Last Sunday I preached from Matthew 12, where Jesus and the Pharisees butted heads over their interpretation of the sabbath. The Pharisees took a much stricter view of it than Jesus did. Which got me thinking, is it possible to be stricter than God?
Many Independent Baptists spend a lot of time arguing and defending standards that don’t come directly from scripture, could it be they stricter than God?
Yet all of us know that we have to have some rules that aren’t in scripture. ”I can’t tell my child to not cross a busy street because that rule’s not in the Bible.” said no parent ever. How does this all work out?
I plan to cover these topics:
I realize I may have bitten off way more than I can chew with these topics, but one of the reasons I blog is because it forces me to think through topics.
Have your own ideas about being “Stricter than God?” Let me know in the comments:
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I look forward to reading this. I know this isn’t a debate about calvinism. you can’t do that in a blog. I know most of your basic ideas on the subject and you know mine. I’m not sure this is quite as touchy of a topic as it was 10-15 years ago, but maybe that’s just in my sphere of life. don’t forget to include some obligatory quotes from spurgeon (super-hard core calvinist). you can’t talk baptists and calvinists and not include one of the “greatest” (pardon the expression) of both.
Well, yes I was referencing personal separation. But as far as ecclesiastical goes, I think they’re doing a pretty good job. The Gospel Coalition, Acts 29 Network, and The Resurgence are all pretty good examples of how mainstream evangelicals are working together to better align core values among churches and weed out those that deny them. (p.s. I hope you know that I completely reject men like Rob Bell, Bill Johnson, and Joel Owsteen. They’re fruit cakes) My point in all of this is that these blogs really help no one. how do you justify this stuff when taking Luke 9:50 into account? These guys are not against you or anything you stand for. The way Mark Driscoll puts it, you’re firing bullets against other states, when really you should be saving your ammo for national boundaries. Sure, I think its ok to debate about “petty” stuff every now and then, but that doesn’t mean you should be ecclesiastically separate from a church because they preach from the ESV. Jesus and Him crucified is what matters. When I was a member at a fundamentalist church , I once asked why we do not ever associate with southern baptists, although our mission statements align pretty darn perfectly, and the answer I got was, “Because the are involved in missions cooperatives, and that’s not how we do it here.” That, dude, is petty. By all means, separate from churches who deny the inherent word, virgin birth, deny the trinity, salvation by faith alone, etc.
This past fall I got dragged to a revival thing in Denver put on by Bethel Church. It was awful and full of lies and false hope, but what really made me laugh was how all the preacher talked about was how bad fundamentalists were. I think the fundamentalists and the liberals are the two extremes here, and I believe God calls us to be balanced. Evangelicals, in my mind, are doing a great job at just that.
My humble opinion. Luke 9:50 says it all.
“Souls in danger look above, Jesus completely saves…” very biblical and reassuring at the same time. I’ll keep Love lifted me…
Here’s a different biblical view from another pastor http://www.peopleschurchnewyork.com/files/psalmos_rocco_dapice.pdf.
I have two questions/comments? 1. Is it wrong to have CCM Music as entertainment? If so, have you seen Facing the Giants, Fireproof or Courageous? I would not use those movies in a church service but I would definitely view them at home as good entertainment. 2. I’m not sure if all the Psalms of David would qualify in your situation either. Psalm 6 is kinda depressing, Psalm 7 is a little ridged, Psalm 8 is laden with exclamation points. Just in these 3 chapters alone there is not much doctrine. Some of them even appear as ramblings of a weary man. These Psalms were written to God to reflect his feelings and the situations he faced in those immediate days.
this has been a very good discussion with lots of excellent input. I attended a state college (oops!) instead of a “christian” college. while attending state school I attended 2 “para-church” organizations: FCA and RUF. the musical styles were similar, but the content was substantially different. FCA was exclusively “praise and worship.” I feel they chose this because the audience was extremely varied. we had baptists, catholics, charismatics, lutheran, church of god, church of christ, non-denominational, etc. when your group is so diverse, you do run the risk of “offending” some with songs of differing theology. so the solution is to sing songs with only theology accepted by all groups. this can prove difficult as you can imagine. that being said it was still a wonderful time of fellowship and a learning experience for a boy who was raised in an ifb church, went to ifb schools, and lived in the ifb bubble we like to insulate our children in. towards the second half of my college career, I began attending RUF (reformed university fellowship). it is run by the PCA (presbyterian church america) and is affiliated with a local church. what prevented me from attending earlier in my college career was my miseducation about calvinism and it’s true teachings. what I did find at RUF were songs I had never heard before in my life and some I was familiar with. most were “old” but some were contemporary. it was amazing. the songs were filled with doctrine, repentance, confession, humility, and glorification of God. I learned these were all vital aspects of reformed theology. they were not sung in a manner most ifb churches would allow because they were string instrument driven not piano and organ driven (though these were included when available). ruf was attended by pretty much the same groups that attended fca, though in different proportions. it was “safe” to be doctrinal because everybody knew where the organization offically stood on matters of the bible.
ryan, I agree that much of what is being sung in churches today is “fluff and stuff.” that being said, the preaching in those churches may be good. I’ve also attended churches that sang all the “right” songs in all the “right” ways, but the preaching was mainly a pep talk to make everyone feel good about themselves. I prefer the old hymns, like the ones I find in my trinity hymnal (pca). I can’t sing portions of some of the songs in our church hymnal because I believe they are unbiblical. I don’t care so much about whether you use a piano, organ, mandolin, guitar, harmonica, saxophone, etc. instruments are neutral. I feel any instrument can be used to glorify God, just like any instrument can be used to lead people astray.
i do think it’s interesting how many people who preach against musical styles and the evils of entertaining the audience will have performances in their churches. some are labelled as performances and some are labelled as offeritories. the real “sin” is performing in a way that they don’t approve.
keep up the good blogs.
i guess i should apologize for “frustrating” you with my uneducated mindset on music. it is obvious that you feel only those who have an intellectual view of music should comment or have opinions on music content and style. i would like to know how you reconcile your view that God is concerned with the quality of our “performance” with his stark rebuke of the pharisee’s ornate, well rehearsed offering in the temple and the meager uneducated, unskilled offering provided by the widow. surely God must have given the pharisee style points for doing such a good outward “performance” (it was in fact a performance when they gave their offerings), while somehow not quite enjoying as much the widow’s simple gift. the idea that the lack of musical education disqualifies the modern christian from knowing what godly music is smacks of medieval catholicism that taught only the educated priests were qualified to read the Bible. i will firmly and un-equivalently stand by my comment that God is more concerned with the heart than the quality. if that frustrates people, than so be it. when i get to heaven maybe i can have a jam session with david and bach, but until then i guess i will have to take comfort that God forgives my uneducated, simple gift of music for what it is, even if some people don’t appreciate it because it’s not up to their standard.
excellent article. thanks again. you would make a good calvinist (except for the calvinism part:) I hope your next article about what ifb churches can learn from calvinism is about God’s sovereignty. that would be funny.
Ryan Hayden
