Bunyan’s characters look like characters from my church (and yours).
These past two weeks I've had some brief encounters with other 'Christians' about THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS of John Bunyan.
Rather than adding a personal COMMENT to one of my Saturday Posts on Doctrines of the Church, I thought I might ask you directly (on a Wednesday).
Choose your Bunyan character:
(OTHER THAN young ‘Christian,’ Hopeful or Faithful) IF you will.
I already shared with you my fear that I might become the man – the Professor of Christ – in the iron cage.
IF you will comment I will be more than happy to share with you which Bunyan character I think I most resemble. – Roger
CLICK BELOW to take another look at Bunyan’s characters:
For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, both His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.
Scripture tells us how false teachers leaven the Church and the faithful must discern the dangers of false preaching.
Church DE-NOMINATIONS seem to be doubling-down lately into divisions over SOCIAL issues.
AND this phenomenon of churches redefining themselves is not limited to any particular denomination.
What does it mean to be a church?
RE-fitting YOUR church vision to accommodate changing cultural mores doesn’t really seem to have anything to do with divinity or sound doctrine rooted in Scripture and proclaiming the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.
As you have seen in my previous Saturday Posts, although gaining downhill momentum toward the pit of destruction, this trend is nothing new.
But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will also be false teachers among you, who will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing swift destruction upon themselves. .. And in their greed they will exploit you with false words..
These are springs without water and mists driven by a storm, for whom the black darkness has been kept. For speaking out arrogant words of vanity, they entice by sensual lusts of the flesh, those who barely escape from the ones who conducted themselves in error..
In the beginnings of the first century Church the Apostle Peter mentions an earlier fall of Israel as an example of the ever-present danger of false teaching.
Can we be a ‘church‘ without doctrine?
Jesus went up into the temple, and began to teach..
“My teaching is not Mine, but from Him who sent Me. “If anyone is willing to do His will, he will know about the teaching, whether it is of God..
If YOU think the preacher of the church YOU ‘attend‘ doesn’t have some ‘NON-NEGOTIABLES’ of Doctrine, it’s time for you to listen closer (and think for yourself).
What DOESN’T he/she say — EVER?
What Truth will the man or womanwith the mike REFUSE to PREACH from the pulpit or have you hear in the good-feeling lyrics of the amplified sounds of worship?
Which Bible verses have to be bent just a little to connect to OUR audience?
DARE WE EVER preach REPENTANCE before grace?
Let’s bring Christ down from heaven just a bit, so he feels closer to OUR audience just for an hour (and only on Sunday).
Have BIBLE verses evaporated from the wall of worship behind the stage of OUR worship service?
Does OUR pastor hesitate to mention Christ Jesus?
Is a pressing social issue important to the growth of our church?
Can OUR church be BOTH christian AND other?
Although I am a lay theologian; that is, I study God and I study Scripture and I study Jesus Christ, I must once again point you toward the teaching of a most respected Christian theologian.
Although I will add my comments here, seek your own answers about the church you belong to locally. (And once your read this and think through the doctrine YOU hear, why not ADD your COMMENTS to this post?)- RH
Divinity, Doctrine and the Christian Life
“The great divorce of doctrine and life will destroy the Christian life.
Doctrine and life are fuel and fire, not oil and water.
D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones
THINK DOCTRINE, EMBRACE TRUTH, ACT ACCORDINGLY
doctrine comes to mind
truth captures the heart
which then moves the will to act
The Bible starts with God the Father always, everywhere and we must do the same — because that is the order of the blessed Trinity: God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit.
D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones
“I have given them Your word; and the world has hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.
“I do not ask You to take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil one.
“They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.
“Sanctify them by the truth; Your word is truth.
Gospel of John 17 – from the High Priestly prayer of Jesus Christ to the Father
..theology must first concede that the finite cannot fully know the infinite. Therefore, theology is sometimes an exercise in negation.
Lloyd-Jones pictures theology as the act of building a fence around the incomprehensible mystery of God.
Jason Meyer
Does the world HATE you because of any witness of Jesus Christ you claim by faith?
WE are in the world, so do we recognize the evil one?
Have you even heard your pastorcaution his/her church about the evil one?
Jesus did.
Do others worshiping the Lord alongside you recognize that Christ has set YOU, me and members of His Body the Church apartfor salvation?
Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us take hold of our confession. – Hebrews 4:14 LSB
EMBRACE this TRUTH:
Sinful man CANNOT intercede with the HOLY GOD (who WE are NOT) without accepting our High Priest, the Lord Jesus Christ as the Perfect Sacrifice for our sins – the sacrificial Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.
Our partial knowledge of God is real knowledge, but it falls far short of comprehensive knowledge.. God alone is
“HOLY, HOLY, HOLY is THE LORD GOD, THE ALMIGHTY, WHO WAS AND WHO IS AND WHO IS TO COME.”
NEXT, God-willing, we will continue with Jason Meyer's overview of the doctor of doctrine Martyn Lloyd-Jones and his prescription for this brief moment of our our Christian lives.
The instant you say, ‘church,’ you dip your toe into waters of reactions which you know not how hot or cold, how shallow or deep, how stagnant or storm-tossed the hearer of your faith.
Do you dare even ask?
Are YOU a CHRISTIAN?
Where did you worship last Sunday?
Do you belong to OUR church?
What are you currently studying from the Bible?
Would you talk of JESUSwith me?
May I SHARE the Good News of my Biblical Christian faith?
Just imagine the wide range of reactions of any other soul to ANY of these questions of the faithful evangelical Christian daring to share the Gospel of their Biblical Christian church.
An even more troubling question:
Does a Christiandare engage OTHER ‘christians‘ in a conversation about Christ(the Namesake of our Christian faith) addressing ALL of these questions and more about our Biblical Christian faith?
Have YOU, in fact, tested these troublesome waters?
IF SO, perhaps you too have received a baptism of hot opposition or a cold withdrawal of the flesh from the waters of faith.
That would be evangelism = a RED FLAG of RELIGION to which a world (inclusively with some calling themselves a ‘church,’) will often react with ears that do not hear, as well as the rhetoric of rebellionagainst the Lord God and anarchy against salvation of the sinful soul.
Perhaps evangelism nets too few caught in the rising waters of a cultural flood of this world reacting to the ‘church,’ by denying ChristJesus.
Maybe a pure Biblical Christian faith offends some tiptoeing into the mire of murky waters of philosophic denial.
The [*] wicked fool says in his heart, “There is no God.”
(Although some these wicked fools have crept into pulpits of places which call themselves, 'church.')
ANY constant questioning of authoritative adherence to the Word of God, the Holy Bible of our Christian faith, should sound an alarm to the faithful:
Beware of the tempter in sheep’s clothing.
Who else would deconstruct the Biblical Christian foundation of the Church, only to reconstruct our faith by compromises of the only Truth, replacing authoritative Scripture with several shifting pebbles of heretical half-truths ‘reasoned’ by the wicked at war with Christ?
So I ask you .. I ask us:
Who are these 21st century Christians?
What are YOUR answers to my earlier questions I dare to ask my fellow evangelical Christian believers and worshipers of Jesus Christ? (ADD your Comment on Scripture to this Saturday Post of TalkofJESUS.com)
Our church in Christ Jesus has no place for the unrepentant wicked fool; for our Gospel is for those who believe.
I began this Saturday Post series as a deeper discussion of DOCTRINE (or teaching) of the Church. The alarm of the watchman on the wall rang in my ears while hearing about a subtle teaching, an undercurrent of doctrine seeping into the evangelical christian church.
Evangelical RECONSTRUCTION was something I naively had never heard of; YET now I will raise the trumpet of warning to sound the alarm:
Something’s wrong with our church!
(Who wouldn't agree?) YES it is.
So why not RECALL it?
(Send it ‘back to the manufacturer? Can’t do that. So how can WE evolve the church into a 21st c. style faith?)
Tear it down to the ground demolishing doctrine by doctrine.
Then WE can RECONSTRUCT that which WE have deconstructed to fix the church how WE want.
But WE had better do it subtly (so as not to offend anybody) and stealthily (without account of a foundational Biblical Christian teaching).
A 21st c. RECALL of the CHURCH is just what WE need for OUR Evangelical Reconstruction of the Church into a socially acceptable gathering which will attract any follower from religions of every culture of our world.
NOT!
To borrow from the Apostle Paul refuting premises of clear untruths:
Doctrine, whether by preaching or teaching or proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ, is foundational to faith and therefore never to be torn down by any mortal sinner. Scripture affirms God’s truth and the trustworthy teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ for those who believe.
.. so that we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming, ..
Yodh Oh, fear Yahweh, you His saints; For there is no want to those who fear Him.
Do YOU FEAR THE LORD GOD, oh you sinner?The MARQEE denominational name of your 'church' matters NOT, my fellow sinner.
Seek the salvation of the Lord, my dear fellow saint, His redemption of your soul to eternal life witnessed in the Gospel of the Christ JESUS.
Perfect Preaching (Teaching)
Is based on & does not manipulateScripture.
THE LORD GOD IS! (God IS God and mankind is not.)
God spoke to and through men whom the Lord God chose and commanded to write HIS words.
AND separate from the truth that some church pastors will never reprove or correct those wayward weak sheep of their own flock,
ALL of the WRITTEN WORD OF SCRIPTURE IS GOD INSPIRED!
Mortal SINNERS DO NOT get to reconstruct what GOD has said.
(But false teachers of every era subtly seek to lead Christ’s lost sheep into the abyss of disbelief.)
Pilate said to Him, “What is truth?”
The Apostle John’s Good News for you is:
.. that he is telling the truth, so that you also may believe.
Evangelical RE-construction of the Church
Source material for the following is transcribed (written as accurately as possible) from the A.D. 2022 podcast 'Just Thinking,' previously recommended and linked on TalkofJESUS.com and used with permission of its author. - RH
In deconstruction everything is a SOCIAL construction, including the church.
By the way, this Saturday Post series, Church – Who are these 21st c. Christians? - is directed toward faithful evangelical Christians who fear God and believe Scripture as a warning and caution for infidelity to Christ we increasingly hear from the pulpits of our RE-engineered 21st c. 'churches.' - RH
I will add brief comment to Harrison's outline below for your consideration and intentional thinking about the teaching of your church. Why not add your own thoughts in the Comments at the bottom of this post.
God-willing, we will continue the course of identifying the faithful of our 21st century 'Church' next Saturday.
Evangelical Deconstructionism
Most of the points quoted may be found in the Just Thinking Podcast near 1:32.
FIVE-POINT PROGRESSION of Evangelical Deconstructionism
EMBRACE and posit [plant or assume]the idea [philosophy] that the CHURCH is a SOCIALLY constructed system, NOT a divinely ordained idea [institution] that originated in the mind of God.
ASSUME that this socially constructed system is designed to be exclusive of certain intersectional identities, traditions and behaviors.
IDENTIFY subjective [reasoned in the mind] points or cracks in that socially constructed system that have failed [as reasoned by the philosopher] AND need to be fixed [or reconstructed].
APPLY a hermeneutic [interpretive explanation] of SUSPICION to that SOCIALIALLY-CONSTRUCTED system so that ANYONE [who even remotely] connected to that system is deemed UNTRUSTWORTHY.. deemed an enemy.
RECONSTRUCT this SOCIAL SYSTEM [church, etc.] into the IMAGE and likeness of the CULTURE with socially acceptable.. [everythingology].
Have you heard the alarm?
“Therefore watch out, so that the thing spoken of in the Prophets may not come upon you:
Acts of the Apostles 13:40 LSB [in context 13:23-41]
“Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves.
