............SHE'S NOT HERE.
1. No cowards. State your first and last name. "Anonymous" aint your name.
...SOON .......DUCK!
BURN THE SEMINARY TO SAVE THE CHURCH?
...PERHAPS
In today's church a man can spend $100,000 going to Bible school and seminary for just tuition alone. Then add living expenses for 4 to 7 years without a real income.
Why?
Why are we sending young men and women thousands of miles from their home churches and into decades of debt?
Is someone serving themselves instead of God? How much did Paul charge Timothy to train him for the ministry? Why has the biblical model been replaced by a super-expensive, non-biblical bucket of nonsense like the Bible-school-and-seminary system. Is there another way to get biblical training without this sort of compromise?
I think so. And I'll prove it. A series called "Burn the Seminary" will follow the current series on The Lost Doctrine of Holiness.
Now find all the classes you want in Hebrew, Greek, hermeneutics, philosophy, theology, and apologetics. So go to the JTBA website and find out how to register.
Posts
Comments
12 comments:
Being Biblically accurate REQUIRES cultural sensitivity. Sensitivity, that is, to the first century culture.
Anonymous,
Actually, no. This is wrong for two reasons. First, if your point is hermeneutical, you need to put the New Testament in the cultural context of its time. However, the other 70% of the Bible was NOT written in the first century.
Second, most folks (and Washer here), when saying "culturally sensitive" are referring to adapting the gospel to contemporary culture. (They are not even speaking about hermeneutics.) This is always a lie. The gospel is always the same. Sin and guilt before our Creator is not a cultural idea. It is an eternal, universal fact. It is understood and rejected in all cultures in which it is presented.
Sometime in the near (I hope) future, I wish to write a series of articles on the "relevance" heresy. The idea of relevance is wrong on at least these levels:
1. It's a blasphemy because it seeks to provide a method to accomplish that which God says only He can accomplish. Thus, the man who says one must be relevant to reach the lost is calling God a liar or a fool.
2. It is simply wrong basically. That is to say it is idiotic to suggest one can cause regeneration in another if one speaks the gospel just so.
3. It is disobedient to the Great Commission. In the Great Commission we are given the key to reach the elect in any culture on the planet. Do you know what that is?
4. The idea that the gospel is not already relevant is a lie. Without Christ, you are going to eternal punishment. Any way to save your life eternally is relevant to your situation.
5. "Culturally sensitive" or "relevant" assumes a humanistic motivation for missions. It assumes the reason for missions is to save folks. That is A reason. THE reason is to glorify God. Our obedince always glorifies God, results or not.
6. "Culturally sensitive" assumes that if a certain result level is not accomplished, the preacher did something wrong. Paul "failed" regularly. He simply left and went elsewhere. Jesus' preaching often "failed," as well.
7. "Culturally sensitive" assumes that God's purpose for the gospel is always salvation. This is not true. Only a few will be saved. Scripture makes that clear.
8. It is counter to the biblical doctrine of the depravity of man. It assumes rejection of the gospel is due to something other than an evil heart.
In Christ,
Phil Perkins.
Correct on the First account, my appology. I slipped on the dating. The entire Bible needs to be interpreted inlight of its cultural context, which includes more than just the first century. On the second, however, we need to recognize that language avoids true synonymity. And the term "cultral sensitivity" does not have the same semantic domain as "relevance".
Anonymous,
Neither is commonly used to describe the historical-cultural-grammatical approach to hermeneutics. I have taught hermeneutics at the college level and have never heard either used that way. That is outside the "semantic domain" of either one.
Here's a quick history lesson: Many heretics have used the excuse that they wished to make the faith more acceptable to the folks of their culture. Karl Barth for instance. It is always a heresy.
I John has another term for culture--the world. We are not to mix it with the faith, and we are not to mix with it ourselves. We are only to go and make disciples.
Anyway, you didn't answer my question.
In Christ,
Phil Perkins.
Anonymous,
How would you present the Gospel and be sensitibe or relevant?
Eddie
Eddie,
The better question for folks like that is "Do you present the gospel ever?"
They don't.
In Christ,
Phil Perkins.
"Since Satan comes as a serpent concealed in false teachers and tries to deceive us with error posing as truth, every Christian needs an established judgment in the truths of Christ."
Puritan William Gurnall
Phil,
I found this quote today and thought it applied very well to the questions. Thought you might like it as well.
Eddie
"It has always been the case that the church has had to struggle with aberrant views in its midst. Indeed, the apostle Paul goes so far as to say that 'there must be factions [heresies] among you in order that those who are genuine among you may be recognized' (1 Cor. 11:19).
What is so different, when compared with our more recent history, is that these aberrant views on matters so central and fundamental are not outside the evangelical church but inside it. Not only so, but today these views are masquerading as something they are not. They are offered in all innocence as Christian orthodoxy, whereas, in fact, they come out of a different universe.
What we have is church practice that obliterates the underlying understanding of truth, a methodology for success without too many references to any truth, and a sense that what was once so important in the life of the church can be left behind, unexplored, unappropriated, and without consequences."
David F. Wells, from the foreword in Gary L. W. Johnson & Guy P. Waters, By Faith Alone: Answering the Challenges to the Doctrine of Justification, p. 19
Eddie,
Good quotes. I may post some or all of them.
Phil.
Anonymous,
Paul circumcised Timothy so that he could speak in the local synagogue, I believe. I say that because, Paul made it clear that those that required circumcision should be disobeyed openly.
Which leads to a pertanent point. If circumcision or uncircumcision becomes a symbol of changing the gospel, the practice if forbidden.
It would be very easy to be "sensitive to the culture" and make all male believers cut themselves. But that would be changing the gospel.
Timothy was cut to gain access. The message never changed. And that is the point of Washer's comment.
In Christ,
Phil Perkins.
Do you have any basis for saying that Timothy was circumcised so he could speak in the synagogue?
Anonymous,
Get to the point. The Sneaky Pete act is like talking to a Pharisee. You try to lay a trap and you think no one knows.
In Christ,
Phil Perkins.
Post a Comment