The danger in "the new kind of Christian" running rampant among the church is that it is based on a half truth; such as most deceptions are. Many being swayed by it's appealing theology are simply lacking biblical knowlege....or worse, the true transformation of the cross. ("My people are destroyed for a lack of knowledge" Hosea 4:6)
The tenets of the postmodern movement go something like this:
Jesus was above all, meek and gentle. He loved sinners and came to save them. He did not come to condemn the world. We are to imitate Christ.
So far so good, right? I don't know a Christian who doesn't believe those things.
But without the rest of the gospel, we are led to stop here and conclude that compassion trumps sin, and ultimately, since we're all sinners anyway, sin is really not an issue. In fact, all we can really do about sin is just shrug our own shoulders and pat another on the back, thankful that it's all under the blood.
Problem: if we serve Jesus, who indeed covered every last sin with his blood, we are a new creature. And because of that transformation, if indeed there has been one, we feel differently about sin. We're commanded to flee from it, hate it, fight it, and stop it. AND, our deep love for the Savior begs us to respond in obedience. A blase attitude toward sin has no place in the Christian's life.
Postmodern Christians are slipping toward a tolerance for sin, an abhorrence of the mention of obedience, and claiming to be imitating our Lord Jesus. A popular verse to support the theology is "He was friends with sinners and tax collectors." The implication being, "he hung out in the slums, with the slummy, and just loved on 'em, in case they decided to follow Him."
I had a revelation about this statement this morning...but I'll tell you a bit later!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
6 comments:
Good post, I am looking forward to that revelation. :-)
While Jesus walked amongst a very sinful people, the Romans, He never preached against them or condemned them. This was a culture that regularly committed acts of cruelty, considered homosexuality to be a healthy past-time, and so on and so forth. Jesus had 33 years to expose and preach against this sinful culture.
Yet we have no record of Him doing so. What we do have a record of is Jesus blasting the Pharisees (who were highly focused on sin).
How do you deal with this as it relates to your post, as it appears to go against some of what you are preaching?
Your comment is precisely the danger of the "new" Christian theology. It is not correct ;-)
Jesus walked among sinners and preached against sin...over and over. I never said he "blasted" sinners, but He spoke truthfully against the abominations. ("If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off..."..."Woe to you Chorazin!...if the works which were done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago...but I say to you, it will be more tolerable for them in the day of judgment than for you."
Furthermore, his mission was clear: "Come and follow me. DENY yourself. TURN from your sin. REPENT. Go and SIN NO MORE."
And there are many more examples.
Secondly, he blasted the Pharisees NOT because they were focused on sin; they were focused on keeping ceremonial practices without obeying the commands to love, and to protect the widows and the poor from oppression, etc. He blasted them for being hypocrites...refusing to believe on the Son of God. That's big.
And thirdly, the biggest mistake postmoderners make in assessing truth is that they focus on one area of Scripture (Jesus' words) and ignore the rest.
The inspired Word of God is accurate and useful for instruction from start to finish. And Christians must take the whole counsel of Scripture to make sense of our duties and responsibilities. I could take one verse out here and there and justify almost anything I want to believe.
You correct others very easily.
You charactarize post-moderns very easily, though many would say they don't resemble the box you tell them they fit into.
I agree that we must "take the whole counsel of Scripture into consideration," as you say. But if what you think "the whole counsel" says looks decidedly different from what the Word of God looked like when He walked the earth, then it should give pause for concern.
huh?
Amen, sista. Couldn't have said it better myself. People want an easy way into heaven but there isn't one. Jesus said, "Narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it." Doesn't sound like "all grace" to me.
Post a Comment