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 JESUS with 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 Christian dare 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 rebellion against 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 Christ Jesus.
- 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.”
They act corruptly, they commit abominable deeds;
There is no one who does good.
Psalm 14 :: Legacy Standard Bible (LSB) * wicked – one who rejects wisdom in rebellion against 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:
By no means!
Perfect Teaching (for God’s imperfect ‘church’)
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, ..
Letter of the Apostle Paul to the Church in Ephesus 4:14 Legacy Standard Bible
This same Apostle (to the Gentiles) confesses in his first letter to the pastor, Timothy 1:15
.. that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief.
And the Apostle Peter fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying,
“Go away from me Lord, for I am a sinful man!”
the Good News of Luke 5:8 Legacy Standard Bible
Some call Peter and Paul, Saints (and they are); yet all of God’s faithful are saints to the Lord.
Psalm 34:9 (WLC 34:10) יְראוּ אֶת־יְהוָה קְדֹשָׁיו כִּי־ אֵין מַחְסוֹר לִירֵאָֽיו׃
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 manipulate Scripture.
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.
“God is not a man, that He should lie,
Nor a son of man, that He should repent;
Has He said, and will He not do it?
Or has He spoken, and will He not establish it?
Numbers 23:19 LSB
All Scripture is God-breathed and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness,
2 Timothy 3:16 LSB
NOT ‘some,’ NOT ‘select scripture’ ..
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.
Darrell Harrison
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.
Gospel of Matthew 7:15 LSB – a warning of Jesus
“Now why do you call Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?
Gospel of Luke 6:46 LSB – CHALLANGE of the Lord Jesus Christ to followers
What must we do?
Does YOUR local church have a new cultural calling to evangelism?
Please comment below on what you observe of Evangelical Deconstructionism?
Comment on Scripture + Share the Gospel
