Why call your religion Christian if you don’t want to obey Christ?

Posted on July 31, 2012 Written by Mark McIntyre 9 Comments

If you are going to go against the plain reading of Scripture and two thousand years of tradition on the core issues of Christianity, then why bother to claim your religion as Christian?

I understand that those who identify more closely with current cultural norms have conflict with traditional Christianity. The most obvious example of this is the current protest against the definition of marriage as a one-man-one-woman relationship. Yet this is the traditional view of Christianity and the stated position of the Church’s founder, Jesus Christ.

Now, if you do not want to submit to the teaching of the church, no-one is forcing you to attend or otherwise associate with any Christian church or organization. You are free to choose whatever expression of religious devotion that appeals to you. But, if you choose to embrace Christianity, please know that Christians are called to be obedient to Jesus Christ and we do not have the freedom to pick and choose which Scriptural commands we will obey.

Christianity has operated within the boundaries established by Scripture since its foundation. We may argue over some of the lesser points, but there is a core of belief that all Christian groups share. That core of belief is what C. S. Lewis referred to as Mere Christianity.

To operate outside these core beliefs, the belief system then ceases to be Christian. One of these core beliefs is that marriage is the foundation upon which society is built. Marriage is an institution established by God and designed by God to join one man to one woman. If you doubt this, please check the first two chapters of Genesis.

You will also notice in Genesis 1 and 2 that marriage was established before man sinned. Marriage was God’s plan from the beginning. The fact that we have tarnished the institution through divorce and infidelity does not reduce the importance that God places upon marriage. Nor does our inability to do marriage well provide just cause for the redefinition of it.

Jesus told us in John 14:15, “if you love me, keep my commandments.” While none of us keeps them perfectly, we should at least have the stated desire to keep them and should be working to grow in obedience to them. If you do not want to submit to the demands of Scripture, then why claim to be Christian? Feel free to call your end product whatever you want, but it will not be Christianity.

Perhaps I do not understand the intensity of the difficulty that same sex attraction must present. It is never easy to be told that what you want is contrary to what God wants for you. I do not pretend that dealing with this is easy. I am sure that it is not.

But, we are called to fight against our rebellious tendencies and submit to God, even in the areas in which it seems impossible to do so. Sexuality is at the core of our being and difficulties with sexuality are hard to overcome. Yet, difficulty does not relieve us of the responsibility to pursue the right path.

So, Episcopalians and other groups that have already compromised or are soon to do so, understand that by fighting against traditional marriage, you are fighting against the very Christ you claim to serve. It is at that point that what you pursue ceases to be Christianity and we would all be better served if you just called it something else.

God is not fooled, we are not fooled and a world that has a desperate need for the love of Jesus is not fooled. The manipulation you do to Scripture can best be compared to a bad comb-over. Only the bald guy is fooled into thinking that it looks good.

Toward a response to the moral chaos that surrounds us

Posted on July 28, 2012 Written by Mark McIntyre 10 Comments

The church is surrounded by moral chaos and we rightly feel the need to respond. It is this writer’s opinion that some of our response is not helpful. Calls for boycott and angry rhetoric about the moral decline seem to escalate the problem rather than help it. Too often we become two groups of people screaming at each other over a great divide.

Transformation of culture is not our job

In my reading of the New Testament, I see no commands to transform our culture. I believe that a transformed culture is a consequence of the church fulfilling her mission and not a primary goal.

The cultural context in which the Apostle Paul wrote his epistles had many similarities to today. Homosexuality, the breakdown of the family, materialism and philosophical confusion were prevalent.

In this context, Paul writes about personal transformation (Romans 12:1-2), but I cannot find any examples of where Paul encourages the church to participate in boycotts or any other behavior intended to force Christian morality on the society at large.

The church is called to make disciples. The miracle associated with disciple making is that God transforms the hearts of those who receive the Gospel. Those with transformed hearts then behave differently in society. It is this transformation of individual hearts and behavior that transforms culture.

We are called to teach the entirely of the Bible and allow God to operate through his word. But I do not see where we are to force others into accepting our beliefs.

Preaching to the deaf

Some will intentionally distort what we say. One example is the recent brouhaha over Dan Cathy’s remarks on traditional marriage. He said nothing against homosexuals or homosexual marriage, but did make statements in favor of traditional marriage. Those who were looking for an offense found it because an exclusive claim for marriage violates their sense of fairness.

Why is this the case? Isaiah 8:13-14 gives us a clue when Isaiah writes:

It is the LORD of hosts whom you should regard as holy.
And He shall be your fear,
And He shall be your dread,
Then He shall become a sanctuary

Similarly, John Newton penned these words in his song Amazing Grace:

T’was Grace that taught…
my heart to fear.
And Grace, my fears relieved.
How precious did that Grace appear…
the hour I first believed.

The point is that until the Grace of God is operative in the people we are speaking with, they cannot understand much of what we say with regard to morality and social issues. It is grace that teaches hearts to respect a higher authority.

If you do not believe that God or anyone else has the authority to sanction a particular form of marriage, then “fairness” would seem to be in favor of not excluding homosexuals from the institution of marriage. It is not until someone has the recognition of authority that our statements about traditional marriage make any sense.

They cannot hear us because they are spiritually deaf.

Toward a proper response

Jesus left us with two Great Commands and one mission. The commands are to love God and love our neighbor (Matthew 22:37-40). The mission is to make disciples (Matthew 28:18-20). The Great Commands and our mission should determine how we go about interacting with our culture.

There will be discussion and perhaps even argument, but in that discussion we need to keep in mind that we are called to a higher standard. We should reason with Christianity’s critics with the fruit of the Spirit in action. As a reminder, here is the list from Galatians 5:22-23:

love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control

Paul tells us that against these traits there is no law. In other words, reasonable people will not take offense if we operate with these traits in action.

When we speak the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15) then we put ourselves in the position to be used by God to transform lives.

We must remember that God does the transformation and he does it at the level of the individual.

What do you think? When is the Church justified in taking social action such as a boycott or protest?

The LORD and the LORD alone is my shepherd

Posted on July 26, 2012 Written by Mark McIntyre 7 Comments

We need a shepherd

Because we live in a fallen world, we have disappointments. Others let us down and we sometimes let others down. It is especially troubling when we are disappointed by leaders. Too often we set them up for failure by having expectations that they cannot fill. To be human is to be tainted with the Fall; we are far from perfect. Perhaps this is why many of us find comfort in Psalm 23.

God is the shepherd

David begins by making a declaration that the LORD, Yahweh or Jehovah, is his shepherd. David is the king who is shepherded by God himself. In other words, David is acknowledging that he needs to be lead.

When David wrote this psalm, he was at the top of the food chain and arguably one of the most powerful men in the world. Even though he occupies such a lofty position, David knew he needed God. It is the LORD and the LORD alone who was David’s shepherd. Contrast this with current notions of self made men who need input from no-one.

A Lesson for Leaders

If David, arguably the greatest king in Israel’s history, needed God as his shepherd, as leaders we would do well to keep in mind our own need. Christian leaders, while filling the role of under-shepherds, need to remember that we are still sheep that are prone to wonder off and get lost.

Many Christian leaders have fallen into sin or error by believing their own press clippings and forgetting or ignoring their need for God. When this happens, it turns out badly for everyone involved.

The result of following

What is the result of looking to the LORD as my shepherd? David says, “I shall not want.” It is on the basis of acknowledging God as my shepherd that I can begin to experience contentment. Jesus said,

“These things I have spoken to you, so that in me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world.” – John 16:33

The rest of the psalm describe what “not wanting” looks like or foundation upon which David is content. The shepherd leads him. David understands that because of God’s character, David can expect good things from God such as green pastures and still waters. David knows that the shepherd has David’s best interest in mind.

Like David, our understanding and our practice can be two different things. David understood that his contentment comes from God, yet his affair with Bathsheba shows that, like us, he sought to find his contentment outside of God’s provision.

Without God we may at times find green pasture and still water. In a limited sense we may have some soul restoration through music and the arts. Yet it is only through the Good Shepherd, God in the flesh, Jesus Christ, that we can be truly be guided into the paths of righteousness. It is only through that relationship with Jesus Christ that we can walk through the valley of the shadow of death without fear. It is only a relationship with God through Jesus Christ that will allow us to dwell with God forever.

It is God and God alone that can provide all these benefits. The emphasis is on the character and nature of the shepherd. God is the only shepherd we can completely trust.

We let others down. We let ourselves down. Others let us down. Yet through it all God remains faithful as David reminds us in Psalm 23.

Crowds and compassion

Posted on July 24, 2012 Written by Mark McIntyre Leave a Comment

The Crowd

Jesus, seeing a crowd of people had compassion on them. Mark sets the scene in the opening verses of Chapter 8:

“In those days, when there was again a large crowd and they had nothing to eat, Jesus called His disciples and said to them, “I feel compassion for the people because they have remained with Me now three days and have nothing to eat. “If I send them away hungry to their homes, they will faint on the way; and some of them have come from a great distance.”” (Mark 8:1–3, NASB)

The Physical Need

There are two needs of which Jesus is aware concerning the crowd. The first one is that the crowd had nothing to eat and had been following Jesus for three days.

It is likely that many of the people were hungry when they began following Jesus and they were hungrier still after three days. There was a very real and very urgent need for food.

The danger we have as the church in North America is that we can assume that the government will take care of the needs of the people around us. After all, we might argue, isn’t that why we pay taxes?

While programs for the needy may be a staple of 21st Century politics, there are still great needs that we can meet if we only open our eyes to see them. Like the disciples, we sometimes need someone to point out the opportunities because we are often conditioned to look past them.

When we see a crowd, too often we see an inconvenience. Jesus saw the crowd as an opportunity. In this particular case, it was an opportunity that he did not miss and the result was the physical need of the crowd was met. They were fed.

The Spiritual Need

One of the constant sources of embarrassment to the theologically conservative churches is that sometimes those liberals on whom we look with theological disdain do a much better job of meeting the physical needs of the people around them.

Yet, to only meet the physical need is to miss an opportunity for greater good. If we are right in our belief that our choices in this life have eternal consequences, then we need to be sure to use every opportunity to address the spiritual need of the people around us.

To be smug in our theological correctness without reaching out into the community is contrary to the example of Jesus. Jesus met the physical need as a means of building a bridge to address the spiritual one.

At the very least, we can be praying for the crowds of people we see. Jesus’ words in Matthew 9 are good encouragement:

“Seeing the people, He felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and dispirited like sheep without a shepherd. Then He said to His disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. “Therefore beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into His harvest.”” (Matthew 9:36–38, NASB)

The Provision

In John 6:45, following the feeding of the five thousand, Jesus informs his hearers that He is the bread of life. It is easy to see the need for physical bread, perhaps less so for our spiritual needs.

We, as the church, need to offer physical bread in the form of meeting the community’s physical needs. We also need to offer Jesus as the spiritual bread that will satisfy the inner longing for relationship with God.

We can do neither if we do not engage the crowd.