Saturday, August 25, 2018
To and fro
Ephesians 4:14
… that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting …
A lady sat in the office at church this week and poured her heart out. She had been a Christian for a long time but was hurt by a series of life circumstances that were not working out for her. She wanted help.
Sometimes it takes long hard listening to determine the entry point for any interventions that may help the person before you. Some people just want a safe place to pour their heart out. Others want you to pray for them. Still, others require advice and guidance. Some need a rebuke and a challenge. And then there are those who have deep-seated spiritual problems that may require deliverance. Listening is important before responding.
Just listening to this particular lady was a challenge and it was hard to determine why. Eventually, it became obvious, thankfully so. The breakthrough came when she listed all of the various preachers from Africa, America, and other places that she listens to and what she learns from them. She had a cocktail of doctrines tangled into her faith that drove her to the place where she is now.
She has been taught that God wants us to be happy, healthy, and wealthy. God’s responsibility as we pray is to hear our petitions about happiness, health, and wealth and bring them to pass. Essentially, faith is about our glory and God is the facility.
A theology that is not primarily rooted and grounded in the glory of God is a dangerous one. Jesus demonstrated that His life was to be lived so that God the Father might be glorified. Everything that He said and did was that the Father might be glorified. Even when He healed someone, the person experienced healing but God received glory. “When Jesus heard that, He said, “This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” John 11:4.
And the apostle Paul, writing to the Romans outlined that the principal failure of mankind is to not give God glory, although the context was different the principle holds, “because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened.” Romans 1:21
A body of doctrines that leave no place for hardship, suffering, or mourning is very questionable. God certainly did not call us to escape the realities of life, He called us to go through them with Him in faith. Here is what the apostle James wrote about this, “My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.” James 1:2-4.
This does not mean that we wish for, and wallow in pain and suffering, of course not. It does mean though that we recognise the reality of pain and suffering and when we experience them we trust God and grow through the experience. As one performer from the Brooklyn Tabernacle choir said in a monologue, “in the good times we’re going to praise His name and in the bad time we’ll do the same.”
We should, therefore, question why we have so many Christians running around with distorted views and doctrines when the scripture is clear on these matters. The answer would be very simple too. It is very clear, from the context of our key text today, that when we are tossed to and fro like children where doctrine is concerned it is a failure of our doctrinal ministers, as I call them.
When people come to the church we have a responsibility to teach them the fundamentals of the faith but that hardly happens today. When Peter preached the first sermon and a large group received salvation in Jesus Luke recorded that, “they continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in prayers.” Acts 2:42.
When Paul arrived in Corinth he met Aquila and his wife Priscilla, and they teamed up both professionally and in ministry. While they were there working together a very articulate and enthusiastic young preacher named Apollos. Apollos, innocently, had some doctrine wrong and this was obvious to them. “So he began to speak boldly in the synagogue. When Aquila and Priscilla heard him, they took him aside and explained to him the way of God more accurately.” Acts 18:26
Ministers today are under so much pressure to sound powerful, profound, fresh, different, and the like in order to generate likes for their next Facebook post, or TV show that they are making all kinds of high sound but biblically baseless statements that then become doctrine to the consumers of their content.
This would be all well and good if there weren’t people, like the dear lady mentioned above, who take this potpourri of Tweets, posts, and YouTube videos and weave them into a doctrinal tapestry with which to cover their lives.
The distressing thing is that people are hunting this stuff down. However, given what Paul wrote to Timothy, it shouldn’t come as a surprise, “the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables. 2 Timothy 4:3-4. That time is here.
Think on these things:
- When you became a Christian were you taught the fundamentals of the faith systematically?
- Can you name any of the main Christian doctrines and find the scripture to support them?
- Does your church have a system for teaching the fundamentals of the faith to new Christians?
Prayer focus:
Let us pray today that we seek faithful teachers of the faith and not those who twist doctrine for their own ends.
In His Grace
Pastor Alex