To tell someone that they need to focus on attaining their “best life now” necessarily contradicts the heavenward vision we are commanded to have now. Christ said,
John 12:25 Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. 26 If anyone serves me, he must follow me; and where I am, there will my servant be also. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him.
James 4:13 Come now, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit"—14 yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. 15 Instead you ought to say, "If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that."
The fault of the “word faith” movement is not that it has persons seeking to better themselves in a material way, then thanking God for providing all that they have been given. No, the fault of the movement is that it is another gospel—not that there is another good news to be preached, but that the gospel of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was delivered for our trespasses and raised for our justification; by His stripes we are healed, is forsaken in that movement for what ultimately is bad news. Our faith is not a creative power at all; the image of God in us is not that we are capable of such creative works, but that image makes us volitional creatures whose choices are governed by our affections, and whose affections are rooted in our nature. Furthermore, the Christian life is not about pursuing our happiness in the things of this world: money, health, and fame, but quite the opposite, the Christian life is about becoming so frustrated with those lesser pleasures and our competing desires for them that we are driven to the “foolishness of the cross” and we take it up and follow Christ Jesus, fighting to find our joy in Him.
Those who teach such a doctrine as the word faith teachers are like the Jewish leadership in Christ’s day, they look for signs and miracles. Christ was a stumbling block for them then and such He is for those false teachers today—curse their wickedness and the falsehoods with which they fool those who would follow them into Hell! I believe this is all done in the name of practicality…"let us put flesh on the bones of our theological skeletons", some might think or say; "let us move from the abstract doctrinal teaching to the concrete teachings on how to live." My friends, doctrine and practice (while they are two different things) may never be so separated as to say one is possible without the other: practice is not possible without doctrine, and our practices prove that doctrine by which they are held up, so present teachers fail to make sense when they try to be more “practical” by being less theological or doctrinal. I say that one’s theology is in and of itself practical or it is, by necessity, not theology at all, but instead it is anthropology because it is no longer about God but about themselves.
Take for instance, the “preaching” of “the smiling preacher”. This man has so separated the disciplines of theological study from practical application that he has forsaken one for the other. My guess would be that, if “Smiley” didn’t grow up in, he has at the very least adopted a “Christianity” that “leaves the theology to the theologians”. Many of us have heard that said before that, "people just don’t get all that theological talk; they just want something that will get them through the week" Or this, "you just have to be relevant or you will be tuned out, that deep theology isn't relevant to my life in the here and now". Smiley and others do present a theology, but it isn’t one from the Bible. They consistently present a god who is waiting for you to think positively and assure yourself of your worth so he can give you the desires of your heart. In other words, false teachers replace the reality of God’s wrath against your sin with His image in you, and the reality of the much needed spiritual healing through Christ’s sorrow with the temporal healings of our bodies and the filling up of our pockets instead of our hearts. Not to say that we are not physical, we most certainly are, and that present reality does not have its end at the judgment, but the reality of the union of our bodies and spirits will by manifest to us in our resurrected persons as we inhabit a resurrected Earth.
Well from our perspective, the gospel IS that “theological talk” that receives so much disdain today in pop-christian teaching. And the gospel is the most relevant issue in any of our lives. What could be more relevant than to have the problem of our sin exposed and the solution presented in the gospel? I hope the answer is obvious, because the answer is--nothing; nothing could possibly be more relevant and practical. Moreover, your sin can’t even be presented without such “theological talk” by discussing "theology proper"; the holiness of God and His just wrath, therefore Smiley and others substitute your REAL needs are for some silly, vaporous, *%&$^# that inoculates your soul to the true salve of God’s Word…and that is completely impractical! False teachers like that remove the “gospel talk” (which is practical) from their “speeches” and replace it with something about you and supposedly for you. That, my friend, is anthropology, not theology.
John 12:25 Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. 26 If anyone serves me, he must follow me; and where I am, there will my servant be also. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him.
James 4:13 Come now, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit"—14 yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. 15 Instead you ought to say, "If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that."
The fault of the “word faith” movement is not that it has persons seeking to better themselves in a material way, then thanking God for providing all that they have been given. No, the fault of the movement is that it is another gospel—not that there is another good news to be preached, but that the gospel of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was delivered for our trespasses and raised for our justification; by His stripes we are healed, is forsaken in that movement for what ultimately is bad news. Our faith is not a creative power at all; the image of God in us is not that we are capable of such creative works, but that image makes us volitional creatures whose choices are governed by our affections, and whose affections are rooted in our nature. Furthermore, the Christian life is not about pursuing our happiness in the things of this world: money, health, and fame, but quite the opposite, the Christian life is about becoming so frustrated with those lesser pleasures and our competing desires for them that we are driven to the “foolishness of the cross” and we take it up and follow Christ Jesus, fighting to find our joy in Him.
Those who teach such a doctrine as the word faith teachers are like the Jewish leadership in Christ’s day, they look for signs and miracles. Christ was a stumbling block for them then and such He is for those false teachers today—curse their wickedness and the falsehoods with which they fool those who would follow them into Hell! I believe this is all done in the name of practicality…"let us put flesh on the bones of our theological skeletons", some might think or say; "let us move from the abstract doctrinal teaching to the concrete teachings on how to live." My friends, doctrine and practice (while they are two different things) may never be so separated as to say one is possible without the other: practice is not possible without doctrine, and our practices prove that doctrine by which they are held up, so present teachers fail to make sense when they try to be more “practical” by being less theological or doctrinal. I say that one’s theology is in and of itself practical or it is, by necessity, not theology at all, but instead it is anthropology because it is no longer about God but about themselves.
Take for instance, the “preaching” of “the smiling preacher”. This man has so separated the disciplines of theological study from practical application that he has forsaken one for the other. My guess would be that, if “Smiley” didn’t grow up in, he has at the very least adopted a “Christianity” that “leaves the theology to the theologians”. Many of us have heard that said before that, "people just don’t get all that theological talk; they just want something that will get them through the week" Or this, "you just have to be relevant or you will be tuned out, that deep theology isn't relevant to my life in the here and now". Smiley and others do present a theology, but it isn’t one from the Bible. They consistently present a god who is waiting for you to think positively and assure yourself of your worth so he can give you the desires of your heart. In other words, false teachers replace the reality of God’s wrath against your sin with His image in you, and the reality of the much needed spiritual healing through Christ’s sorrow with the temporal healings of our bodies and the filling up of our pockets instead of our hearts. Not to say that we are not physical, we most certainly are, and that present reality does not have its end at the judgment, but the reality of the union of our bodies and spirits will by manifest to us in our resurrected persons as we inhabit a resurrected Earth.
Well from our perspective, the gospel IS that “theological talk” that receives so much disdain today in pop-christian teaching. And the gospel is the most relevant issue in any of our lives. What could be more relevant than to have the problem of our sin exposed and the solution presented in the gospel? I hope the answer is obvious, because the answer is--nothing; nothing could possibly be more relevant and practical. Moreover, your sin can’t even be presented without such “theological talk” by discussing "theology proper"; the holiness of God and His just wrath, therefore Smiley and others substitute your REAL needs are for some silly, vaporous, *%&$^# that inoculates your soul to the true salve of God’s Word…and that is completely impractical! False teachers like that remove the “gospel talk” (which is practical) from their “speeches” and replace it with something about you and supposedly for you. That, my friend, is anthropology, not theology.
1 comment:
Well, that definitely had horns. But rightly so. Well said!
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