No Method To The Madness

An interesting book that found its way into my busy little hands had a section underscoring the seriousness of the issue we are looking at. While discussing the amazing unity of the New Testament Church, the author shot himself in the foot with his neck in a noose – saying, “While we can’t follow their methods we can certainly emulate their spirit.” Such a statement might be more appropriately rendered, “Great idea guys, but I’ll do it my way thank you.” Such language is nothing more than smooth sounding rhetoric to excuse the blatantly obvious question, “How do we follow their spirit while rejecting their method?” Such reasoning could rightfully lead to a rejection of the teaching of the whole New Testament under the guise of just trying to “emulate their spirit.” Any time the spirit of the New Testament Church is separated from its practice we enter into a whole new realm of unscriptural possibilities where just about anything can be excused in the name of following the ‘spirit’ of the New Testament not the letter!  The method we are so arduously trying to come up with will never be found among such foolish intangibles exemplified by that kind of thinking. Solid biblical theology is always extremely practical, factual and applicable, not illusive and subjective.  We need hard facts to present to our dear friends throughout the church; hard facts that very clearly say, “This is the way walk ye in it.” Until we are willing to face such hard facts that allow no wiggle room, many of the current spokesmen of the church will continue to duck and dodge the true and very practical method necessary for biblical unity.

     This particular author went on to excuse his now shot foot and noosed neck by placing his remaining limbs in a booby trap. He states, “Our modern cities demand a different approach than that of the 1^st century Church.”  Well pardon me for entertaining some doubt, but just what approach would that be?—( Pardon me for the aside here but it is hard to believe that some of this stuff ever made it past the desks of kindergarten.  Wow!!)  If we can’t apply the principles of first century biblical truth to 21^st century times, then the Bible becomes nothing more than a nice story book.  A mantle piece to decorate our living rooms.  An inspirational relic of a far less enlightened era of the church than our own, right? Absolutely not! If scripture is no longer the fundamental and final authority of the Christian faith (as far to many today believe), then it’s every man’s best guess how things ought to be.  And just who’s best guess do we follow?  Do we put it to a popular vote?  Draw straws?  Put our finger in the air and see which way the winds of opinion are blowing?  What you think becomes just as valid as what I think.  If I choose to believe that God is a little yellow man on a big green planet and loves peanut butter and jelly sandwiches,  no one can prove me wrong because in this twilight zone where everyone’s opinion is just as valid as mine, everyone is right.  It’s a wonderful world where the flakes run the school, the inmates have taken over the asylum, McDonalds actually does serve good food and old granny- well she’s a bag of fries and a burger short of a happy meal.  But that’s o.k., we’re all just pretending real hard that reality will never catch up to us and spoil our party!  But unfortunately it already has and the church is coming out on the gloomy end of the deal.  You see the word of God is backed up by the full weight and authority of Heaven.  It will always assert its preeminence over the unprincipled mayhem of man’s thinking.  Amen, amen!!

     God has all kinds of time to wait for a generation of the Church to get it right on this issue, but unfortunately those of us who live and breathe on planet earth don’t share that particular privilege.  We basically have 70 years or so to get it right before maximus endus sets in.  So all make believe set aside, the truth before us is exactly this.  If we expect to rediscover New Testament unity, it’s going to require a commitment to New Testament METHOD, and that method has been and always will be divinely laid out in scripture.  O.K. let’s pause a minute, take a big deep breathe and then move on to another incredible tidbit of conventional thinking on this issue.

     We come now to the “Let’s just bury our differences and get along crowd.” This is kind of like the adolescent genius trick of pushing all the junk under the bed so that when Mom comes in, hey everything looks great.  The key word here is “looks.”  The beauty is nothing more than an illusion. We all know about the winsome behavior of the rather harebrained Ostrich hiding his head under ground in the face of trouble.  Well burying our differences to effect and illusion of unity is about just as foolish and dangerous. The spiritual problems produced by our differences don’t go away just because we choose to ignore them.  It’s our differences that divide us not our failure to overlook them.  I repeat. It’s our differences that divide us not our failure to overlook them!  The current attempts to unite Christians across denominational lines through interdenominational gatherings of one sort or another are totally superficial when there isn’t some recognition given to the divisive effect of our unresolved differences.  My friend this is common sense 101.  It’s not a married couples unwillingness to ignore their differences that destroys their marriage.  It’s their refusal to face them and seek resolution.  While the church continues to pitter-patter around a mountain of differences chanting their favorite mantras “let’s just agree to disagree” and “let’s focus on our similarities not our differences” the devil gleefully continues to build the walls that divide us.  Burying differences to affect an appearance of unity is the most gutless and unproductive choice a person or church can make.  The old saying, “if it doesn’t hurt it’s probably not worth it” certainly applies here.  The scripture says, “Can two walk together except they be agreed?” (Amos3:3).  The answer-Absolutely NOT!!  But you would never know it by watching the church.  Some would even have us believe that differences in the church provide a valuable contribution to the cause of religious liberty, giving people a much needed “variety” of beliefs to choose from.  A kind of supermarket Christianity filled with every belief possible for your shopping pleasure.  Well that’s all just fine if we want to avoid the fact that biblical unity absolutely requires agreement and how we achieve that agreement is a process of method.  It’s absolutely essential that the church become willing to get beyond all the division justifying rhetoric and face the damning effect of our unresolved differences.  Until that is done there is no hope of ever bringing these differences to the table of discussion and truly pursuing unity.  Much of the how and the why of this will be discussed later.  Suffice it to say at this point, any viable unifying method will include tabling our differences not burying them.

     Another facet of method brings us squarely into my living room one night, face to face with a gentleman convinced that the best way to bring about unity was to avoid scripture all together and just focus on our “common brotherhood in Christ.” In all respect, such reasoning is so utterly confusing and contradictory, it’s like entering a freeway backwards while driving the wrong direction.  You’re not only going against the established flow but you’re doing it while looking the wrong way.  Impossible says you, right says I!  Will a collision happen?  Absolutely! They’ve been happening for decades in the church with this type of thinking.  I label this “Magoo Theology” after the madcap cartoon character of the sixties, deliriously driving the wrong way dodging in and out of traffic and shouting “road hog”at every honking horn.  And so it is with us today.  We find ourselves flying in the face of all the road signs and red lights of scripture shamelessly shouting “road hog” to anything opposing us while still expecting to find unity at the end of the road.  Will it happen?  Has it happened thus far?  All of scripture and church history loudly declares, “No!” Yet we continue bandying about such empty religious lingo as our “common brotherhood in Christ” while unfortunately undermining the importance of the very document that defines what that is.  Beyond our syrupy sweet platitudes lies no substantial method for making our words a reality.  Rhetoric becomes nothing more than a very cheap replacement for substantive results, results which have been marginalized in favor of a touchy-feely gospel that is far to common.  More next article..

Luther Canon

Sola Scriptura