, wounded, beaten, nor injured. Christ did not feel faint for our sins. He did not get a headache for our sins. He did not catch a bug for our sins.

Christ died for our sins, and made an end of our sins, and destroyed the works of the Devil. In Him, we die to sin, and must reckon ourselves dead to sin.

In Christ, then, we find not only forgiveness for our sins, though (thank God!) we do find that. We find severance from our sins. We find liberation from our sins. In Him, we die to sin, and live to God. No one who lives on in his sin — whether its guilt or its power — can say he has encountered the Cross.

But who who encounters the Cross finds freedom both from sin's guilt and its power.

I close with the words of D. A. Carson

There are plenty of lessons. Be careful what, and whom, you love. Good beginnings do not guarantee good endings. Heed the warnings of God while there is time; if you don’t, you will eventually become so hardened that even his most dire threats will leave you unmoved. At the canonical level, even the most blessed, protected, and endowed dynasty, chosen from within the Lord’s chosen people, is announcing its end: it will fall apart. Oh, how we need a Savior, a king from heaven! (For the Love of God : A Daily Companion for Discovering the Riches of God's Word. Volume 1 [Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books, 1998], October 8)

Amen.

How nice: SBC-related megachurch wears apostasy up-front

I think it's very thoughtful when a church displays its faithless apostasy right out there, in center-stage. That way, you don't actually have to go all the way through the membership classes to find out.

In fact, you don't even have to go.

Read: Baptist Megachurch Prepares for Female Senior Pastor.

It's okay, too; their "committee and the deacon council really felt the leadership of the Holy Spirit as [they] navigated this decision-making process." That evidently trumps the (Holy Spirit's) previously-written statement on the issue.

The article does not explain when "the Holy Spirit" changed His mind (I speak as a "cooperative Baptist").

"She is a good role model for any minister, male or female," one is quoted as saying.

Well, except for that little open-rebellion-against-the-Lordship-of-God thingie.

Mary and the Christian

Time magazine did a cover story, Hail, Mary, suggesting that Protestants are heading away from the Bible and towards Rome on this issue.

From differing angles, Hugh Hewitt, Mark D. Roberts, and Al Mohler are among those who have already weighed in.

I thought I'd make my contribution... and here it is!

For your edification, here is an exhaustive, comprehensive study of every Bible passage legitimately even providing the echo of the hiccup of a shadow of evidence of Mary's ongoing personal role in the spiritual life of the Christian:

** crickets **

There. I hope that helps.

Tomorrow, expect an exhaustive, comprehensive study of every Bible passage legitimately even providing the echo of the hiccup of a shadow of evidence that Christians should remain in churches that deny, pervert, or obscure the Gospel and fundamental doctrines because those churches are old, large, or claim to be the only game in town.

(Or not.)

"Pastor" Joel Osteen?

Michael Spencer, "The Internet Monk," has posted an alarm concerning Joel Osteen, pastor of a church of something like 30,000 people, titled Outing Joel Osteen: A Challenge to the Evangelical Blogosphere. In it, he spells out his concerns about Osteen, gives a number of substantiating links, and asks that Christian bloggers join him in raising the alarm.

I'll approach it by asking, What is a pastor? And What is a pastor to do?

The Greek word translated "pastor" means shepherd. The well-known Psalm 23, in painting Yahweh as our Shepherd, shows the shepherd at work. He makes sure his sheep are led, fed, and protected. This is what the Christian pastor is to do as well: he is to lead, feed, and protect his sheep.

First he must be the sort of person who can lead. This is why Paul is at pains to set out the requirements for the character and training of a pastor in 1 Timothy 3:1-7 and Titus 1:7-9. His character must literally be exemplary. However, in most of these traits, he is nothing other than what a Christian man should be -- with one exception: he must be able to teach (1 Timothy 3:2; Titus 1:9). He must be soaked in the Word of God (2 Timothy 3:15-17). This is because he is called to teach, teach, teach the Word of God with power and patience and persistence, regardless of the inclement weather of his culture (2 Timothy 4:1-4).

In fact, in a striking passage, Paul shows us that God values his ability to labor hard in teaching the Word above everything else (1 Timothy 5:17). He must hold out this Word -- the whole Word, with its thundering judgments, non-negotiable commands, and wondrous promises alike -- if he is to be free of the blood of his hearers (Acts 20:26, 27; cf. Ezekiel 3:17-21).

And what does any of that have to do with Joel Osteen? As far as I can tell, not much.

If I am reading the sources right, his qualification and training for being a pastor was that his dad was one, and he worked with the media ministry. That, seemingly, is it. No Hebrew, no Greek, no nothing.

Now, look: I in no way believe seminary is a requirement for being a pastor. But training is. And if one is trained, the fruit will show in one's preaching and writing and conversation.

Osteen has written; in fact, he wrote a best-seller. Listen to what he says about it in this Faithful Reader interview:

FR: Do you need to have a personal relationship with Christ or even be a Christian to benefit from what you write?

JO: I think that these principles will work in anybody's life. I think Bible principles are principles for life. I was reading today about one of the wealthiest men in the world. Every week he gives away homes and cars and surgery for the poor in his country of Saudi Arabia, and he continues his business and continues to be one of the wealthiest men in the world. I thought about it and that's just right out of the principles of the Bible. When you give, God is going to give back to you. I think that having a positive attitude and expecting good things is just what the Bible says. The answers I think will work for anybody.

FR: You put the prayer to accept Christ, or the "salvation prayer," on the very last page of your book. What went into this decision to put it at the very end?

JO: I feel my calling in life is to encourage people to help them live their lives better, to just be who God made them to be. Most of my ministry is not necessarily Evangelistic. Mine is to help people to live, but I do believe the Great Commission is to go into all the world and to teach and make disciples. I believe I'm helping to make disciples, to train people how to live.I could have put the salvation prayer on the first page: that would have been great too. It's just that in my weekly broadcast I always give the message, and then at the end I take the 30 seconds and I say that prayer. I guess it's just a habit thing.

Thirty seconds at the end... "a habit thing." An endnote.

Contrast this with the apostle Paul, who said that, if Christ had not risen from the dead, his life made no sense whatever, and he (with all Christians) was the most pitiable of all (1 Corinthians 15:19). Paul, who said that for him to live was Christ (Philippians 1:21). Paul, who abominated the very thought that he could boast in anything but the cross of Christ, by which the world had been crucified to him, and he to the world (Galatians 6:14).

Yet Osteen says his book is great help from God, whether a person is saved or not. Salvation is optional. Christ is optional.

And apparently it is, as this page shows a self-admitted "secular person" and a Buddhist both saying how great they think Osteen is. To them as they are. Outside of Christ, under the wrath of God -- but feeling happy and optimistic, because "Pastor" Osteen tells them to be.

It is a shame that a person who offers, apparently, no Evangel, can be a rising leader in so-called Evangelicalism.

Check out the links, see for yourself, form your own judgments on the basis of facts and of Scripture. For my part, I think again and again of Paul's sobering counsel to Timothy:

I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: 2 preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. 3 For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, 4 and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. (2 Timothy 4:1-4)

The United Methodist Church reluctantly lops one leaf off the weed

It's all over the news: Methodist Church Defrocks Lesbian Minister. One might blithely have thought it would have been a short and simple trial, since the Methodist Book of Discipline rules that practicing homosexuals cannot be pastors, and since the woman "announced to her bishop and congregation that she was living in a committed relationship with her partner, Chris Paige." That's PC code for meaning she regularly practices perverted sex with another woman. So, she proudly admitted the fact to "her" congregation. No need for a Perry Mason moment there.

But no, this is the UMC, so it had to be complicated, and the vote was not unanimous in spite of her open admission. A vote of twelve to one found her guilty; that is, one of the authorities found the woman who had admitted to being guilty not to be guilty. And even so, only seven of the twelve voted to defrock her. I guess five or six must have found her guilty... but not guilty.

Don't try too hard to understand that one. Maybe it's a Methodist thing.

One should not be too surprised. If a denomination has decided that the Word of God itself is not binding, how can it be expected to hold to any lesser law?

At any rate, while doubtless many within the UMC rejoice at the broken clock being right this time, not much has changed. In an online discussion elsewhere, a poster remarked "Lesbian minister — isn't that a contradiction in terms?"

To this, I replied: "No more so than 'woman pastor.'" A rather surprising conversational firestorm ensued.

But is the Bible any less clear on one issue than it is on the other? True, homosexual acts are univocally condemned as sinful in Scripture. But is "I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet" (1 Timothy 2:11) less clear?

How can a church, with any integrity, condemn one open violation of Scripture as immoral, while condoning another open violation of equally clear Scripture?

"But," folks sputter, "that passage is ambiguous! And besides, Paul's prohibition is culturally relative. He was talking about a situation going on back then, in Ephesus. Different place, different time. It doesn't hold today."

Which is precisely the argument of homosexual apologists, who to try to de-sin their particular pet act of rebellion against God.

So frankly, I just shrug. As with the Episcopalian Church, so with the United Methodist Church. When they "ordained" women, they rejected the authority of the Word of God. People who are enjoying (or exploiting) the slide hate to hear the phrase "slippery slope," but that is exactly what we have here.

For those who won't draw the culturally unpopular lines where the Bible draws them, the first erasure simply sets precedent for the next one.

"One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much, and one who is dishonest in a very little is also dishonest in much."
(Luke 16:10)

True then, true now.