The danger of tolerating many different views of the Gospel is that, by doing so, we are tolerating people exalting themselves to the point of believing that they have the power to make Scripture be what they want it to be; that they have the power to make Scripture say what they want it to say, and that they have the power to make God be what they want Him to be. The Gospel is the culmination, the combination, the relationship, the epitome, and the existential and ontological reality of the nature, the personality, the character, the actions, and the will of God. To have five different definitions of the Gospel, is to have five different definitions of God: of redemption, of salvation, of Gods sovereignty, of mans depravity. To possess false Gospel knowledge is to have a false conversion. And that is ultimately why to have different understandings of the Gospel is something we should be deeply concerned about: because if someone does not possess the correct knowledge of the Gospel, then they cannot submit themselves to that knowledge. And the only way man can enter Heaven is if he submits himself to the truth. How can a man submit himself to the truth if he does not know, or believe in, the truth? He cannot. And will therefore not be glorified. However, we live in a world that values subjective and relativistic thought, and surprisingly, many, many people who hold to subjective thought are those who call themselves Christians. What is evangelically appropriate now is not the phrase this verse means..., but the phrase to me, this verse means... If you desire to have yourself called pharisaical, legalistic, pompous, or a know-it-all, then declare that Scripture has one meaning, and that truth is absolutistic and knowable, for there is no surer way to be called a pharisee by the average, contemporary American Christian than to declare Scriptural absolutism. You will be dubbed as narcissistic and arrogant if you have the audacity to proclaim that what your friend who calls himself a Christian is saying, or believes, is actually contradictory to what Scripture says. What is the most heartbreaking is that people who do not even read Scripture on a daily, weekly, or even monthly basis on their own are the ones who make these ad-hominems. It is not the people who neglect the proper reading and study of Scripture who are called pharisaical, but the ones who do not. The man who studies the Greek, Hebrew, sociology, culture, anthropology, historicity, Bibliology, and etymology of Scripture, who daily listens to sermons by Biblical scholars and pastors, who goes to church every Sunday and who has regular communion with the Saints, and reads his Bible on a daily basis is the one who is called narcissistic, pharisaical, and and a know-it-all by the man who does not study any of the aforementioned things, who does not read his Bible on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis, and who only attends church on an inconsistent basis. The man who does not legitimately study Scripture wants to make claims about what Scripture says, and has the audacity to say that his claims are correct, while simultaneously calling the man who studies Scripture and says his own claims are correct is audacious The man who shows total evidence of being in Christ is called unChristian by the man who shows absolutely no evidence of being in Christ. In other words, the light is called bad by the darkness. This is where Christianity in America is at. Christianity is now nothing more than an intellectual safeguard or an intellectual scapegoat. It is nothing more than a tool to make people feel better about themselves. Christianity has been manipulated and contorted in order to justify the consistently wicked actions of those who call themselves Christians. No longer do you see men going to the Scriptures in order to find truth. What you see now is men going to Scripture in order to justify what they want to be true, or what they think ought to be true. This is made evident by the fact that the phrases there are too many variables to know what Scripture actually means, the Bible has been translated too many times to be reliable, Biblical phrases mean different things to different people and can have different meanings because God speaks to people differently, and so on, are excessively common to hear come out of the mouths of evangelicals, but yet, those same evangelicals use specific Scripture verses when confronted with ideologies that are unpalatable. For instance, the man who says there are too many variables to know what Scripture means, will, when someone confronts him, or someone he likes, with the reality of his sin, he will say: the Bible says not to judge. The woman who says The Bible has been translated too many times to be reliable will say the Bible says to be kind and to speak the truth in love to a person who makes her feel bad when someone confronts her with her sin, or a sin which she enjoys or desires not to feel bad about, and tells her the spiritual reality of it. When it comes to obeying Scriptural truth and following Christ by doing what He has commanded, the evangelical will say the Bible is an unreliable source to know how to live your life, but when it comes to living however he wants to, that same evangelical will say the Bible says not to judge or God is love. They have turned the Bible into a shield that protects them from spiritual criticism or rebuke, and a sword that cuts a path for them to live whatever lifestyle they want. They have created a God that loves the things they love and hates the things they hate. They have created a God that loves their wicked lifestyle and who hates or call sinful the person who dares tell them their lifestyle is wicked as wicked can be. They have created a God in their own image; they have created an idol, and they lay down and bow down before it, and dedicate their lives to it. They do not follow Yahweh, for theyve no idea who He is. These people are narcissistic and self-centered and self-exalting. They will spend their lives calling themselves Christians, blaspheming the name of God, misleading many people, and damning their own souls. Christ is a tool they use to let them do what they want to do, watch what they want to watch, hear what they want to hear, and think what they want to think. God is nothing more to them than a way to justify their carnal lifestyle, and they will go to Hell if they not change.
Posted on: Sun, 07 Dec 2014 18:13:04 +0000
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