Repost: The most offensive verse in the Bible

by Dan Phillips

If life is funny, blogging is a laff riot. The oddest thing I've learned about it is that predicting the impact of my posts is — at least for me — completely impossible. More times than I can say, I've posted something that by rights should have created a tsunami response... and then, biff! Nothing. 

Then on the other hand, there are posts like this one. The thought occurred to me as I described, I sat down and dashed it off, and it became our most popular post, ever. It has been reprinted, cited by AIG's Dr. Georgia Purdom, used by Doug Wilson in debating Andrew Sullivan about "gay mirage," and so forth. As I write, it's received 38,716 views. The next runner-up received 29,173.

I'm deeply grateful that folks have found it helpful, but I never would have predicted it.

Today at 2:00pm, Texas time, Janet Mefferd and I will have a chat about the post and its implications. I thought it might help to make this easily available.

In the Sunday School class at CBC we're doing a series called Marriage, the Bible and You. In the second lesson of the series, I brought up the subject of secular talk shows and how they like to try to beat up on Christians of any size, shape, and significance about whatever topic they think is most embarrassing and controversial. Of course, at the moment it's "gay" "marriage," or the topic of homosexuality at all.

In the course of the lesson, I remarked that I think — from the comfortable quiet safety of my study — that I'd take a different approach.

When Piers or Larry or Tavis or Rosie or Ellen or The View or whoever tried probing me about homosexuality, or wifely submission, or any other area where God has spoken (to the world's consternation), I think I'd decline the worm altogether. I think instead, I'd say something like,

"You know, TaPierRosEllRy, when you ask me about X, you're obviously picking a topic that is deeply offensive to non-Christians — but it's far from the most offensive thing I believe. You're just nibbling at the edge of one of the relatively minor leaves on the Tree of Offense. Let me do you a favor, and just take you right down to the root. Let me take you to the most offensive thing I believe.

"The most offensive thing I believe is Genesis 1:1, and everything it implies.

"That is, I believe in a sovereign Creator who is Lord and Definer of all. Everything in the universe — the planet, the laws of physics, the laws of morality, you, me — everything was created by Another, was designed by Another, was given value and definition by Another. God is Creator and Lord, and so He is ultimate. That means we are created and subjects, and therefore derivative and dependent.

"Therefore, we are not free to create meaning or value. We have only two options. We can discover the true value assigned by the Creator and revealed in His Word, the Bible; or we can rebel against that meaning.

"Any time you bring up questions about any of these issues, you do so from one of two stances. You either do it as someone advocating and enabling rebellion against the Creator's design, or as someone seeking submissive understanding of that design. You do it as servant or rebel. There is no third option.

"So yeah, insofar as I'm consistent with my core beliefs, everything I think about sexuality, relationships, morals, the whole nine yards, all of it is derived from what the Creator says. If I deviate from that, I'm wrong.

"To anyone involved in the doomed, damned you-shall-be-as-God project, that is the most offensive truth in the world, and it is the most offensive belief I hold.

"But if I can say one more thing, the first noun in that verse — beginning — immediately points us forward. It points to the end. And the end is all about Jesus Christ. That takes us to the topic of God's world-tilting Gospel, and that's what we really need to talk about."

I mean, why quibble about minor offenses, when we know how to take them right to the mother lode of all offense — that God is God, and we are not?

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Unfathomable unbelief (re-post)

by Dan Phillips

Of course, Phil's Po-Motivator makes this post from December of 2007 a "win" all by itself. But I thought it timely as well.

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And he said to them, "Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts?" (Luke 24:38)

Is this really a rhetorical question?

Our unbelief has to be unfathomable to God, as was the disciples' to Christ. It is as if He were saying,

"What basis have I ever given you for doubting Me? I told you that I would be rejected, handed over to the chief priests and scribes, beaten, condemned, crucified, killed (Luke 9:22, 44; 18:31-33). You didn't believe that would happen, but it did. I also said I'd rise again from the dead (Luke 18:33). Did you disbelieve? Again? Why?"

To say that God knows and understands all things is not to say that God finds everything understandable, if you take my meaning.

It is clear that the Lord does not see doubt as a virtue. But beyond even that, He seems to find unbelief unbelievable.

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"Compassion"? A parable (re-post)

by Dan Phillips

First posted in January of 2011, this little item seems all the more timely today.

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A Visitor's Center one day was manned by twin brothers Nick and Knack. A car pulled into the parking lot, disgorging a breathlessly eager visitor.

"May we help you?" offered Nick genially.

"Yes, thank you!" bubbled the newcomer. "All my life I've been longing to travel Route 49! Can you show me the most direct way?"

Nick paled.

"Oh, I'm very sorry, but you don't want to go Route 49."

"But I do!" insisted the visitor.

"Let me rephrase myself," amended Nick. "You may want to, but you really mustn't.  The road goes along nicely at first, but then you'll see a bunch of roadblocks and obstacles laid across it, slowing you down and warning you off. These impediments aren't really a problem; they're actually a good thing...."

"How can they be a good thing," the visitor cuts in angrily. "This is my dream! I want to zoom, not be slowed down."

"I was going to say," continued Nick, "they're a good thing because otherwise you'll shoot straight off the stub of a broken bridge and plummet 800 feet to your death on the rocky rapids below."

"Oh," said the visitor, turning a bit white himself.

"He says," observed Knack, leaning forward, putting down his latte and stroking his soul-patch.

"The map says," countered Nick.

"Map?" asked the visitor.

"Yep, right here," replied Nick, spreading out the item itself on the counter. "See that red X there? It means bridge out."

"You say it means that," snarked Knack. "I say it means 'X marks the spot.'"

"Oh, come on," retorted Nick. "There's a legend at the bottom of the map, for crying out loud! See? 'Bridge out!' It isn't rocket science."

"Scholars now realize that 'X' means many different things in different cultures. Besides, you're talking as if that's the only map," drawled Knack. "This one shows a clear, delightful road right where our visitor wants to go. See?"

"That's in crayon!" exploded Nick.

"You got something against crayon?" inquired Knack.

"No," Nick shot back. "I have something against people destroying themselves."

"Psh," Knack sneered. "You just want safety in rules. The visitor's a daring seeker. He should seek. The journey is what matters, not the destination."

"Seek death?" Nick replied. "I think he'll care plenty about the destination when his car shoots off into space."

There was an angry silence, broken by a sob. It was the visitor, who has tears running down his cheeks.

"All I know is I've yearned to go down Route 49 as long as I remember. Some kids mocked me, others ridiculed me and were mean to me, but the desire has always been there. I can't conceive of not wanting to go down Route 49. It's what my heart tells me to do, and I have to be true to my heart, don't I? I can't lie. It defines me. You can't separate this desire from me. I can't imagine not wanting to go that way. It fills my dreams. I even have a T-shirt. See?" He pulled open his blazer and displayed the garment.

"I understand," crooned Knack. "There is nothing wrong with you or with what you want. And there's nothing wrong with going that way. For you, it is the only way. And in fact, I want to help you. I will personally go ahead of you and remove all the blocks, chains, signs, speed bumps, and ropes that have been stretched across the road. I will mount a parade for you — a Route 49 Pride parade. I will lobby to prohibit people from speaking against traveling Route 49. I will side with you against all the harsh, rule-happy Route 49 nay-sayers. In fact, I will get my brother here fired, because he made you feel bad about wanting to go Route 49. He doesn't care about your feelings, as I do. He doesn't have any love or compassion for you, and I've got buckets of both. Nick's all about rules and maps and shutting you out and playing it safe; I'm all about love and compassion and justice and being bold and daring. Nick is shallow, reactionary and not helpful. I'm deep and thoughtful and helpful. So you just get in your car, and you go go go!"

As the visitor beamed, Nick sprang to block the door. "Whoa whoa whoa, not so fast! Look, friend — how you feel about Route 49 doesn't change the facts: the bridge is out! My feelings aren't the map, your feelings aren't the map. Go that way, and you will die! I don't want you to die. I don't think it's loving or compassionate to give you bad information that means your death. The people who put up those signs and those obstacles knew what they were doing, and they did it because they care about people like you. It shouldn't be easy an comfortable to go down that road. It wouldn't be compassionate of me to focus on giving you a smooth ride to your own destruction, and it isn't "bold" and "daring" to head off to certain doom. Enabling you isn't really helping you. And look, I can show you other ways to go, or I can try to find other ways to help — but don't go that way! It'd be the end of you."

Silence fell again for a moment, then:

"We could call a five-year moratorium on this," offered Knack.

"But I want to go that way now," countered the visitor.

"The map says what it says now, and it isn't unclear," said Nick. "It's said that for a long time, and nothing's changed. Nothing's going to change in five years."

The visitor looked back and forth between the brothers, confused. He knew which brother's advice he liked best, which brother told him what he wanted to hear, but... was that the wisest way to decide?

PREMISE: the bridge was indeed out, and the map was indeed accurate.

QUESTION: which brother actually showed love and compassion?

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Give thanks! [updated repost]

by Dan Phillips

First posted in 2010, this features a new hymn and extended notes.

Psalm 100

A Psalm for giving thanks.

Make a joyful noise to the LORD, all the earth!

2 Serve the LORD with gladness!

Come into his presence with singing!

3 Know that the LORD, he is God!

It is he who made us, and we are his;

we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.

4 Enter his gates with thanksgiving,

and his courts with praise!

Give thanks to him; bless his name!

5 For the LORD is good;

his steadfast love endures forever,

and his faithfulness to all generations.

Though many psalms feature the giving of thanks, this is the only psalm whose title labels it such. No psalmist could have envisioned our notion of a private inner glow of gratitude; to them, thanking God was characteristically out-loud (vv. 2, 4), loud (v. 1), public (vv. 1, 2, 4), and communal (v. 4).

This psalm is in two movements; or rather, one movement that is then echoed. Though his reasoning parallels Paul's, his order is backwards: first, the call to action (vv. 1-2, 4); then the reason (vv. 3, 5). There's always a why to the what. While Paul characteristically gives the why (Eph. 1—3; Col. 1—2) before the what (Eph. 4—6; Col. 3—4), the psalmist formally does the reverse.

You know, this wouldn't be a bad psalm to memorize.

Or sing.

Happy Thanksgiving, friends, from us to you.

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"But otherwise": skewed priorities (classic re-post)

by Dan Phillips

Various bits of pastoralia have me too full-plated to finish half-done posts. So here's a timely post from October of 2006. Enjoy.

Consider this description of a guy. We'll call him... Guy. Guy G. Guy.

Guy's really a good person. He's as honest as the day is long. He's hard-working, a straight-shooter. He gives to charity -- and not just to formal charities: I've never seen Guy turn down a panhandler on the street. He's devoted to his wife and children, he's a regular church-attender. He drives within the speed limit, always seems neatly dressed and clean. I hardly ever see him sitting around. He's often out working on his yard, or even helping elderly neighbors work on theirs.

Good guy, right? Oh wait. Left out a trait.

Guy does have this one pastime. When the mood strikes, Guy molests small children.

But otherwise, a good guy, right?

Well, no. I'm pretty sure I lost you with that last, stomach-jolting little attribute. It's what we call a deal-killer. However nice the other descriptives might be, that last one counter-balances and stains them all. It's a vice so repellant, so intuitively appalling, that extended argumentation isn't necessary. Our image of this imaginary fellow does an abrupt volte-face, with one simple, specific bit of information.

So why do we, Christian and non-Christian, so regularly commit even a worse error in moral evaluation?

I just finished laboring through Four Views on Salvation in a Pluralistic World for a class. My, that was a chore. Four sets of authors batted around the question of "the fate of the heathen." They ranged from (IMHO) the clueless (John Hick, Clark "Evangelical! Really! I Swear!" Pinnock), to the sorta cluey (Alister E. McGrath), to the considerably more clued (R. Douglas Geivett, W. Gary Phillips [no relation]).

Hick and Clark "I Am an Evangelical! Really! I Am, I Am, I Am!" Pinnock wrung their hands about the horrible injustice of God sending good, moral, decent, religious people to Hell just because they didn't believe in Jesus. McGrath stood a bit to their Biblical right, though in a muzzy way; Geivett and Phillips considerably more so.

Unless I missed it, however, no one challenged what I think is the fundamental issue. Clark "Did I Mention That I'm an Evangelical?" Pinnock stood pretty much with John "At Least I Don't Claim to Be an Evangelical" Hick in accepting the proposition that "there are pagan saints in other religions" (p. 119) So Pinnock shrinks back from the thought that God could condemn everyone except believers. Even in their responses, the other three writers did not focus on what I think is a central issue.

Which "central issue" would that be?

Well, back up with me for one second. Can a person be rightly considered moral if he does all the wonderful things I mentioned, but just has this one little recurrent indulgence that he embraces and practices, involving little kids? If you can't give me a hearty "No" on that one, further conversation probably would not be fruitful.

Why can't we say that he's basically good, though? He does more good things than bad, doesn't he? But none of that matters, because we intuitively recognize a certain hierarchy in morality. Replace the sin of pederasty with a failure to signal his right turns, and we'd relax a bit. He might be a decent fellow after all. On any hierarchy, failure to signal one's turns ranks well below the abomination of child molestation. A child is infinitely more precious and valuable than a traffic regulation.

Let's stay with the same man, then, with an alteration. Remove the pederasty, leave him with all the other virtues (and if you like throw in a score of others). Just add this one specific: he does not hold Jesus as his Lord and Savior.

What do you think now? Is he a moral man?

Your answer to that question will tell me everything about your moral hierarchy.

Someone asked Jesus once what amounted to this: What is the chief imperative of the universe (Matthew 22:36)? What is at the pinnacle of the moral hierarchy?

As you may know, the Lord Jesus answered the man's question. Plus, at no extra charge, He laid out the second imperative of the universe.

And he said to him, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets." (Matthew 22:37-40, emphases added)

Jesus laid down two categories: first the vertical, then the horizontal. First, the theological. Second, the social. First, love the Lord your God with everything you've got. Second, love your neighbor as you already love yourself.

When we rank a person's morality, we usually primarily judge as to whether he is kind, honest, generous, decent, giving, merciful, loving -- to people. What outrages us is pederasty, rape, murder, theft, violence -- against people. Horizontal crimes. These are, indeed, important areas. In fact, they comprise the second-most important area of morality in the universe.

Second. Not first.

The chief indicator of a person's character is his relationship to God. In other words, his theology, his doctrine, his faith.

Nor should we anachronistically imagine that by "your God" Jesus means "whoever you conceive God to be." No honest Jesus-scholar would suggest that He means any other than the living God of Israel, who reveals Himself in the Law and the Prophets. It is that God -- and, by extension, the God who reveals Himself through Jesus Christ (Matthew 11:27; 17:5; John 1:18; 17:3, etc.) -- who must be loved above all else.

Can a person be a moral person, and violate what Jesus calls "the great and first commandment," the commandment that comes before and above all others?

An affirmative answer reveals a genuinely worldly viewpoint. It indicates that we're seeing the moral universe through man-centered glasses.

But if you believe Jesus, you must answer "Of course not. It's a deal-killer."

Yet we have the odd spectacle of folks who may well confidently say of a rapist, pederast, murderer, or terrorist, "He'll burn in Hell" -- but balk at saying the same of someone who violates the ultimate moral imperative in all of creation. A good guy who rejects Jesus is, by our skewed priorities, still a good guy. But if he harms women or children -- well. That's different.

When you make yourself think it through, it's odd.

But the spectacle of folks who claim to be "really, really" evangelical, balking at the justice of laying the most severe judgment on the most heinous crime in all creation? "Odd"?

Worse than odd.

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Sister... show mercy! (Repost #4)

[I'm very grateful for the use God has made of this post. Many pastors, leaders, and others have requested permission to print this and hand it out; and many sisters have said they were going to share it around. I hope it's put to use in youth groups. Originally posted in 2006, it always receives a mixture of gracious and bizarre responses. Let me add this one word to husbands: you too. "Smokin' hot" wife, right? Praise God. So remember what it was like to be single. You know how guys are. You used to be one! So you show some mercy to your brothers. Sensitize your wife about showing love for her brothers in this important way. Read this with her. Help her to dress helpfully and mercifully. And fathers? Duh. Doug Wilson waggles his eyebrows at you and, this time, so do I. So here it is once again, slightly edited as usual.]

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Preface: "What are you? Nuts?!" Just thought I'd lead with the question you'll be wondering in a few minutes. I am about to stick my finger in the fan, about up to my elbow, and I know it. But I really think someone needs to say this — and why not me? I have less to lose than many who've thought the same thing, but daren't say it.

So here we go.

What will change, and what won't. Spring's sprung, and summer looms. Mercury rises, fashions change. But one thing that won't change, unless I'm happily mistaken: some good Christian sisters will not dress as helpfully as they could.

I chose that word with care: "helpfully." I am not talking about sin, shame, indecency, wantonness, or the like. Perhaps I could, with some justification. But that's for another time — and probably another writer. At this point, I just want to talk about being helpful.

Sister, if there's one thing you and I can certainly agree on, it's this: I don't know what it's like to be a woman, and you don't know what it's like to be a man. We're both probably wrong where we're sure we're right, try as we might. So let me try to dart a telegram from my camp over to the distaff side.

"Sheol and Abaddon are never satisfied, and never satisfied are the eyes of man" (Proverbs 27:20). Solomon doesn't use the Hebrew words that would indicate males exclusively, so this and Ecclesiastes 1:8 may apply across the gender-board. Libbie pointed out very ably that we men wrongly assume that we alone battle with temptations entering through the eye-gate.


But. But if men aren't alone in the battle, they may have a particular weakness for this aspect of it. Consider passionately-godly King David, whose psalms express aspirations after God beside which our own are pale, bloodless things. One day King David is in the wrong place, at the wrong time; sees a naked woman bathing next door, and boom! — he's gone (2 Samuel 11). Family, kingdom, God — all forgotten, consumed in the flash-flame of a lust that was only visual in its inception.

And what of that Israelite Philistine Samson and his own "eye trouble?" He sees a fetching young pagan, and bellows at his dad, "Get her for me, for she looks good to me" (Judges 14:3 NAS). Where did Samson's passions take him? How did his course end?

Unless all the men I've known personally or at a distance are completely unrepresentative, it's a lifelong struggle, a lifelong weakness. As I recall from a Proverbs lecture on mp3, Bruce Waltke says that his dad, at around age 100, told him, "Bruce, I still have the same struggles I did when I was 50." It was sobering for Dr. Waltke to hear; sobering for any man! (In fact, put me down for "disheartening.")

Where am I going with this? Oh, don't try to look so innocent. You know exactly where I'm going.

This is... church? So here comes this brother into the assembly of the saints, hoping for a rest from the battles of the week, a moment to regroup, sing, pray, get the Word, fellowship. He looks up to the choir, or to his left or his right — and in a tick of the clock, he's facing the same struggle he faced every time he turned on his TV, opened a magazine, or went down a city street. He's seeing things that make it far too easy for him not to keep his mind focused where it needs to be focused.

And he's not in a nightclub, he's not at a singles' bar, he's not at the beach. He's in church.

Now, some very direct disclaimers:

• Every man's sin is his own, and every man's struggle is his own (Proverbs 14:10).
• No one makes a man think or feel anything (Proverbs 4:23).
• It is each individual's responsibility to guard his own heart (Proverbs 4:23) and eyes (Job 31:1).
• Beauty is a wonderful gift of God (cf. Exodus 28:2; Song of Solomon 1:8, 15, etc.).

Having said all that: while it may be true that I'm the one holding the matches, you won't help me if you pile twigs all around my feet and douse them with lighter fluid. To be a little more specific: if you know I've had trouble with drunkenness, you won't wave a glass of wine in front of me tauntingly. If you know I battle covetousness, you won't take me window-shopping in high-end stores I've no business frequenting.

That is, you won't do those things if you love, if you care for me at all.

So I put this question: what are some sisters thinking, in how they dress?



"Attractive"? As the ladies pick clothes, they'll consider what's pretty, what's flattering, what's attractive. Who could blame them? But, "attractive" to whom? In what way? To what end? With what focus?

When I go fishing, I want my lure to attract trout so they will bite and get hooked, and I can kill them and eat them.

A business wants to attract buyers so they will spend money and acquire their product or service and make them rich.

By that blouse, those pants, that skirt — what are you trying to attract? Attract to what, so that they will focus on what and feel what, and want to do what?

Consider the questions again. "Is it pretty?" Fine question, no evil in it. "Is it comfortable, is it complimentary, is it fun?" No problem. I'd just suggest you add one more question: "Is it helpful, or is it hurtful, to my brothers in Christ? Will this unintentionally contribute to their having a focus that is harmful to their holy walk?"

Now, lookie here:

In that day the Lord will take away the finery of the anklets, the headbands, and the crescents; the pendants, the bracelets, and the scarves;  the headdresses, the armlets, the sashes, the perfume boxes, and the amulets; the signet rings and nose rings; the festal robes, the mantles, the cloaks, and the handbags; the mirrors, the linen garments, the turbans, and the veils (Isaiah 3:18-23)

...likewise also that women should adorn themselves in respectable apparel, with modesty and self-control, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly attire, but with what is proper for women who profess godliness--with good works (1 Timothy 2:9-10)

Do not let your adorning be external--the braiding of hair, the wearing of gold, or the putting on of clothing-- but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God's sight is very precious (1 Peter 3:3-4)

What it isn't. Immediately we'll swing in, as we always do, and say, "Now, the writer's not saying that women can't dress nicely, or wear jewelry, or blah blah blah." And we'll all disown our Fundie forebears who focused on nylons and lipstick, and came up with precise hemline measurements. We'll want to make sure that we're not advocating a new line of Bible Burqaware™ for evangelical women. All that will be true and valid enough.But... what is it? But I'm concerned that, in our anxiety to be sure to prevent the wrong interpretation, we effectively cut off all interpretation. We have swung from making the passages say silly things, to not letting them say anything. These passages have to mean something! They must have some application! What is it?

Surely the passages warn against vanity, externality, sensuality; and promote a focus on a godly character as true beauty. Who you are; not just what you look like. Remember: "As a ring of gold in a swine's snout, So is a beautiful woman who lacks discretion" (Proverbs 11:22 NAS).

Oh boy, I'm going to make it worse now. Deep breath before the plunge, and....

Say what? What are your clothes saying about you, sister? What are they supposed to say to your brothers? "Hey, look at this?" Well, they actually are trying to look at the Lord; it's not good for them, not helpful for them, to be looking at that. No, it's not your fault that they have a problem. We established that. And it's really great that God has made you beautiful. May your husband (present or future) celebrate your beauty.

But, please hear me: you can help the brothers who aren't your husband, or you can not-help them. Which are you doing? If you're not married, and a man looks at you, is he thinking, "What a great character"? Or are you giving him reason to think something else about you is "great"?

I know many of the responses. I've heard them. "You don't know what it's like to buy women's clothes, you ignorant man!" Mostly true. My first just-for-fun purchase of (what I thought was) a pretty blue dress for my dear wife was... well, it was appalling. What a good sport my wife was. I took it back to the store immediately, and made a much better choice.

"I caaaan't." But this: "I can't find anything modest! It's all too revealing! It's impossible to get something that looks nice, yet isn't too tight, or too short, or too-something / not-something-enough!"

Sorry, but baloney.

I put modest women's clothing Christian in Google, and 31,900,000 results come up. (Up from  63,500 in 2010.) Yes, some are funny and quaint at best. But are they all Amishwear? "Can't find?" Really?

More fundamentally: I do not accept that anyone has to wear clothes that are too tight or too clingy or too sheer or too short — unless you are the largest and tallest woman living in the hottest part of the planet. Because I see larger, taller women than you walking around in hot weather, and they're all wearing clothes, every last one of them. They got those clothes somewhere, I reason. You could too.

"But — but they won't look good on me! The shoulders will be wrong!"

Need-to-not-know. I'm not sure that's necessarily true, but let's accept it and pose a counter-question. You tell me. Which is worse: your shoulders hanging a half-inch too low? Or a blouse/skirt that simply (shifting into turbo-delicate) provides need-to-know information to those with a need-to-not-know?

I'm sure we all agree that there are clothes that show off what others have no helpful business seeing. Here's what to show, in clothes-selection: show a Godward focus, discretion, a godly character.

And show mercy.

Parting thought. Darlene Johnson pointed me to a statement by Arthur Pink, which makes everything I've just said look awfully mild. But there's no denying that Pink has a point. I'll close with it:

Again, if lustful looking be so grievous a sin, then those who dress and expose themselves with desires to be looked at and lusted after-as Jezebel, who painted her face, tired her head, and looked out of the window (2 Kings 9:30)-are not less, but even more guilty. In this matter it is only too often the case that men sin, but women tempt them so to do. How great, then, must be the guilt of the great majority of the modern misses who deliberately seek to arouse the sexual passions of our young men? And how much greater still is the guilt of most of their mothers for allowing them to become lascivious temptresses?

Now, note, Pink and I speak to different audiences. I speak to those whom I charitably assume are inadvertently dressing in an unhelpful manner. Pink speaks to those whose intent is to allure. Between the two of us, I can pray we've provided food for thought, prayer, reconsideration, and needed change.

One last thought: it is a mistake to think I exclusively have church-attire in mind. That is lifted as a particularly egregious example of what-are-you-thinking? In what I say, I have in mind any place where both sexes are present.

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Apostasy

Some Observations about Apostasy

One of the most memorable and instructive posts in the history of TeamPyro was an entry titled "Stone-Cold Liar." It's the story of a long-time commenter and gadfly from the early days of this blog who abandoned the faith and then wrote an untruthful account of his "deconversion." The comment-thread under that post was the most memorable part of it. If you have an hour or so to read (or re-read) it, give it a go. Anyway, the excerpt below is part of a follow-up post I wrote to try to sort out some of the issues raised in that comment-thread. This was the closing section of that follow-up post:

(First posted 27 September 2008)



've had perhaps four or five friends over the years who seemed to be truly devout believers but abandoned the Lord unexpectedly. Nice guys, all of them—intelligent, thoughtful, knowledgeable, and (in one or two cases) active in full time ministry. So we're not talking about people who briefly made a questionable profession of faith while trying to keep one foot in the world. These were people who seemed completely devoted, exemplary disciples—just like Judas right up until the point where he betrayed Christ. Let's call them Type-J Apostates. There are several other key similarities and differences from case to case:

1. In each case, news of their apostasy came to me as a profound shock and deep disappointment. It wasn't preceded by any plea for help or probing questions. After the fact, every one of them described their struggle as a lengthy emotional and psychological battle with nagging doubts in which they desperately sought answers from every conceivable source. But in reality, I never had an opportunity to discuss their doubts or questions with any of them until after they were settled in their unbelief.
2. The actual pattern seems to be that the person will disappear from circles of Christian fellowship for an extended time. If they actually do express their doubts to anyone, it's usually under a false identity on the Internet. Under the cloak of anonymity, they will begin to gravitate toward skeptical forums. And if they do voice their doubts in "Christian" forums, rather than going where they might get help from mature believers, they tend to favor mixed forums featuring totally unmoderated discussion dominated by lay people, novices, and cranks. Moreover, if they voice their doubts in such a context, it will usually be in an argumentative way, and not as someone genuinely seeking answers.
3. Then after a year or three, the person resurfaces as an agnostic, and after "coming out," becomes increasingly aggressive and militant in spreading the gospel of skepticism. They rarely seem able truly to put their faith behind them, but become more obsessed with Christianity as unbelievers than they were as "believers." I call it the Loftus Phenomenon.
4. Half the time (or more), it has later come to light that the person's original "doubts" were related to a moral struggle. (In three of the five instances I have specifically in mind, one was addicted to pornography, another was having an extramarital affair, and the third had decided to openly indulge a homosexual bent he had struggled with secretly for years.)
5. A disproportionate number of apostates seem to come from the kind of über-rigid fundamentalist backgrounds where what you do seems to be given ultimacy over what you believe. That kind of stress on externals naturally cultivates Pharisaism rather than authentic faith, so we shouldn't be surprised at the high percentage of apostates such a system produces.
6. The New Testament prominently features several very sobering warnings about the dangers of spurious faith. Jesus Himself said that many will come to His judgment seat and be completely surprised to hear Him say, "I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness" (Matthew 7:23). This is also a huge theme in the epistles. It's the central theme of Hebrews. In fact, every major New Testament epistle (and some of the minor ones) at least touches on the dangers of false and half-hearted faith.
7. Jesus' words in Matthew 7:21-23 suggest that a large number of people whose faith is spurious are self-deceived. They blithely assume their faith is real and sufficient. By all external measurements, they seem genuine enough. (Which is why the other disciples trusted Judas enough to make him their treasurer, and all the others suspected themselves rather than accusing Judas when Jesus said one of them was about to betray Him—Matthew 26:21-22). So there's no reason to think that all (or even most) of the "former" believers who now promote skepticism on the Web are consciously lying when they say they were once devoted believers.
8. Combine the potential for self-deception (Jeremiah 17:9) with the reality that Scripture expressly warns us that many people will be turned away at the judgment who claim to know Christ, and it is a good reason for each of us to examine himself, to see if we are truly in the faith (2 Corinthians 13:5). In fact, every time we come to the Lord's table, we are supposed to take the opportunity to do that (1 Corinthians 11:27-32). We need to take that duty seriously.
9. If you find yourself resentful and doubting in the wake of personal tragedy, don't cultivate that kind of emotionally-driven doubt. (And if you do, don't salve your mind by assuring yourself that your doubts are "rational.") I do understand and sympathize with the depth of grief suffered by someone who is suffering personal loss such as the death of one's children or the loss of one's health, or whatever. Job lost everything at once, and his response is the model of true faith: "Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him" (Job 13:15). That didn't keep him from saying (later in that very same verse), "Even so, I will defend my own ways before Him." But if the opening phrase of that verse doesn't describe the quality of your belief in God, your "faith" probably will not survive the inevitable sorrows and hardships of life in this sin-cursed world.
10. In the combox under that earlier post, the question was raised about whether apostasy is the unpardonable sin. I want to be clear: I don't think apostasy per se is automatically unpardonable. But I do think there are certain flavors of apostasy from which no one ever recovers. I also think it's clear from the context of Matthew 12 that the sin Jesus described as "unforgivable" was unforgivable not because of any limit on the mercy and grace of God but because of the deliberate nature of the sin. Hebrews 6 and 10 likewise speak of the impossibility of being renewed to repentance after deliberately turning away from Christ with full knowledge and conviction of the truth of His claims. There is no litmus test that I know of to verify infallibly whether it is possible " to renew [this or that person] again to repentance." But in my experience, the longer they persist in unbelief and unrepentance, the more agressive they become as campaigners for skepticism, the more hatred they have for Christ, the more impervious they become to biblical and rational answers to their "questions," and the more like taunts those "questions" begin to sound. I can't recall ever hearing about one of these "de-conversions" being reversed. The hardened skeptic will say a statistic like that is proof that skeptics are truly enlightened. Scripture points to it as proof of how dangerous skepticism is.

I preached on these topics three times [in 2008], before any of this even came up on the blog. The third of three messages in that series is most germane to this discussion and can be downloaded free right here. Or you can get the whole series, free of charge and with no strings attached, here. If you are someone wondering how shaky your faith is, I encourage you to acquire those messages and listen.

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Is Christianity rational? (Re-post from 2006)

by Dan Phillips


Re-posted from 8/31/2006, slightly edited.

A Mormon friend, in passing, remarked that religion is not rational, so he didn't expect it to make sense. It's a matter of faith, not reason.

You might think, "Right: Mormon. I don't expect rationality, either." Hang on.

He went on to give an example—but the example was not how a human could become a god, or how there could be only one god and many at the same time, or how God can keep changing His mind about things, or how two equally-inspired books could contradict each other. His example was the virgin birth. I said there was nothing irrational about the virgin birth, and the conversation simply moved on elsewhere. (I now wish I'd asked instead of stated; still looking for a do-over.)

But was he right? Is religion irrational?

"Religion," maybe. Christianity, no.

Now, before we stay too focused on my friend's Mormonociousness, I'd add that some Charismatic friends have said the exact same thing. Try to follow out some thinking to its uncomfortable conclusion, and you get a shrug and a dismissal. It doesn't have to make sense. It's faith, man. "A man with an experience is never at the mercy of a man with an argument," I heard a Charismatic church elder say.

Perhaps definitions are part of the problem. There is a world of difference between rational and rationalism. The latter is a philosophy, a worldview that asserts that man can know truth by the use of his unaided reason. The former merely means that something is in accord with reason, it doesn't violate fundamental canons of thinking such as the law of non-contradiction.

Is Christianity rational? Without re-writing van Til, Gordon Clark, Carl Henry and the gang (—as if I could), I'd rather just focus on one generality and two specifics.

First, some who karaoke this tune are actually simply anti-intellectual. Their religion is a Schleiermacheranian mish-mash of feelings and sentimentality; and, lazily, they like it that way. Like Alice's queen, they have "believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast." They can splop! down an absurd statement and, when challenged to try to make any kind of sense of it—let alone Biblical sense—they can loftily murmur that their religion is a matter of the heart, not of the mind.

This is of course to stand Biblical religion on its head (pun noted, but not intended). As soon as you assert anything about God, life, reality, you find yourself in the arena of thought and ideas. Even the assertion that nothing can be asserted about God is an assertion about God, open for analysis, criticism, acceptance or rejection.

This is by the design of God, who crafted us to analyze, understand, exercise dominion (Genesis 1:26-28). Thus He positions the first commandment as "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind"(Matthew 22:37; cf. Deuteronomy 6:5).

The resurgence of the irrational is not new, either. It was in vogue in the seventies, but was already old then. J. Gresham Machen had fought and slain this dragon a half-century earlier — nor was he the first. The shade of rouge, the odor of the cheap perfume, and the color of the plastic jewels change, but it's the same old whore.

But second, even among Christians who are not anti-intellectual jellyfish, I've met some who very reverently think that some of our beliefs simply are not rational. They're mysterious, they have to be held by faith, not reason.

To this I'd just begin by noting that the opposite of faith is not reason; it is sight (cf. 2 Corinthians 5:7).

But are some of our faith-tenets irrational? Two that I hear cited specifically are the Trinity, and the Virgin Birth.

The second example is just plain silly. I have never understood how this can be an issue to anyone who believes Genesis 1:1, and thus grants the premise of a God who created everything out of nothing. It's like saying, "Everything out of nothing? Sure! But make an existing egg alive without a sperm? No way!" Canons of rational thought are not even stretched, let alone violated, by the fact of the Creator and Ruler thus operating within His creation.

How about the Trinity? Surely the doctrine that God is three and one is not rational?

When I informally debated a Jesus-only heretic on the radio once, he described the Trinity as the belief that "God is three people and one person at the same time." That belief is irrational; if that were what the doctrine of the Trinity meant, I would agree with him. God is not one in one way, and three in the same way.

Yes, the Trinity, stated that way, is irrational. That statement is also irrelevant. Because Biblically-instructed Christians do not believe this.


(By the way, this is a classical straw man argument. You'll meet it in every anti-Trinitarian cultist or heretic. The procedure is as old as dirt: mis-state, then refute the mis-statement, then declare victory. This is yet another reason why it is so vital that we know what we believe better than those whom we seek to evangelize.)

The Trinity is the Biblical teaching that there is but one God (Deuteronomy 6:4), and that this one God is Father (2 Peter 1:17), Son (John 1:1), and Spirit (Acts 5:3-4). The simplest way I have been able to understand and express the truth is that God is one in one way, and three in another. Or, we could say that God is one "what" (i.e. one as to His essence), and three "who's" (i.e. three as to His persons).

Now, do we understand the Trinity exhaustively? Of course not! How exactly does God manage being what He is? We don't really need to know, since we'll never need to be God. Nor should the finite expect to understand the infinite exhaustively. It is as C. S. Lewis says:

If Christianity was something we were making up, of course we could make it easier. But it is not. We cannot compete, in simplicity, with people who are inventing religions. How could we? We are dealing with Fact. Of course anyone can be simple if he has no facts to bother about. (Mere Christianity [Macmillan: 1960], p. 145.)

But we know enough to love Him, to worship Him, and to discern truth from error. And we know enough to know that there is nothing irrational about the doctrine.

Is Christianity rational? I daresay it's the only worldview, ultimately, that is.

Put another way: if it isn't rational, it isn't Christianity.

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The Holy Spirit is not a failed Ed McMahon

by Dan Phillips

Re-post from 12/14/2006, very slightly edited.

Most of our readers are old enough to remember Ed McMahon, genial MC for The Tonight Show, with Johnny Carson. His job was to announce the show, and introduce Johnny Carson. Then he sat out there, played straight man to Johnny, laughed at his jokes, made Carson look good.

Through the years, Carson had various guest hosts including, I think, Seinfeld, Leno, Letterman, and Brenner. Never, as far as I know, Ed McMahon.

(Here's a funny thing: I'll bet scores of folks are already offended at this post, without even knowing for certain where I'm going with it.)

My allusion to McMahon has one point, and one only: McMahon's job was go make another person look good, to draw attention to him. It was to produce anticipation, and then, with his famous "Heeeeere's Johnny!", to bring on the star of the show.

If the camera had remained on McMahon, if the spotlight had been trained on him, immediately we'd have known something was very wrong. Ed wasn't the focus. Nor have I ever heard that McMahon resented his role. In fact, when he wrote a book, it was titled Here's Johnny!, not Hey, Look at Me! McMahon's job was defined, he embraced it, and he did it well.

So, where am I going with this? Am I suggesting that the Holy Spirit, then, is like Ed McMahon? In virtually no way. The august Person of God the Holy Spirit produced Scripture (2 Peter 1:21), was involved in Creation (Genesis 1:2), empowered Jesus' ministry (Luke 4:14), is the mode of believers' immersion into Christ (1 Corinthians 12:13), seals us until the day of redemption (Ephesians 4:30), and a great deal more. He is God.

But there is one point of analogy, and one only: the delight and joy of the Holy Spirit is not to train attention upon Himself. The Holy Spirit's great love, fascination, and focus, is the Lord Jesus Christ.

Before the Incarnation, the Spirit moved in the prophets. And of what did He speak through them? Among other things, He spoke of the sufferings of Christ, and of His glories to follow (1 Peter 1:11).

The Holy Spirit performed the miracle by which the virgin, Mary, became mother to the human nature of the Messiah (Matthew 1:18, 20; Luke 1:35). He appeared at Jesus' baptism, not to flutter in mid-air while until everyone noticed and admired Him, but to rest on Christ, to mark Him out as Yahweh's anointed (Matthew 3:16; cf. Luke 4:18).

And so the power of the Spirit continued in the ministry of Jesus, to guide Him in what He did (Matthew 4:1), and to bring glory and honor to Jesus, marking Him as God's Son (Matthew 12:28; Acts 10:38). This He did preeminently in Jesus' resurrection from the dead (Romans 1:4).

And what would the Spirit do after Christ's resurrection and ascension? More of the same. "He will glorify me," Jesus says of the Spirit, "for he will take what is mine and declare it to you" (John 16:14). It is worth repetition: "He will glorify me." In fact, the Greek is a bit more emphatic: "That one, Me will He glorify." The Spirit will come to bring glory, and it is to Jesus that He will bring this glory.

Imagine that. God though He is, personal though He is, the Spirit's aim is not to glorify Himself. It is to glorify Jesus. And how does the Holy Spirit do that? By imparting inerrant revelation to the apostles, revelation which we have today in the Bible alone. He did this by granting them inerrant memory of Jesus' words (John 14:26), by bearing witness to them about Jesus (John 15:26), by convicting the world of truths related in each case to Jesus (John 16:8-11), and by continuing to tell them the "many things" that Jesus still had to say to them (John 16:12-13). Jesus emphasizes this last point, assuring the apostles that the Spirit would not speak aph' heautou, from Himself, but rather from Jesus.

When the Holy Spirit wrote a book, what was it about? At least one has to confess that the Holy Spirit's recurrent theme, strain, melody, was the person and work of Christ (Luke 24:25-27, 44-46; Acts 3:18; 10:43; 24:14; 26:22-23). If I may put it this way, you could almost re-title the New Testament "Here's Jesus."

Does it not follow, then, that the Spirit's presence and prevalence will show the impress of His personality, His grand interest?

So how do you know when the Spirit is present and prevalent in a man? By how the man relates to Jesus. He confesses Jesus as Lord (1 Corinthians 12:13). He has the character of Jesus (Galatians 5:22-23). He moves men to confess the incarnation of Jesus (1 John 4:2). He makes the presence and person of Christ real.

A man full of the Holy Spirit will be a great lover of Jesus, whom the Spirit loves, and of that great work of the Spirit, the Scriptures. That is, he will love Jesus, and he will love that Spirit-breathed witness to Christ, the written Word. He will passionately care about the truths of Christ, and of the Word. That will be the proof of the Spirit's rule in his heart.

So how can we evaluate a movement whose icon is a descending dove, who wishes thus to identify itself by a peculiar view of the Spirit and His works? What are we forced to conclude about a movement whose great concern is insisting on a few of what they mis-identify as the Spirit's gifts, after changing the definition and description He Himself had given in the Word?

What of men or women who wish to be distinguished from all other Christians by their view of the Spirit's work? People who do not tend to get much exercised when the person and work of Christ, and the Word of Christ, are misrepresented, attacked, slighted, smeared, rejected either outright or by implication—but who fly into action if anyone expresses skepticism about The Gifts{tm}? Who are known not for their robust defense of the inerrancy and sufficiency of Scripture, nor of penal, substitutionary atonement, nor of the truth of by-grace-alone, forensic justification, nor of the imputed righteousness of Christ, nor of the exclusivity of Christ's claims and Gospel, nor of the objective nature of the Word's truth—but for the right to label an activity "prophecy" or "tongues," despite the fact that it does not approach the Spirit-breathed, Biblical definition?

As a pastor I again and again observed folks who could never be content in a church that seeks to be Christ-centered, and to preach the Word, if it doesn't engage in certain peripheral activities. They can't "feel the Spirit" without certain worship-styles, entertainments, play-times. For them, "feeling the Spirit"—not preaching Christ—is the be-all and end-all.

More to the point, what would the Spirit of God make of such a movement? Does it bear His impress, His mark? In Scripture, He is everywhere present and active, but He is always pointing to Christ, to the Father, to the work and words of God. Consider this: in contrast to the Father and the Son, no Scripture (that I can find) presents the Spirit as prayed to nor directly addressed, nor does any verse command believers to do so. I can't say that I'm sure I know what that means, but it means something.

To make another imperfect analogy, it is as if the Spirit's delight is to grab hold of the spotlight, and then to bring all attention to the Star of the show, Jesus Christ. But if we turn to the spotlight and focus on it, and on the one who mans it, can we think that His intent is honored?

What would be the mark of a genuine movement of the Spirit? Would it not be love for Christ, and for His Word, with resultant godliness and holiness?

... and not fascination with the Spirit?

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Sweeping up after the Poythress articles

by Dan Phillips

Since JT "still thinks" Poythress' post is worth recommending, and since Frank (and I) still think it's still hollow, and since I had the joyous chaos of a lot of welcome house guests and much happy busy-ness, I'll run my summary thoughts (which links to the previous three posts) by you once again. Because you really need to remember the startlingly scant garb adorning this particular potentate (I refer to the argument, not the arguer), I remind you of this from August, 2010.

Assuming the argument* of the three Poythress articles (starting here), let's look at two questions.

First: if they aren't spiritual gifts,
what are they?

There is no Scriptural authority for calling these activities "spiritual gifts," in the 1 Corinthians 12 sense. Anyone with a robust Biblical grasp of the sufficiency of Scripture should find that fact sobering, even pivotal.

But if you can't call these hunches, strong impressions, vivid dreams and all "spiritual gifts," then what do you call them?

I have a bold proposal: what if we call them hunches, strong impressions, vivid dreams?


The chattery negative reaction many would fling back in response is very telling. You'll note I've never argued that hunches, strong impressions, and vivid dreams are without any significance. I just argue that they have no divine authority, and often signify nothing of any import.

And there's the rub, for all sorts of Christianoids. To them, all this Bibley stuff is too cerebral and "out-there." They crave the vivid immediacy of feelings and experiences. More than that, they insist on attaching some sort of spiritual significance or divine authority to their vibrations and emanations. More than that, they like being able to imagine that they have an individual hotline to God, through which He whispers sweet nothings into their ears, and theirs alone.

And it's a nice plus not to have to make an actual rational, Biblical case for their opinions.  "The Lord told me" or "I felt the Lord move my heart to" or "I was praying, and I just really felt led" trumps anything short of a specific Biblical prohibition... and sometimes, even that.

But if we (novel thought!) begin insisting that everything we do in God's name be done only with express Biblical warrant, all that must change. Everyone will be absolutely free to say, "I just feel," or "I have a hunch" — but our feelings and hunches will have to stand or fall by their own merits. We'll have to make a reasoned case, or confess our inability to do so. If we have earned a reputation as Biblically-savvy, mature souls with sound judgment, they'll have some weight. If we're silly, shallow, emotional tumbleweeds, well, not so much.

As I said, if some sharp cookie like my wife or many of my friends says they have an uneasy feeling about something, I take it seriously. I consider it very possible that a dozen alarm-bells are going off at a subliminal level in their sharp, perceptive, Biblically-informed minds. I see the moving of their thoughts as being under the providential control of God (cf. Proverbs 21:1), and I'll factor it in to any decision-making.

But unless it's attached to some Bible verses, I'll not assign any Divine authority to it.

Second: what do we do about them?

My three thoughts will be fairly blunt and direct. (Readers gasp in astonishment.)

One: we need to bring our language under Biblical discipline. Don't call what isn't prophecy "prophecy." Don't say "the Lord told me" if you're not about to quote a Bible verse. Don't try to legitimatize silliness by forcing a Biblical label on it. Let a prophecy be the unique, enormous, stop-the-presses thing it was, and let a hunch be a hunch.

However, if you are a really-really "continuationist," then stop pussy-footing about. Get on with it, man! Have Crossway issue an ESV with lots and lots of blank pages in the end, so you can "continue" to ink in new Scripture. Just be sure to tell everyone that that's where you're coming from.

Two: we need to grow up. Repent of the paralyzing, navel-gazing, self-absorbed fascination with the murky world of sorta semi-gifts that impart sorta semi-revelation. Get into real revelation; get into Scripture.

You can take this to the bank: I have yet to meet the fake-gift-obsessed charismatic who is what he is because he learned and internalized all of Scripture, and just really needed something else to do.

We've got 66 books of pure, real, binding revelation. We don't know them like we should. We don't preach them like we should. We don't live them like we should.

So grow up, focus, and get with God's program.

Three: anyone claiming to speak for God apart from Scripture should be disciplined. The Bible is pretty fierce on the subject of speaking in God's name without authority, without authorization (Deuteronomy 18:20). Here's my reasoning: if in Israel false prophecy warranted the death penalty, should it not warrant excommunication in the Christian church?


We're going to have to cook, or get out of the kitchen. If we believe the Canon is closed and Scripture is sufficient, then we believe God is not speaking new words apart from Scripture. Anyone claiming to mediate such revelation is in serious error. If we won't get serious about that, we're not serious about Scripture's sufficiency.

There.

Happy? Great. Mad? Oh well. Sorry.

But you won't walk off saying "Hunh, wonder what Phillips really thinks."

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*That means, once again, the meta will assume that position, rather than debate it.

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

UPDATE: Trogdor made a trenchant observation pairing two Justin Taylor posts, and probably making my point more briefly and effectively than I did. In fact, it may give me an idea for a Next!

Visionary truths (Proverbs 29:18)

by Dan Phillips

From June, 2006; still timely, unfortunately.

It would be awfully hard to pick the most frequently-abused and misused text of Scripture. That in itself may make a fun (?) post someday.

But surely well up on the list would have to be: "Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he" (Proverbs 29:18 KJV). That poor, hapless soldier has been pressed into the service of ideologically foreign masters beyond anything that the laws of kindness should permit. How many church building funds, bus contests, motivational seminars and the like have been launched under the mistaken aegis of this verse?

It's a classic example of anachronism. We have this word today, "vision," that means "An ideal or a goal toward which one aspires." This verse has that word in it. Conclusion: this verse must be talking about how important it is to have goals.

Well, the conclusion is true, but the text in this case is a pretext. No one will find the underlying Hebrew term chazon used in this way. It just isn't. But you will find a consistent use of the term to indicate prophetic revelation, such as we have today in Scripture alone (cf. Isaiah 1:1; Daniel 8:1, 15; Hosea 12:11; Obadiah 1; Nahum 1:1, etc.).

And so I render the verse, "Without revelation a people runs wild; But the [people] keeping the Law, happy is it." Similarly the ESV, "Where there is no prophetic vision the people cast off restraint, but blessed is he who keeps the law." It isn't at all about an individual, nor a group, gathering together and forming goals. It isn't about praying and "feeling led." It isn't about dreams (in the non-revelatory sense), targets, programs -- in fact, it isn't about any human endeavor at all.

The verse is about our need communally as well as individually for the Word of God. Any half-decent newspaper -- and I admit "half-decent" is setting the bar too high, these days -- illustrates the precise and almost technical truth of the verse. The more we cast off the absolutes of God's word, the more our culture plummets towards lawless chaos.

I say that to say this: I was struck in my reading today by a genuine statement of "vision" in the above sense, of ambition. It is in the apostle's words: "...I make it my ambition to preach the gospel, not where Christ has already been named, lest I build on someone else's foundation..." (Romans 15:20). To this, I append a few observations.

First, I'm struck by the responsibly task-oriented nature of this ambition. Paul aims at what he can normally control, not what he cannot control. Paul does not say, "I make it my ambition to win ___ souls," nor "to plant ___ churches," nor "to have ___ regular attenders within ___ weeks," nor "to build ___ buildings." All these goals vary in terms of worthiness, but they all have this in common: Paul controls none of them. His only way to "control" would be to engage in tactics, methods, manipulation, and we already know that the apostle will have none of that (2 Corinthians 2:17).

All these are effects, and they are in God's hands (Proverbs 16:1, 9). Paul may plant, he may water, but only God can cause actual life to spring up (cf. 1 Corinthians 3:5-9).

So Paul focuses on his part, the part of faithfulness (cf. 1 Corinthians 4:2). Even what he is, and what he does, depends on the Lord, and the Lord always retains veto-power and the right to redirect providentially. But it is Paul's part to plan (Proverbs 16:1 again), and plan he does.

Then I'm struck by the specificity of the plan. It isn't the sort of specificity that some motivational speakers urge, and in some contexts greater specificity is a good and necessary aim. But Paul's plan is specific enough that it excludes some goals, while targeting others. He can know, at any point, whether or not he is accomplishing what he aims at doing.

If you aim at nothing, you'll hit it every time. This is an axiom I've hammered out on the anvil of far too much experience. My beloved wife is very goal-oriented, and she's superb at setting terrific goals. I remember a day she engineered at Disneyland with our (then) two children, and it was like the most precise ballet, starting at 8am and ending at 2am. What we packed into those hours makes for a breath-taking memory. Well over a decade later, I still marvel.

I am, to be charitable to myself by vast understatement, less so than she.

Paul does not aim at nothing. He aims at something. It's a big goal, it's a lofty goal, it's a Christ-centered and Christ-honoring goal. It's a loving goal. It's a measurable goal. It is specific, and yet it is wide-open. It is set in time, but it has an eye on eternity. It allows for readjusting specifics (Africa? Spain? Australia?), yet also rules out other alternatives (not Jerusalem, not Judea, not Samaria).

Now let me conclude with a little end-run around myself. Does Proverbs 29:18 have nothing to say about forming goals? No; just not what it is commonly taken to say.

The verse is not talking about how important it is to formulate goals. However, it does apply to the absolute necessity of subordinating our goals, plans, methods, tactics, and values to the revealed Word of God.

Paul knew what sort of thing he should be doing from Jesus' words recorded in Matthew 28:18-20, and from His own words to him by special revelation (Acts 22:21). The specific methods and means were not spelled out; they were to be filled in by the apostle.

So you're a wife, and want to set goals for your family. Are your goals ruled and overruled by Ephesians 5:22-24? You, husband, are your goals formulated under Ephesians 5:25ff.? Likewise pastors, employees, bosses; politicians, writers, friends, children. Have you lined up all your goals consciously and deliberately under all the revealed Word?

Set goals, set specific goals, set adjustable goals; and do it within the framework and values laid down in the inerrant, abiding, sufficient Word of God.

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Non Sola Scriptura: the Blackaby view of God's will — 2

by Dan Phillips

Seemed timely in April of 2009; seems timely now.

[Conclusion of Tuesday's post]

Now to the most potentially disastrous aspect of this teaching, in pastoral terms: living it out.

Non-moral choices. In their eagerness to downplay the Scriptures' sufficiency, the Blackabys point out that God told many people to do things that were not reasonable nor morally necessary, such as where Abram or Isaac chose to live, or whether Peter or Andrew continued in their employment (p. 46). Remember this: God might lead us to do things that "make us uncomfortable" (p. 44), are not logical, and are "unorthodox" (p. 46; they do not mean doctrinally unorthodox), and may involve "surrender[ing] ... goals and comforts in order to become involved in God's activity" (p. 46).

The terrible threat. In what areas does God tell us what to do? Choice of school, career, church, ministry... even choice of mate. Oh? Does that mean that there is "only one right person"? Yep (p. 79). What if I miss that one right person? God may give us (second-best — or third? seventeenth? four hundred thirtieth?) "marriage and a fulfilled life," but "Failing to walk with God always carries a cost..." (p. 80, emphases added).

Whoa! Pause. Seriously, stop everything and think that one over.

Imagine you are a poor soul, married to a poor soul afflicted with the Blackaby view. Your spouse believes that he missed the "one [that was] best suited" for him (p. 79). He missed "the life partner He has chosen for you" (p. 79), "God's best" (ibid.), "that someone who would have been God's special gift to" him (p. 80). Every time he looks at you, he might be thinking, "second-best." Every time he says he loves you, he might be thinking, "but not like I'd have loved that special someone."

No lie. I am not making this up. I don't have to. I actually knew a girl, decades ago, who lived in fear of just this situation.

Her friend's mother "felt" she was "called" to be a missionary. Ah, but she met and married a man who wasn't so "called." And now this woman would spend the rest of her life knowing that she had missed God's calling, had missed God's will for her life! She had settled for second-best. She had married second-best.

Did you get that? That was the woman's attitude, and she communicated that to her daughter! About her father! (And wouldn't that mean that the daughter was second-best, too? Not "the child who should have been"?)

So the daughter knew, and now her friend knew! Word was really getting around, about this poor sap. Can you count the things Biblically wrong in this picture so far? Even beyond that the whole concept is the precise opposite of what Scripture says on the subject (1 Corinthians 7:39)?

So now her friend lived in fear that she might meet and love the wrong man — or, more to the point, any man other than the one right man — and spend the rest of her life knowing she was out of God's best will for her life.

See? "Train-wreck."


"Ludicrous"? So how far does this go? What does this "will" include? The Blackabys must get that question a lot, and it clearly stings them. Their reaction is as rhetorically strong as it is logically vacant.

One of the most ludicrous questions people ask is: "Should I seek God's will about everything? Must I pray and ask Him what brand of toothpaste I should buy and which breakfast cereal I should eat?" ...Clearly some mundane aspects of our lives are not life-and-death matters; nor will they influence eternity. They simply require wisdom in our decisions (p. 47)

But why is it "ludicrous"? And how is that "clear," given the argument they've been making? How do we know they "are not life-and-death matters" that will not influence eternity? After all, remember that the Blackabys belabored the point that God had specific directions for "mundane," non-moral matters such as where to live, where to eat dinner, where to sit to eat dinner, whether to stay in a given business. How do we know what God considers "mundane," given that the Blackabys demand that He direct every detail of our lives, just as Jesus did with the apostles?

No eternal consequences? How do we know there are not eternal consequences? The Blackabys ridicule the (broadly and deeply Biblical) "extreme view that everything we do, right down to the smallest detail of our lives, is prescribed by God" (p. 61). Their phrasing is characteristically sloppy here, but they seem to be denying the pan-Biblical truth of providence.

Well then, if God does not actually have a handle on "the smallest detail" of my life, and if He has all sorts of things He wants me, Dan Phillips, to figure out that He wants me to do — without the Bible, by struggling to hear and discern His voice and apply all the complex Blackaby-invented signs and tests — then how can I know where it stops?

Toothpaste and eternity. I'm absolutely serious. Think about it. The Blackabys scoff at toothpaste-selection. Well, how do I know?

If I pick this tube of toothpaste right in front of me, at eye-level, I will get to the check out line a few seconds earlier than if I bend down and reach back to pick the one near the floor, where the front packages are missing. Suppose that means that I will pick checkstand 12, whereas otherwise I would have picked checkstand 8. Suppose God wanted — in the Blackaby-God's weak, whispery, ambiguous way — for me to pick checkstand 8, because He was hoping I would then hear His next little mumbly nudge telling me to witness to that checker, because He had been preparing her heart to hear the Gospel from me.


But alas! I pick the closer toothpaste. I go to checkstand 12. I am now out of God's perfect will. Uh-oh. What happens when I am out of God's perfect, individual will? The Blackabys told me: "The consequences" can be "disastrous" (p. 48)! And so...

• ...the checker doesn't hear the Gospel from me, and goes to Hell instead of Heaven.
• ...I walk out into the parking lot 12 seconds early, am killed by a white van! Aigh! Bam! Dead!
  
• I never write that commentary on Proverbs that would have changed hermeneutical history, or that book on Calvinistic Dispensationalism that would have brought all Biblical Christians together in the truth, or preach to tens of thousands of others God was preparing to hear the Gospel just from me!
• ...and they all go to Hell, too!

And all this, every bit of this, is my fault — because I failed to discern and obey that whispery, mumbly, vague and ambiguous "voice of God" that the Blackabys have taught me is absolutely essential to Christian living.

Now maybe you chuckle, or maybe you're angry. But there are NO OBJECTIVE OR BIBLICAL CONTROLS in the Blackabys' construct to rule any of this out!

That's not a big deal?

Obey/disobey. This is not an exaggeration. The Blackabys constantly speak of divining this whispery, vaporous leading of God in terms of obedience and disobedience (pp. 45, 61, etc.) And well they should! If it is God's will, then I must obey, mustn't I? After all, God is speaking! Does it get more authoritative than that? Can anyone think of a time when God says, "Do A," when it is morally indifferent to obey or disobey? Disobeying God is the very definition of sin (James 4:17).

Yet I am not sure the Blackabys have even thought this through, even though they're famous for advocating this view. They insist that this will of God, this voice, that they want people to pursue may well not involve choices "between right and wrong" (pp. 42, 43). Huh? If God tells me to do A, doesn't that make it a choice between right and wrong? If He says, in that whispery, unsure murmur I'm to pant after, "Dan, do A," and I do B — haven't I done wrong? Even if God is "saying," "Dan, buy a white car," and I stubbornly insist on buying a car with a real color — am I not doing wrong? Am I not sinning?

And this brings us to a question I really would like to ask the Blackabys.

Supposing I was (somehow) born untainted by Adam's sin.
Supposing I never sinned in my entire life. And then...
Supposing God was "telling" me (Blackaby-style) to become a truck-driver, and I became a cook...
...would Jesus have had to die to keep me from going to Hell for being a cook instead of a truck-driver?

Or for picking the wrong seminary? Marrying the wrong person? Buying the wrong toothpaste? Going to the wrong showing of "Fireproof"?

Here is where I would find out how serious they were about their notions. If God directs me to do something, and I do not do that, then I have sinned, and I deserve Hell for it.

It's just not funny anymore, is it?

No telling who picks up a book. Perhaps most readers will assume the Blackabys' work will fall into the hands of basically stable, sober-minded people. They won't go nuts with the Blackabys' theories. In other words, they won't really take them seriously.

But why not? Suppose, instead, a less-stable, less well-taught, more obsessive person comes on their work. He shifts into overdrive at the thought of discerning this uncomfortable, inconveniencing, fantastic guidance from God. Now everything and anything is fraught with numinous overtones! Every "nudge" (their word) or circumstance or random word or even (all possible means of God's guidance, according to the Blackabys; cf. pp. 56-59) might be the voice of God, speaking to him! Miss it, and face terrible consequences!

So this poor wretch flees the job he's trained for, yanks his family across the country, moves them into a cardboard box to pick over scraps while he starts harassing strangers in Christ's name, because of a voice he thinks he's hearing... and where could it end? Do not dismiss this: remember, God might lead us to do things that "make us uncomfortable" (p. 44), are not logical, and are "unorthodox" (p. 46), and may involve "surrender[ing] ... goals and comforts" (p. 46).


If there's a one-for-one carry-on from the Bible, maybe this unstable soul will "feel moved" to have his family live on grasshoppers and honey, like John the Immerser. Or maybe he'll "feel led" to walk around naked, like Isaiah; or cook his food over dung, like Ezekiel. Or maybe he'll tell a ship's captain to throw him overboard, to end a storm, like Jonah.

There are no real, objective, Biblical controls against such behavior in this reckless article.

This is one of the most pastorally-irresponsible articles I've read, from orthodox Christian writers.

Conclusion: worse? Yes. In conclusion, I think this view of God's will is worse bondage than Pharisaism in this regard.

At least in Pharisaism, you knew where you stood. If you threw up a rock on the Sabbath and caught it with the same hand, you’d violated the Sabbath. It may be a silly rule, but it’s discrete, it's distinct, it's there.

With this view, you never know! You might have sinned merely by picking up the rock! Or maybe you picked up the wrong rock! Or maybe you picked it up with the wrong hand! You never know! Since the Blackabys stress that this "will" isn't necessarily about right and wrong, it could be about anything... and so everything becomes a matter of right and wrong!

There is no basis for knowing, no objective control, as long as it is not directly against Scripture.

Summary. After pro forma niceties about Scripture, the Blackabys assure Christians that what they really need for a dynamic, personal, God-pleasing relationship is not to be found there. They would send them on a lifelong rabbit chase for which Scripture can offer no guidance, because it envisions no such pursuit.

Among the products are irrational, unstable, irresponsible and/or chaotic lives. Unbelievers (and believers) who are wronged, hurt, or simply appalled at reckless behavior by the "I-just-felt-led" set will not glorify God for it. Just "play the God-card," and you're off the hook.

What glorifies God is not a bunch of people acting like fools in His name. I have this notion that God knows best what will really glorify Him. Hear Him:

See, I have taught you statutes and rules, as the LORD my God commanded me, that you should do them in the land that you are entering to take possession of it. 6 Keep them and do them, for that will be your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples, who, when they hear all these statutes, will say, ‘Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.’ 7 For what great nation is there that has a god so near to it as the LORD our God is to us, whenever we call upon him? 8 And what great nation is there, that has statutes and rules so righteous as all this law that I set before you today?
(Deuteronomy 4:5-8)

A better way. Thank God Scripture points us in no such direction! Thank God that Scripture is wholly sufficient for teaching, correcting and directing us, so that we may be fully equipped to serve God (2 Timothy 3:15-17)! God does talk to us. He talks to us through His living, truly-sufficient Word (Psalm 119:24; Proverbs 6:20-23; Hebrews 3:7-11; 4:12).

And thank God that He does in fact exhaustively control everything that comes to pass, so that His children can never put themselves out of the sphere of His love and blessing and good will (Psalm 115:3; Proverbs 16:1, 4, 9, 33; Romans 8:28-39; Ephesians 1:11).

PS — I did ask God to guide me in writing this review. If you agree with the Blackaby position... how do you know He didn't?

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addendum — after yesterday's post, a reader offered a word of testimony, which I've shared here.

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