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et's face it: steadfast immovability is one of those virtues that has lost its luster in these postmodern times. "Epistemological humility" is the new supreme and cardinal virtue. We're supposed to refuse to be certain or dogmatic about anything.Our culture thinks rank skepticism (or even spiritual nihilism) is humility, and hipster Christians have overcontextualized themselves to the point where they seem to think that's true. Strong convictions—the very thing Paul calls for here—are out. If you don't undergo some kind of major paradigm shift in your theology and your worldview every few years or so, you are not only hopelessly behind the times, you are incurably arrogant, too.
That's why, according to any postmodern way of thinking, dogmatism is to be avoided at all costs, diversity is to be cultivated no matter what, and tolerance means never having to say "You're wrong."
That's not "humility"; that's unbelief.
It's not arrogant to have firm, immovable biblical convictions. In fact, it is our duty to be precise and thorough in our doctrine, and to come to strong, mature, biblically-informed convictions. Paul even named this as one of the necessary evidences of authentic faith: "If indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard" (Colossians 1:23). We are not to be "children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine" (Ephesians 4:14). Stability is a good and precious virtue—a necessary virtue for church leaders especially. Peter wrote, "Take care that you are not carried away with the error of lawless people and lose your own stability" (2 Peter 3:17).
Watch out for those who undergo regular, major paradigm shifts in their thinking or revamp their whole theology every few years—avoid them. Double-minded men are unstable in all their ways.
Yeah, but isn't it wrong to be obstinate and inflexible?
Well, it certainly can be, but do you know what the Bible identifies as the very worst kind of stubbornness? It's the obstinacy of refusing to be steadfast in our conviction that the Word of the Lord is true. Scripture condemns such people as "a stubborn and rebellious generation, a generation whose heart was not steadfast" (Psalm 78:8). How were they "stubborn" without being steadfast? "Their heart was not steadfast toward him; they were not faithful to his covenant" (v. 37). That's the very height of arrogance.
"Stand firm." That's a command. "Stand firm in the faith." The definite article is significant. There is only one true faith, and if your faith in Scripture isn't strong enough to affirm even that fact without equivocation, you really need to ponder very carefully what Paul is saying here. Because in all likelihood, that question will be put to you by an unbeliever ("Is conscious faith in Jesus really the only way to heaven?"), and you need to be ready to give an answer. I'm amazed and appalled at the parade of evangelical celebrities who have flubbed that question on Larry King Live or other national platforms.
If you are someone who undergoes regular worldview-sized shifts in your thinking; if your worldview changes every time a new fad or bestselling book comes along; if you are by nature fascinated with new perspectives and radical doctrines—don't become a blogger or use the Internet as a place to do your thinking out loud. Please. People like that only sow doubt and confusion. The Christian is supposed to be like a tree, planted by rivers of water—steadfast, immovable, growing in a steady, constant fashion rather than lurching wildly from one point of view to another all the time. He should be full of life and energy, but staunch and unwavering in his faith.Of course I'm not suggesting that it's always inappropriate to change your mind—even on the big issues. You may have heard me making the case somewhere that if you're an Arminian, you ought to rethink your soteriology and adopt a more biblical view. I personally experienced precisely that kind of large-scale theological shift several years ago, and a few years before that, while reading Warfield's Studies in Perfectionism and comparing it with Scripture, my whole understanding of sanctification got an overhaul.
There's nothing wrong with that, as long as you don't become addicted to the idea of remodeling your doctrine just for the sake of having something new to play with. Bible doctrines are not Lego bricks—toys you can tear apart and put them back together in any shape you want whenever you tire of your most recent plaything. We're not supposed to be like the Athenian Philosophers in Acts 17:21, who "would spend their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new."
The goal of our study should not be the constant shifting of our beliefs—but Christlike steadfastness—solid, settled, mature convictions.And let me add this: if you do abandon Arminianism and become a Calvinist; if you leave one eschatalogical position and take up another one; if you undergo any major doctrinal shift—don't suddenly act like that one point of doctrine is more important than all others. Don't blog or talk about it constantly to the exclusion of everything else. Spend some time settling into your new convictions before you pretend to have expertise you frankly haven't had time to develop.
I think the tendency of fresh Calvinists to become cocky and obsessive about the fine points of predestination is one of the things that makes Calvinism most odious to non-Calvinists. Don't do that. It's not a sign of maturity, and you're not truly steadfast in the faith unless you are truly mature.
That is what Paul is calling for here: maturity, groundedness, stability. That's the heart of legitimate Christian conviction.
In fact, let's be clear about this: What Paul wanted to see in the Corinthians was not the ability to argue with zeal and vigor in favor of a particular point of view. Immature college kids can do that better than anyone else. What Paul was calling for is firm belief, settled assurance, confidence in the truth of God's Word, and an unwavering heart. In short, spiritual maturity. And that's not an easy thing to come by in a culture like Corinth, where the fads and fashions of this world seem to have more appeal than the eternal word of God.
Listen to what Charles Hodge said about this command:
Do not consider every point of doctrine an open question. Matters of faith, doctrines for which you have a clear revelation of God, such for example as the doctrine of the resurrection, are to be considered settled, and, as among Christians, no longer matters of dispute. There are doctrines embraced in the creeds of all orthodox churches, so clearly taught in Scripture, that it is not only useless, but hurtful, to be always calling them into question.
"Stand firm in the faith," Paul says, and if you are tempted to tone that down, apologize for it, or explain it away because it conflicts so dramatically with the spirit of this age, then you need to repent of that attitude and ask God to give you more conviction and more courage.
The 
he idea of a progressive gospel seems to have fascinated many. To us that notion is a sort of cross-breed between nonsense and blasphemy. After the gospel has been found effectual in the eternal salvation of untold multitudes, it seems rather late in the day to alter it; and, since it is the revelation of the all-wise and unchanging God, it appears somewhat audacious to attempt its improvement. When we call up before our mind's eye the gentlemen who have set themselves this presumptuous task, we feel half inclined to laugh; the case is so much like the proposal of moles to improve the light of the sun. Their gigantic intellects are to hatch out the meanings of the Infinite! We think we see them brooding over hidden truths to which they lend the aid of their superior genius to accomplish their development!
his blog is not a place where we just think out loud. The stuff we write about tends to focus on a few (mostly important) issues we have thought a lot about and studied with some degree of care—mostly things we're pretty passionate about. Our opinions on such matters do tend to be fixed enough that it would take a lot more to change our minds than the musings of some fresh-faced high-school graduate who is just reacting in the comments section of our blog to an issue he has never before devoted 20 seconds thought to untangling.
Who is more "arrogant"? Someone who refuses to compromise even when popular thinking shifts against him, or the guy who never really settles on any truth and yet constantly argues about everything anyway—not because he himself has stumbled on something he is certain about, but merely because his contempt for other people's strong convictions is the way he justifies his waffling in his own mind?
h, how many there are that are never settled! The tree which should be transplanted every week would soon die. Nay, if it were moved, no matter how skilfully, once every year, no gardener would expect fruit from it. How many Christians there be that are transplanting themselves constantly, even as to their doctrinal sentiments?
las! in these times, certain men glory in being weathercocks; they hold fast nothing; they have, in fact, nothing worth the holding. They believed yesterday, but not that which they believe today, nor that which they will believe tomorrow; and he would be a greater prophet than Isaiah who should be able to tell what they will believe when next the moon doth fill her horns, for they are constantly changing, and seem to have been born under that said moon, and to partake of her changing moods.
he grateful heart runs over because the fountain of grace runs over.
Keep your cup where it is. It is our unwisdom that we forsake the fountain of living waters and apply to the world's broken cisterns. We say in the old proverb, "Let well alone," but we forget this practical maxim with regard to the highest good.
eloved, be stedfast. . . . Do not be as some are, of doubtful mind, who know nothing, and even dare to say that nothing can be known. To such the highest wisdom is to suspect the truth of everything they once knew, and to hang in doubt as to whether there are any fundamentals at all.
itness the changing tune (if you can make it out above the background noise).
I think the old "emerging" movement is collapsing on itself. (See also Scot McKnight's current CT article titled "McLaren Emerging.") That doesn't necessarily mean better things are on the horizon, because I don't think all the recent scrambling, repositioning, and redefining really represents any significant change of thinking among any of these leading figures in the erstwhile "movement." Instead, it's mostly an attempt to move the furniture around, so that everyone has a comfy-chair or sofa to hide behind when critics start pointing out the inappropriateness of the paintings, posters, and graffiti Emergent Village types have hung all over the walls.
here is and always has been a great desire for novelty. We are all the subjects of it: we all like something fresh.
But there are some who are sick with the changeable disease; you see them zealots for a creed today, but all of a sudden you find them deeply immersed in the opposite teaching. Ah, now they have found out something very wonderful: just as the idiot who saw the rainbow, and believed that there was a jewel at the foot of it, ran for miles to seize a glittering sapphire and grasped a piece of glass bottle; so do they forever pursue and never attain.
It is well when the children of Ammon and Moab stand up against the inhabitants of Mount Seir utterly to slay and destroy them; the enemies of God are good at the business of destroying each other. Within a few years [today's] evolutionists will be cut in pieces by some new dreamers. The reigning philosophers of the present period have in them so much of the vitality of madness that they will be a perpetual subject of contempt; and I venture to prophesy that, before my head shall lie in the grave, there will hardly be a notable man left who will not have washed his hands of the present theory.
he tendency of the day is to give up old landmarks and to adopt new ones, and to avow anything rather than the old-fashioned divinity.
Well, my dear friends, if any of you like to try new doctrines, I warn you, that if you be the children of God you will soon be sick enough of those new-fangled notions, those newly invented doctrines, which are continually taught. You may, for the first week, be pleased enough with their novelty; you may wonder at their transcendental spirituality or something else that entices you on; but you will not have lived on them long before you will say, "Alas! alas! I have taken in my hands the apples of Sodom; they were fair to look upon, but they are ashes in my mouth."
cot McKnight's Christianity Today article on the major streams of influence within the Emerging movement
Several of the best-known leaders in evangelical politics are former pastors who have left church ministry behind in order to become full-time lobbyists and political commentators. The evangelical movement as a whole has mirrored that trend for the past couple of decades, I fear—abdicating the teaching ministry in favor of more worldly affairs. Judging from the books that typically rise high on the Christian best-seller lists, evangelicals nowadays are a thousand times more concerned with politics and public relations than with studying and proclaiming Scripture. And it's no accident that the elevation of worldly entertainments in evangelical megachurches has gained popularity right alongside evangelicalism's obsessive craving for clout in the political arena. I'm convinced these trends are closely related. Perhaps I'll blog about that one day.
McKnight acknowledges that he himself is a political liberal at heart, but he also say he is concerned that if Emerging Christians get too caught up in politics, they will repeat the error of the modernist churches who embraced the social gospel and abandoned the biblical gospel in the process. To his credit, McKnight says he is wary of that tendency. He seems to sense, however, that a large segment of the movement is already barreling that direction. ("Sometimes . . . when I look at emerging politics, I see Walter Rauschenbusch, the architect of the social gospel," he says.)
ere are four items that have been rattling around in my head for a few days. None of them is worth a complete blogpost, but it's time to empty my brain's recycle bin, so here you are:
