Let me say that again, ALL work is spiritual work. Another way to look at it is that all work is sacred work. (I am not talking about immoral professions but all honest employment). We are to do everything in his name, this means that all of our endeavors are dedicated to him and have merit. Colossians 3:17 says “”and whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” This is for whatever work it is that you are doing, digging a ditch, washing dishes, making a spreadsheet, or preaching a sermon. In fact God receives more honor from a man who cleans toilets for the name of Jesus, than from a pastor who preaches for his own reputation.

Notice that I am not mentioning using your job to evangelize or provide a Christian witness or so that you can support missionaries. While these things may be honoring, I am talking about the intrinsic value to God of any work dedicated to him. Just as a father treasures the horrible crayon picture from his children, so to God is glorified by the submission of our mundane careers to him. Colossians 3:23 says, “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men.” This is not teaching to work hard so that your boss can have a good view of Christians, this bypasses any man you are working for and places your activities directly to God. We should ratchet screws for Christ, type reports for Christ, handle accounting for Christ. When I dedicate my drilling of holes to him, God is glorified.

Ephesians 6:8 echos this passage “Serve wholeheartedly as if you were serving the Lord, not men.” We must remember that our lives are to glorify God. Though we may never have hundreds of weeping converts at our feet, if we are serving God by the work that he has given us to do, then we are pleasing to him. No one may see it, no one may recognize it, no one may be converted or commend you for it, but God will be glorified. Remember the widows mite and how she put in a small portion yet Jesus stopped to honor her more than any of the other givers that day. (Mark 12:38-44) The other donations were far more money and would do much more “good” for the poor and others. Yet God was honored by her just giving what she had. Remember, God does not need our money, he doesn’t need our service, he doesn’t need us to evangelize. We do not help God; we submit to him and dedicate what we do for him to glorify him.

Eric Liddell, the Olympic runner once said “”I believe that God made me for a purpose, but He also made me fast. When I run, I feel His pleasure.” Running brings no one to Christ, does not promote Christian fellowship, does not found churches, for all intents and purposes it is a frivolous activity. But when something as silly as running is done for God, he is pleased. Let us honor him in all that we do.

A Faith for all Seasons by Ted Dorman is without a doubt the best book that came from my required coursework while working on my Bachelor’s degree.  Seasons is a basic guide to theology that has surprising depth for a 400pg book.  Dorman does a superb job at simply explaining doctrines of different traditions without giving a biased opinion on them.  Finding a Christian work that does not color all opposing views is a rare find and this one balances quite nicely. The only differentiation he gives is between heretical views from orthodox ones, a distinction that I have no problem with. By doing so an unintentional lesson is given about the unity of the Christian message even though there are various opinions on doctrinal matters.

One of the things I like most about this book is that it not only explains doctrine but it shows the relation that one belief has on others.  For instance the Eastern Orthodox view of Creationism of the soul vs the Western Churches view of traducianism; the first says that each soul is created by God alone and the later that it is the result of the parent’s souls just like how physical bodies are born. The author could simply have stated the explanation of both views but he also connects the dots to the doctrine of original sin and total depravity and how each view results in the different stance on the later doctrine.

Seasons is very easy to read, and can explain complex concepts into simple terms. Nothing gets bogged down in vagueness and while there are plenty theological terms it is all explained by the author. Just as the best teachers can convey that there are no dumb questions, Dorman is able to make his audience comfortable that they can grasp the topics presented.

I highly recommended the book for just about anyone, from the layman with little knowledge of theology, to a veteran pastor who wants to revisit old topics.  But Just as Levar Burton used to say on Reading Rainbow, “Don’t take my word for it” because I have lent this book to two different people in the last few years and each time I had to buy a new book for myself. Check it out.

Where does faith then come from? We have seen that faith does not come from oneself and thus any notion of a person simply “believing more” is ridicules. Faith finds its origin and completion fully and only from Christ. “Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith…” (Heb 12:2) God had blessed mankind with varying degrees of faith, which when we realize that faith is not our own it leads us to soberness in our position before God. “For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith.” (Rom 12:3) God himself has dealt to each man a measure of faith, some more than others but it is not their own, thankfully we know that only faith the size of a mustard seed is all that is needed for our petitions to be effectual. (Matt 17:20)

I know that is have prayed during my life “Lord, I believe, help my unbelief” (Mark 9:25) While faith itself is a gift of God, we can have a desire for faith or not.  We can rebelliously not ever want to see or we can cry to God to show us himself. I know I have asked many times for God to give me faith, but as we look at Ephesians 2:8 we see something interesting “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:” Now I know that people say that you are saved by faith, and while that is partially true, we are rather saved by grace. Faith is the conduit in which God enacts his grace upon us. Instead of the desire for more faith it is in actuality more of the grace of God that is needed. For God to give anyone faith is a sign of his wonderful, unmerited grace toward us.

So where does knowledge come in? Reason and faith are not conflicting ventures. For any student of epistemology knows that without basic assumptions that nothing in the universe makes any sense. Once the foundational elements are in place, things such as that we are real and that we can know anything, then everything after that makes sense and follows an observable pattern. Faith as well is necessary in order for us to know anything about God, it is the foundation, and then through that we can use reason to learn more about him. St. Anselm said it best, “Nor do I seek to understand that I may believe, but I believe that I may understand. For this too I believe, that unless I first believe, I shall not understand.” Understanding does come, however it cannot precede faith. This is not washy post-modern opinions, nor is it modernist fact proving, it is the inward confirmation of our beliefs without knowledge, that leads us to knowledge. St. Anselm continued this thought by saying “I hold it to be a failure in duty if after we have become steadfast in our faith we do not strive to understand what we believe.” Faith is the beginning and we must be responsible in the discovering of God’s truth.

Faith gives us our connection to God, and we also know that whatever is not of faith is then sin (Rom 14:23), which disconnects us from him. The Reformers went by the five Solas, which acted as the foundational cry of the reformation; among them was Sola Fide, or “by faith alone”. This does not mean that we only need faith, for that is a low view of it, it means that nothing is better or more effectual than faith. Not only are other ventures not needed they are not able to do what faith can, for without faith it is absolutely impossible to please God. Let us then thank God for bestowing upon us faith that we may trust in him, for without his working we would not be able to see him. Coming to God in faith alone strips us of any working we could do ourselves, for even our faith is not our own, and brings us safely into a relationship with God.

The problem with my friend’s admonition was that if I truly didn’t believe something, but I tried to make myself believe it, then it was nothing more than self deception. This sort of “I don’t know if this is true but I am supposed to” mentality is a very scary idea, because if we claim that others simply make up what they believe, how do we know that we are in the right? Muslims say that they have faith; if they never questioned but simply lived up to the above challenge then they would never be anything but a Muslim. In other words, when conflicting views are all based simply on “you just need to believe” then how can you possibly determine what is true? No, I desired the true God too much to simply take that shortcut.

Hebrews 11:1 gives us a plain definition of faith “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Substances, evidence, these terms are not simply flowery feelings and wishful thinking, scripture itself points to faith as being something concrete. Faith is the substance or essence of what we hope for and it is the evidence or proof of things that we do not see. Faith is the inward confirmation of things that we do not know. The evidence for something does not come from within but from outside of a person, thus faith comes, not from ourselves, but as evidence that comes to us from without.

I know in my doubting I often wondered why God wouldn’t just make it easy for us to see a 1+1 type of proof that he existed, why would he make it so hard for us to find him through empirical means. The answer is that we were never meant to. Scripture says that “…without faith it is impossible to please him…” (Heb 11:6) God has always intended man to come to him in faith and not by any self sufficient intellectual proof of our own. That is the whole point; faith makes us step outside of ourselves, outside of our answers and requires us to be dependent upon him. It acknowledges that we are not autonomous and that we cannot figure out everything by ourselves, we must rely upon God to show us. How can we then prove God to other people? We cannot, it is impossibility, and just as was stated before, we were never meant to.  My faith given to me does not prove anything to anyone else, but it does prove it to me. Each must work this out for himself and while we may point them in the proper direction, we cannot do the work for them.

This is the first of a two part post, to read the second part click here

Heresy is the opposite of orthodoxy. Meaning that it is doctrine that promotes a false view of the truth; this is not the same as, however, as a difference of opinion because it deals with fundamental necessities of the Christian religion. An apostate is one who had been accepted into the Christian community, participated with God’s people and has rejected the faith. In other words:

Heretic = A person that must be expelled from the Christian community because of turning his back on sound doctrine.

Apostate = A person that has left the Christian community because of turning his back on the faith.

Both involve those who are not, or should not be, part of the church’s community. (I do not say part of the church for we know that the gates of hell will not prevail against her, and that those who truly are the church are kept by his hand.) As we can see the charge of heresy or apostasy is a very serious one, and we should not throw it around lightly. I will be the first to stand up against those who are truly heretics, and to label them as such, so that they will not lead others astray; however, I never want to call my Christian brother or sister one as that would necessitate their breaking of fellowship from the people of God. It is important to remember that in the ancient world there was at most one church per city, so excommunication is not only leaving a church but is being cut off from the entire Christian community. So what doctrines are important enough that, if defected from, we are to excommunicate people? First, let’s look at the scriptural passages.

We know that there are those who “pervert the gospel of Christ” and scripture tells us that these people should be anathema to us (accursed or exiled). (Galatians 1:6-9). The gospel of Christ can be seen in 1 Corinthians 15:1-7 and Romans 10:9-10, some of the main tenants of these verses are that Jesus Christ physically lived as a man, physically died, and physically rose again. Each of these doctrines, if denied, can be properly called heresy. We know that our salvation is by faith in Christ alone, and that God from the beginning has declared that he is One God. Therefore, the five main tenants from scripture that must be held to for the Christian faith are as follows:

1. Adherence to the Gospel of Christ (Galatians 1:6-9, Jude 1:3-4, 1 Corinthians 15:1-7, Romans 10:9-10)
2. The Deity and Humanity of Christ (1 John 4:1-3, 1 Timothy 2:5-6)
3. The Bodily Resurrection of Christ (1 Corinthians 15:14-20)
4. One God in Three Persons (Isaiah 43:10-11;44:6, Genesis 1:26, Deuteronomy 6:4, Matthew 28:18, 1st Corinthians 13:14, 2nd Corinthians 13:14, Ephesians 4:4-7, 1st Peter 1:2, Jude 20-21)
5. Salvation by Faith (Romans 5:1, Ephesians 2:8-9)

Scripture itself says that these doctrines are important enough for excommunication; I would say that without these doctrines, a given set of beliefs is not Christian. One need not understand these fully to be a Christian, but in order for a doctrine to be called a Christian doctrine it must adhere to these tenets. There is a Christian, and there is then an orthodox Christian. To me Orthodoxy means that it is compliant with the ecumenical creeds of the church. These creeds were universal declarations of the church in order to combat heresy. Some have rejected creeds as being man made, however they are statements of the entire church and thus must be taken seriously, while they may speak of things beyond the above five they are all related to the five and without the doctrines contained in the creeds those tenets would be distorted.

Those universal creeds are the Apostle’s Creed, Nicene Creed, The Definition of Chalcedon, and the Athenasian Creed. (Each link is provided to the text of the creed and I have tried to find those with scripture references for their biblical support, though it is not at all exhaustive.) I was recently in a situation at church in which one Christian had previously called another brother a heretic and then called him a carnal apostate. The brother he was talking to then declared that he had made a foolish statement and that if he called him such things again that he would go before the elders (and rightly so) The problem is not that the first brother honestly thought the other was a heretic, but that he did not understand the severity of his accusation. Words mean little today and so we must be careful in their usage. We cannot flippantly throw around such terms, and we must always seek reconciliation and unity, even with those who are actual heretics if we can bring them back into proper faith. Hopefully this post will prevent some from miss identifying fellow Christians, and also help us to understand the severity of heresy and apostasy.

Supralapsarianism

1. God first chose those who would be elect and those he who would be condemned

2. God then ordained that he would create those people

3. God then decided to permit the fall as a means of condemnation

4. God then decreed to provide salvation by Jesus Christ

Infralapsarianism

1. God ordained that he would create

2. God decreed that we would allow men to fall

3. God decreed that he would then save some of those who had fell

4. God then decreed that he would provide salvation by Jesus Christ

As you can see the difference between these views are not on what was decreed but in what order they were decreed in.  We know that God has ordained quite a few things in eternity past; however there is no scriptural view to support or negate either of these views. I personally find the whole discussion quite silly though, for logical reasons.

For one, it is not necessary to claim that one decree must be sequentially followed by another. It is perfectly reasonable to say that multiple, or all of them were decreed at the same time. As a finite being I often decide many things within the same moment for instance when I say that I am going to go to the store I instantly decree that I will leave my house, enter a store, abide by traffic laws, get in my car, not get distracted by other endeavors, and a thousand other insignificant things such as taking footsteps, checking my rear view mirror and that I will put a key into the ignition. I do not reason individually what steps I will take, I simply say I will go to the store and thus decreed all of the other processes that are involved with that choice automatically. This may be a poor example but I believe the point it clear that one not need to take sequential steps in logic.

Secondly, we are talking about God’s declaration in eternity past; therefore I personally find it quite silly to list a numerical procession within the eternal. If God has declared all these things from eternity past how can we say which one was first in eternity? The timelessness of God declares that he simply “is” to imply that God sat down and said “Now I’ll make this happen, and I guess that means I’ll need this, and well then the next logical step would be this thing…” lowers God down to our own human reasoning. Which brings me to my third point; I believe this type of inquiry is treading farther than theology can actually go, for it is entering into the very mind of God. We can use scripture and logic in order to discover various truths about the universe; however we are treading on mysteries when we venture out to far from what has been revealed to us.

If I had to pinpoint some view on what the order was, though I think the issue itself is ill asked, I would have to invert both of the processes of lapsarianism. All proper theology begins and ends with Christ and thus I would say that in him it was decreed first in eternity past that he would sacrifice his life for a people. (1 Peter 1:18-20) Through this decree of self sacrifice all other decrees were made. I will side more however with the following verse when trying to encapsulate the mind of God:

“O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out! For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been his counsellor?” (Rom 11:33-34 ESV)

1. We have given up passion for “mission statements.”

2. We have traded in our calling for the discipleship of all people for “specialized ministry experience.”

3. We have given up the biblical qualifications of a bishop and traded it in for a Master’s degree.

4. We deride postmodernism as an invention of Satan and act as if Modernism was invented by Jesus.

5. We have no concept of promoting the varieties of gifts that we are given “for the common good.” (1 Cor 12:7) and instead only care about placing people into vacancies of our formulaic, uninspired “ministries”

6. We have Pastors and Elders that are disassociated from their own community of believers.

7. We desire candidates with 10 years of ministry experience, and an M.Div. and then want to pay him $20,000 a year.

8. We pass up those that want to serve because they do not have “full time staff” experience even though they have served in the church all their life.

10. We expect youth pastors to be cool, hip and relevant, but not so much that lives are actually changed apart from what the modernist elders want.

11. We say if you are young then you have to be a youth pastor, even though God has given different gifts to various people.

12. Those who wish to be youth pastors we then look down upon as immature and not as sophisticated as a “real pastor” even though that may be his gifting. I suppose we expect the least experienced person to teach our children.

13. The fact that we have any “entry level position” in a church.

14. The fact that we “hire” people as “employees” to service us instead of true pastors who are called of God to minister to the people of God.