I Didn't Know That Was Why

First of all I just have to say, "Wow, the two months that have gone without me posting have gone by quickly." Sorry about that, but it is hard to devote time when the school year is in full swing.

Therefore, you might be thinking that something must have provoked me to write a new post - and you would be right. I know that I have commented a lot on this blog about Joel Osteen and the "devotionals" that I get sent every morning. I could have probably commented on some of those e-mails earlier, but it wasn't worth it, until this morning. Usually Mr. Osteen (or whoever writes these e-mails) displays a faulty hermeneutic, but this morning it is more theological (although hermeneutics plays a role in that as well). The view expressed this time is heterodox at best if not out and out heresy.

I am going to restrain myself from commenting on this and just allow you to get angry yourself! All I will do is highlight the sentence that is just so bad. If you do have any comments please give them and I will respond to those. If you don't think that there is anything wrong with this, then we really need to talk!

The Way

Today's Scripture

“‘…how can we know the way?’ Jesus answered, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me’” (John 14:5-6).

Today's Word from Joel and Victoria

Do you need direction in your life today? Not only is Jesus the way to life in eternity, but Jesus is the way to everything you need in this life here on earth. Do you need to know the way out of debt? Look to the Father through Jesus. Do you need to know the way to having better relationships…the way to overcome an addiction…to live in peace and joy? When you know Jesus, you know the Way. No matter what you are facing today, no matter what challenges or obstacles are in your life, He will make a way for you even when you don’t see how. God loves you so much that He wants to strengthen and empower you to live in total victory. That’s why He sent His Son, Jesus, to this earth—to show you the way to live an abundant life! Open your heart today and receive all that God has given you through Jesus. As you do, you’ll see His hand lead you in the way of victory in every area of your life!

A Prayer for Today

Father in heaven, thank You for sending Your Son, Jesus, to show me the way. I invite You into every area of my life. Keep me close to You always. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.

Teaching versus Preaching Part 2

I really wasn't expecting such passionate responses from some of you when I talked in my last post about sermons. I guess I better hold off talking about worship for a while! :-) There is a lot that I still need to say in response to the questions raised because of my last post (either in the comments or in e-mails to me). However, much of what I wanted to say has been said this week on the White Horse Inn! Therefore, listen to this broadcast and we can discuss any questions that might come up.

www.whitehorseinn.org

Teaching versus Preaching

The other day in an e-mail to a friend I was bemoaning the fact that a lot of churches in our own Reformed Tradition (multiple denominations) were not preaching Christ and him crucified consistently from the pulpit. In fact one church that I looked at was just starting a series on how to handle money, entitled "The Master's Card." In that sermon there was nothing that made it "Christian." Just a lot about not having the "Mammon Card" but the "Master's Card" in our wallets. At one point the pastor turned to 1 John 2:6 (without reading the preceding verses) and his point was that we needed to walk as Jesus walked. I could hardly believe my ears. Here is a supposedly Reformed pastor telling us to ask the question "What Would Jesus Do?" Literally, "Jesus carried the Master's Card and so should we."

I also listened to an entire three part series on "Rekindling your Marriage." Again, there wasn't much to make these messages Christian. 95% of the sermon you could hear from Dr. Laura or any other secular advice columnist. There was one point in the second sermon that the pastor told the congregation that marriage is difficult because of the "depravity challenge." YES!! We are sinners and need to hear the gospel right? No. We were told that we are sinners, but ultimately we were left in our sin, misery, and depravity challenged marriages without an announcement that Christ came to save us from all of that. At the end of one of the sermons the pastor told us that we have a marriage Counselor in our marriage living in our home, the Holy Spirit. This idea came from Ephesians 4:30 which says, "And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption." The problem came when the pastor didn't finish the verse, and didn't add the part "for the day of redemption!" That adds a huge eschatological focus on what this being sealed by the Holy Spirit means! Sure there are benefits now, but ultimately the Spirit has been given to us for THE benefit of entering into our eternal rest. The pastor referenced Jesus' promise that the Spirit would come to be our Counselor. I assumed he was talking about John 14:16. This idea of the Holy Spirit as Counselor comes from the language of the courtroom. A better translation would be Advocate - a go between for us miserable sinners and a holy and just God.

I could comment a lot more on these sermons that I listened too (I downloaded more today so watch out!), but this is not my point right now. In my discussion with my friend we were talking about what a sermon actually is and what its central message should be (Christ and him crucified). However, this morning I had a revelation (not inspired!) that I was being too hard on these pastors. I was expecting them to be preaching. But I went back and looked at their church's websites and that is not what their goal is. Here is one example of a church's stated goal:

[This church's] morning services are designed to help people, wherever they are in their spiritual journey, move closer to God. We believe that authentic, creative worship, combined with relevant, biblical teaching, energizes people to live enthusiastically for God.

Ahhhh... they want to teach, not preach!! I was surprised to find that this was very common language when churches explain what happens on Sunday Morning. In that case what they are doing is just fine and I need to lay off of them a little bit. Granted, we need to pressure these pastors to actually preach, but at least they are staying true to their word and teaching every Sunday.

This may seem just like a small semantic argument, but it really isn't. Teaching and preaching are not synonyms - they are two different Greek words with some, but little overlap. I am not going to go into a full word study, but "teaching" (greek - didasko) in the NT usually has the unambiguous sense "to teach" or "to instruct" (TDNT). Whereas "preaching" (greek - karusso) really means "to proclaim" an event (TDNT). Some NT authors actually use the term "witness" as the act of preaching because of the nature of declaring something that happened.

As long as these "teachers" are doing just that, "teaching," I cannot be surprised that the proclamation of the gospel isn't given since there purpose is supposedly not to proclaim an event that happened. Even though that is exactly what a Christian pastor is to do:

¹³For "everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved."


¹⁴How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? ¹⁵And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, "How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!" ¹⁶But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, "Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?" ¹⁷So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ" (Rom 10:13-17 ESV).

In closing, let me ask you to think about the sermons that you hear on a Sunday morning. Did you hear preaching or teaching? Did Christ have to die for that sermon to be true? If you do hear the proclamation of the gospel consistently week in and week out, then make sure that you thank your pastor for staying faithful to God's word. If you are getting more teaching than preaching, then you really should find a church that preaches the true unadulterated Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ because that is what we need to constantly hear as those who are simultaneously justified and yet sinful.

A "Fortune-Cookie" Bible

Dr. Horton has used the example of many Evangelical pastors using the Bible as a "Fortune Cookie" to make the Bible say whatever they want. This usually evidences itself in taking passages out of context because otherwise the passages doesn't fit the intended message. As I have mentioned before (granted it has been awhile) that I receive "Today's Word with Joel & Victoria" from Joel Osteen Ministries every day in my e-mail. I almost assume that it isn't Mr. Osteen who writes these "devotionals" every day, but his name is attached to them and they definitely represent his style of Biblical exegesis. This method of exegesis is called the "search" method, and here is how it works:

Figure out the theme or point of your message

Find one or two keywords that exemplify that message

Open up BibleGateway.com Keyword Search and choose "multiple versions" from which to search

Scan over the versified results, choose verse that fits your theme or point the best.

Copy and paste verse (or portion of the verse when necessary to really make it fit) at the beginning of your text.

I know it sounds crazy, but that seems to be the exegetical method for not only Mr. Osteen, but a number of preachers today. Even Rick Warren seemed to do this in The Purpose Driven Life with his plethera of Bible translations and verses picked out of context to fit with what the body of his text said. (On a side note one thing that drove me nuts about that book was that the Biblical quote was given in the text, but the Scripture reference itself was in the endnote - not proper SBL style! It is almost like they were hoping it would be too much work for us to follow-up on the reference and see that it was improperly used.) I don't want to get too technical, but here is the beginning of proper Biblical exegesis:

Read the entire book you are preaching or teaching from to get an idea of the entire flow

Deliniate your pericope (passage) to find one complete unit of text.

Translate from the original languages

Look at the contexts (immediate, book, corpus, canon) of the pericope

I can stop there because there is no evidence that any of these are done by Mr. Osteen, not only in his devotionals but his sermons as well. It is when the final step of contexts is skipped that things become crystal clear their method of interpreting the Bible is extremely flawed.

It has taken me a long time to get to this point, but I needed to lay the groundwork for the e-mail that I got from Joel & Victoria this morning (Thursday, January 24, 2008). All the author of the devotional (assuming it wasn't Joel) needed to do was to read TWO VERSES beyond the passage he gave to realize the passage chosen was totally inappropriate and contrary to the whole message given. Here is the exact Scripture reference:

"Then Nathan said to David, Do all that is in your heart, for God is with you." (I Chronicles 17:2).

Then follows "Today's Word from Joel and Victoria":

What is in your heart today? What are the dreams and desires deep on the inside of you? Maybe you want to start a business, or ministry, or go back to school. Whatever is in your heart, ask the Lord to confirm it to you. God leads us by desires, but we have to first submit our desires to Him. Sometimes we have to allow Him to change our desires, but know that He is always out for your good. It says in the book of Psalms that God gives us the desires of our heart. That means He places desires within us then brings them to pass so that we can live a fulfilled life here on earth. I believe David did this very thing. He was known as a man after God’s own heart. He submitted His heart to the Lord, and then Nathan came along and said, "Yes. Do what is in your heart. God is with you." Whatever is in your heart today, submit it to the Lord. Trust that He is out for your good and working behind the scenes on your behalf. As you put your faith and trust in Him, He will guide you in the life of victory He has in store for you!

If you are not familiar with the passage of I Chronicles 17, here are the first four verses:

1 Now when David lived in his house, David said to Nathan the prophet, "Behold, I dwell in a house of cedar, but the ark of the covenant of the LORD is under a tent." 2 And Nathan said to David, "Do all that is in your heart, for God is with you." 3 But that same night the word of the LORD came to Nathan, 4 "Go and tell my servant David, 'Thus says the LORD: It is not you who will build me a house to dwell in.' (1 Chronicles 17:1-4 ESV).

So David wanted to build a house for the Lord, and he mentioned it to Nathan. Nathan said (as Mr. Osteen pointed out) go ahead and do it. However, Nathan was wrong!! Even though he was a prophet of the Lord, he merely assumed that this would please the Lord. God came to Nathan that night and told him that the desires of David's heart WERE NOT God's desires and that in this matter God WAS NOT with David as Mr. Osteen requires to make his message sound biblical. Later in 1 Chronicles chapter 17, Nathan tells David all the words of the Lord (v 15) which leads to a beautiful prayer of David recognizing that God is going to build a house for David not David building a house for the Lord (vv 16-27). Mr. Osteen does ask that we "ask the Lord to confirm it [our desire] to you." What he fails to talk about is that David's desire was not granted by the Lord in a very direct and explicit manner. Did the Lord put that desire into David's heart (as is implied by Mr. Osteen)? The text tells us that the Lord did not!

I don't have the time to completely rework this whole theology, but it needed to be pointed out how improperly the Scripture is used in American Evangelicalism. It is scary to think that thousands of people got this same e-mail and completely trusted Mr. Osteen's use of Scripture and didn't go back at make sure it was correct (cf. Acts 17:11). Finally, a popular method for quoting Scripture especially by Mr. Osteen is to say "The Bible says..." without any reference at all to where that passage could be found. Quite often it cannot be found because the quotation is not actually taken from the Bible, but an interpretation of what Mr. Osteen wants some passage to say. In this devotional at least the book is given (Psalms) and I think he is referring to Psalm 20:4 or 21:2 or 37:4. Again I don't have the time to go into those passages. Dr. Horton has a tough time finding a Scripture passage when he reviewed Osteen's latest book just to show how shrewd these guys can be to make their message "biblical."

I have ranted and raved enough about this, and it probably won't be the last because I continue to get these e-mails and listen to TV preachers. They are bound to screw something up so obviously that it astounds me and I feel the desire to share it with any that care to listen.

Wow I need to update

Well, I am done with all my exams!!! However, I am still busy for the next little while. I am writing a sermon for January 6 as well as trying to put in a sprinkler system in our backyard (the rain is putting a damper on those plans). My sister is coming down from Seattle for Christmas so we will be at my mom's quite a bit.

But I will try and post some stuff soon, and be a little more regular about it in the coming months (that sounds like a New Year's Resolution!).

What Have I Been Up To?

Seeing that it has been a long time since I have updated my blog, I thought I would offer my apologies and tell you what has been occupying my time lately.

Part of being in Seminary (I would assume this is true of most seminaries) is that there are papers and other projects for certain classes. This past summer I was telling a professor what classes I was taking and he said, "That is a lot of papers." Dang it!! I hadn't thought about that aspect. Overall this semester I had four papers due and one sermon to write on top of translating large chunks of Hebrew each week.

I haven't received any grades on my papers yet (three were turned in less than an hour ago), but overall I am satisfied with what I studied and wrote on. If you are interested here are the "titles" of my papers and one sermon.

Doctrine of God - "Who Looked at the Cat in the Box? Quantum Mechanics and Divine Action"

Preaching Narratives (Sermon) - 1 Samuel 15; "Even Israel's King Can Mess Up Worship"

General Epistles & Revelation - "Defeated and Thrown Down: Comfort in Light of Satan's Explusion From the Courtroom of God" (Rev 12:7-12)

Psalms & Wisdom Literature -"Molars or Millstones? The Eschatological Focus of Ecclesiastes 12:1-7"

Women in Church, Family, and Society - "It's Decision Time, Finally: A Path Forward for the Christian Reformed Church on the Divided Issue of Women's Ordination to Ecclesiastical Office"

So that's that, sounds like a lot of fun doesn't it? Actually all of it was fun and I enjoyed my study, reflection and writing on these subjects.

Website Update!

I finally updated my photography website after almost a year. Check it out!

http://www.mvpol.com