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10 Signs You Might be a Legalist

In previous posts I have written that Legalism is the biggest threat to church unity, and that you are better off being a sinner than a legalist.

So since legalism is so serious, it is important to know whether or not you are a legalist.

Here are 10 Signs you Might be a Legalist

If you believe there is a sin you think God cannot forgive, you might be a legalist.
If you believe there is a limit to the grace of God, you might be a legalist.
If you believe that God’s blessings are reserved only for the obedient, you might be a legalist.
If you believe that certain behaviors disqualify a person from joining God’s family, you might be a legalist.
If you believe that the presence of ongoing sin in a person’s life causes them to lose their eternal life, you might be a legalist.
If you believe that the presence of ongoing sin in a person’s life proves that they never had eternal life in the first place, you might be a legalist.
If you believe that God loves us more if we obey Him more, you might be a legalist.
If you believe that all Christians must believe and act like you do, you might be a legalist.
If you believe that our standing with God is based on how well we keep the Ten Commandments, you might be a legalist.
If you believe that people who accept evolution, love homosexuals, and vote democrat cannot be true Christians, you might be a legalist.

Have any to add? Want to object? State your opinion in the comment section below!

4 Reasons Sin is Better than Legalism

By Jeremy Myers

45 Comments

You might be surprised to learn what is the biggest threat to Christianity.

Despite what you might hear from some churches, It’s not gay people.

Despite what you might hear from some politicians pandering for votes, it’s not democrats (or republicans). Not Obama either!

Despite what you might hear from some preachers, it’s not Muslims.

Despite what you might hear from some men, it is not women preachers.

It’s not greed or gluttony. It’s not sports. It’s not Hollywood. It’s not Wall Street. It’s not Russia or China.

No, the biggest threat to Christianity is the one that is probably present in all of the lives and congregations which say the things above, and which Jesus primarily concerned Himself with during His ministry.

The biggest threat to Christianity.

I’ve written on this before, but I’m doing so again because legalism is such a threat that I am firmly convinced that if we had to choose between self-righteous religious legalism and committing sin, we should choose sin every time.

Why? Here are four reasons:

Legalism is the Worst Kind of Sin

It’s doesn’t look like sin! But at it’s core, legalism fosters pride, arrogance, judgmentalism, and self-righteousness.

So in other words, sin is better than legalism because at least sin admits it is sin. Legalism is still sin, but masquerades as righteousness. That makes legalism not only sin, but sinister as well.

Legalism is of the Devil

Literally. Satan is a legalist. We often think that Satan temps us to sin, but I think that sin is only “Plan B” with Satan.

Satan’s primary goal is to turn us into legalists. Rather than turn someone into an outright sinner, Satan would much prefer to have everyone think they are completely obedient to the Laws of God, and are here on earth to get others to obey God also.

Satan wants us to think that because of our obedience to the law of God, we are making God happy. That if we can just conform our lives to a set of rules and behaviors, then we are right with God.

If you gave Satan a choice between an army of religious legalists and an army of Satan-worshiping anarchists, Satan will choose the religious legalists every time. Religious legalists do more damage to the cause of Christ than any anarchist has ever done. Worse yet, religious legalists perform their evil in the name of God, which makes it infinitely more evil.

If you sin, and sin blatantly, at least you will recognize you have sinned, and can fall before God in repentance and confession. God would rather have this than self-righteous, devilish legalism.

Legalists are Far from the Kingdom

Jesus said that tax collects and prostitutes were closer to the Kingdom of God than were the legalistic religious leaders of His day.

The same thing is true today. So called “sinners” know something about themselves and about God which no legalist will ever understand. “Sinners” know that they are sinners and that if God loves and forgives them, it is not because of anything good or Godly in themselves, but is purely out of God’s grace.

Though legalists always pay lip service to grace, they don’t actually believe it. Though they may believe that they were originally saved by God’s love and grace, they believe that God’s continuing love and grace for them is based on their own personal godliness and holy lifestyle.

But since life in the Kingdom of God is based on understanding God’s love and grace, then people who think they are living in the Kingdom according to strict observance of law are not actually living within the Kingdom.

Again, those who the world considered “sinners” know that if they are to be accepted by God, they can depend on nothing but God’s unmerited grace. This is the position in which we should all approach God, but as long as a person thinks they are obeying God, they will never approach God begging for mercy and grace.

Yes, Jesus said that “Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the Scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the Kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:20). But Jesus was not calling His followers to become more righteous than the scribes and Pharisees. He was saying that when it comes to personal righteousness, you have to be more perfect than the scribes and pharisees, which is impossible! Therefore, don’t even try! Fall upon the grace, mercy, and love of God instead.

Legalists Are Blind

The last reason sin is better than legalism is because no legalist ever believes they are a legalist. This is partly what makes this sin so insidious. While most sinners know they are sinners, no legalist ever recognizes their legalism.

Instead, they are “standing up for truth!”, “defending God’s righteousness!”, “calling on people to return to God!”, “living as salt and light!”, or some other such phrase. As such, they are blind to the true condition of their hearts, and believe themselves to be champions of the truth and defenders of the Gospel, but in reality, they are whitewashed tombs, the blind leading the blind.

In a strange turn of events, the sinner who can see God’s ways and God’s love and God’s forgiveness is better off than the legalist. The legalist, seeing only his own self-righteousness, thinks that in order to gain God’s love, everyone needs to be as righteous as he is. The sinner however, knows without a doubt that he can never attain that level of righteousness, and so despairs of ever achieving God’s love. They are left with beating on their chest and saying, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” which is what God wants anyway (Luke 18:13).

So how can you know if you are a legalist? Tomorrow I will write about 10 Signs You Might be a Legalist.

The Holy Bible is not so Holy

By Jeremy Myers

25 Comments

If you look on the front cover of your Bible, you are likely to see this:

Such wording is so commonplace, we hardly think anything of it.

But are you aware that the concept of the Bible being holy is not found at all in the Old Testament and is rarely applied to the Bible in the New Testament, and even then, in places where the usage is debatable.

Let me put it another way: God is Holy; the Bible is not.

Thinking and speaking about the Bible as “holy” is one reason the Bible has come to be viewed as the fourth member of the Trinity in the minds of many Christians.

The Holy Bible in Jewish Literature

It is true that Jewish Rabbinic writers often wrote about “the Holy Scriptures,” but it is also true that many Rabbinic writers could be accused of almost deifying the Bible. A Torah scroll, for example, often costs tens of thousands of dollars, and is kept in an expensive container, and if it is ever dropped on the ground or touched with something (or by someone) unclean, it has to be cleansed or buried (but not burned or thrown out).

But this is not how Christians view the Bible (some do, actually, but that is a side topic).

But this Rabbinic reverence for the Scriptures comes not from the Hebrew Scripture itself, but from Jewish tradition that is built up around the Scripture.

The Holy Bible in the New Testament

The same argument could be made for the New Testament.

There are only three places in the New Testament that seem to indicate that the Bible is “holy.”

The first is Romans 1:2, but there the word Paul uses for “holy” is hagiais instead of the normal word for divine holiness, hierais. The same usage applies to Romans 7:12 where Paul speaks of the “holy law.”

There is only one place in the New Testament that uses the normal term “holy” (hieros) in connection to Scripture, and that is 2 Timothy 3:15.

But curiously, the word Paul uses there for Scripture is grammata, not the more typical words for Scripture, biblos or graphe. Why does it matter? Because elsewhere in Paul’s writings, he usually contrasts grammata with pneuma. In other words, the writings of the Law are set in contrast to life in the Spirit (cf. Rom 2:27).

So it appears that in Paul’s thinking, gramma does not refer to the Bible or the Scriptures, but to the prescriptions and commands of the Law (see TDNT I:765). The gramma is the Law which does not rule in the heart (Rom 7:6; 2 Cor 3:6ff.; TDNT I:766).

It seems then, that the only place in the Bible which speaks about the “Holy Writings,” Paul is writing somewhat about the Jewish religious view of the Law, a view in which he was taught and trained (as was Timothy), but which is proved to be untrue in light of the revelation in Jesus Christ.

As a curious side note, Paul uses a different word for Scripture in 2 Timothy 3:16 (graphe), and a third word in 2 Timothy 4:2 (logos). My personal belief is that Paul was not simply using synonyms to refer to the Bible, but was using three different terms to make a specific point about what Timothy should focus on in ministry (Answer: Jesus – The Logos).

Jesus and the Holy Spirit Transcend the Bible

So regarding the Bible, I agree with what Schrenk writes in TDNT:

“We may thus conclude that the phrase [the holy writings] perpetuates in the church a Jewish and Hellenistic rather than a specifically early Christian usage” (TDNT I:751). “For Paul, the [law] and [writings] are transcended by Christ and the Spirit, and are thus given their true validity” (TDNT I: 761).

and for a statement that really blows me away:

“For early Christianity Scripture is no longer just what is written, nor is it just tradition; it is the dynamic and divinely determined declaration of God which speaks of His whole rule and therefore of His destroying and new creating, and which reaches its climax in the revelation of Christ and the revelation of the Spirit by the risen Lord … The full revelation in Christ and the Spirit is more than what is written” (TDNT I:761).

A few days after I originally wrote this article, I saw that Brandon Chase was thinking and writing about something similar. At one point, Brandon writes this:

So much effort is spent on driving Christians to be in the Word more, to read their Bible’s more, to study the Bible… You know what? Some of you… Some of you need to put your Bible down. You need to walk away. Take a break. Look for and find God’s Word (Jesus Christ) in nature, people, rest, quiet. Learn to hear His Voice apart from the words in your Bible.

You really need to go read his post, and while you are at it, subscribe to his blog. His posts are fantastic!

If you think I am a lying heretic, let me help you out…

By Jeremy Myers

20 Comments

One downside to having the “Ask a Bible and Theology” question section on my sidebar is that some people feel it is an invitation to send me hate mail.

Ever since I put it up, I get a few nasty messages every week from people who think I am a lying heretic leading poor lost souls to the pit of hell through false teaching and heretical ideas.

Usually, they want to engage me in a back-and-forth email debate. Often, I get the feeling that if we lived in a different century, they would want to put me on the rack or give me up to the flames to burn the error from my soul.

Here is one such email I got last week:

Jeremy I am a very well educated theologian and I am personally challenging you to Scripturally support the LIE in which you propagate upon immature Believers.

Scriptural proof is one thing but personal IMO’s are of little theological value.

Once again – I am here should you want to defend you LIES.

I have neither the time nor the desire to engage in fruitless email debates with people like this (or to point out his grammar mistakes).

However, people are entitled to their opinion, and I fully admit that there are areas of my theology which need correction.

So, if you think I am a lying heretic leading immature believers astray, let me help you point out my error. Take these two steps.

Start a blog of your own
Writes posts on your blog in which you refute my ideas, point by point

If you include a link in your blog post to my blog post you are refuting, I will get a notification in my blog that you have written this blog post, and I can come over and read your post to learn about my many errors. If you make good points, I may even comment, or notify my blog readers that I am changing my views because of your compelling Scriptural and theological arguments.

I am so serious about this, I am willing to help you start your blog for FREE. Learn more here about starting your own blog.

I just checked, and these domains are currently available:

jeremymyersisalyingheretic.com
jeremymyersisthemouthpieceofsatan.com
alltheheresiesofjeremymyers.com
iamsmarterthanjeremymyers.com
jeremymyerssucks.com
thebadtheologyofjeremymyers.com

Jump on these domains quick, though, because once they’re gone, they’re gone!

Hey Pastors! You’re Welcome…

By Jeremy Myers

22 Comments

I was a pastor for five years. I loved (almost) every minute of it. Many days, I still miss it …

One of the things I enjoyed most was studying and preparing for my Sunday sermon. I tried as hard as I could every single week to prepare something fresh, insightful, and helpful for the people who attended on Sunday morning.

On average, it took me about 10 hours to prepare a 40 minute sermon. I would usually begin by translating from the Greek, outlining from my translation, then analyzing each word and phrase in the text, all the while praying for insight and help from the Holy Spirit to illuminate my mind and provide ways to explain the text and apply it to the lives of those who listened. My very last step was to read all the commentaries I had on that particular passage. There were numerous times where this final step forced me to madly rewrite my entire sermon from scratch …

Anyway, I have noticed an interesting trend on my blog during the last year. I always get a spike in traffic on Saturdays. For most of the time, I thought, “Well, it’s just because it’s the weekend, and people are surfing the internet more.” Also, Saturday is the day I send out my weekly blog digest to newsletter subscribers. So I thought that maybe I get some subscribers clicking over to my blog to read some of the posts they had missed during the week.

But then a few weeks ago I decided to dig a little deeper to find out why my traffic spiked on Saturdays.

You want to know why?

It’s my “Sermon” pages. On Saturdays, my sermon pages gets hundreds and hundreds of hits. A few weeks ago, for example, my sermon on James 2 got nearly 600 pageviews. There are a variety of possibilities for why my sermon pages are so hot on Saturdays, but I have a sneaking suspicion that the traffic comes from pastors around the world who are looking for a sermon to preach on Sunday. Who knows … maybe Mark Driscoll has preached one of my sermons? Ha!

If pastors are preaching my sermons, I don’t really care … I am glad to help out. I do wish, however, that once or twice a pastor who lifts a sermon from someone else would give credit to that “someone else.” Or leave a comment saying, “Thanks for the great sermon! I’m going to preach it in my church tomorrow!”

I do, by the way, get several emails a week from authors who want to quote something I have written in one of their books. I always tells them “Yes!” and thank them for asking. They also, of course, state that they will include my name and details in a footnote. Great! That’s how it should be done.

Or course, I will admit it. I confess. I have lifted sermons from other pastors. Two or three of them, I think. One from John MacArthur. One from Jon Courson. I don’t remember the other. But I always, always, always, made sure to make a disclaimer at the beginning of my message that the sermon they were about to hear was from another pastor, and the reason I am sharing it from the pulpit is because I thought the message was so good.

On a related note, I recently listened to a pastor preach a sermon on “The Widow’s Mite.” I cannot prove it, but what he said sounded eerily similar to what I wrote here about the Widow’s Mite. I used a source to get my ideas for that post (and that source is referenced in the post), so it is quite possible that this pastor never read my post and simply preached a similar idea, or maybe he read the same book I did … but regardless, the pastor never once gave credit to the books or blogs where he obtained his ideas. Of course, you cannot really include footnotes in a spoken sermon, so maybe the references were in the sermon notes?

I don’t know why I’m posting this …

Here’s my point, I suppose. If you “borrow” someone else’s sermon from online to preach on Sunday morning, at least leave a “thank you” comment on the website or give the person some credit in your sermon.

Do I sound bitter? I hope not. I really don’t care too much if another pastor preaches my sermons. I study hard and try to explain Scripture as best I know how, so if others preach my sermons, that’s okay with me. It’s just that a little thanks every now and then would be nice.

Church Membership – a Core Christian Doctrine

By Jeremy Myers

4 Comments

I saw this on Greg Boyd’s blog this week. I laughed and thought you might enjoy it too:

What are the signs of a False Conversion?

By Jeremy Myers

32 Comments

The last couple weeks I have been working my way through dozens of Bible and theology questions which people have submitted through that “ask a question” area in the sidebar. Here is a question someone sent in about the signs of a false conversion:

How would one know if they experienced a false conversion? I was raised in church with a very religious controlling mother. I continued in church through my teens and twenties and then married a minister.

This past year I started to struggle with my faith… It came to a head in October when I felt like the Holy Spirit departed.

I then had what I would term a mini nervous breakdown. After that point I feel like I was shown that I had been working against God all along and His people…. Jealousy envy, anger… All the while not even realizing that my heart was in the state it was in. I have had very dark thoughts even about God and am now concerned about the unpardonable sin.

I have not felt His presence since October. I feel empty and dead inside. How do I know if I am or was saved and if it is possible that I am now outside of grace?

Below is my answer to this question about false conversions. Please feel free to weigh in with your own perspective in the comment section below.

There are countless millions of people who struggle with this exact same question about the signs of a false conversion.

Are you ready for a short and shocking answer about the signs of false conversion? Here it is:

There are none.

What?! There are no sure signs of a false conversion? How can this be? Doesn’t Scripture teach us about good trees bearing good fruit? Doesn’t James warn us against dead faith? Don’t churches and pastors tell us to bear fruit worthy of repentance?

Yes, these are the sorts of things Scripture says and the sorts of things pastor preach. And while I believe those Scriptures, I understand them differently than how they are explained from most pulpits and in most books.

So let’s back up a little bit and see if I can unpack my short answer.

I am not denying that there is such a thing as false conversion; I am only denying that there are signs of false conversion. Yet Scripture provides a clear and simple way to know whether or not you have been truly converted….

Confused yet? Let’s break it down….

There is Such a Thing as False Conversion

It is true that there is such a thing as a false conversion. There are many who believe they have eternal life, but may not in fact have this free gift of God, because they do not understand what how God gives eternal life to us.

On the one hand, there are countless numbers of people who think they received eternal life when they walked an isle at a revival or evangelism crusade. Or maybe they signed a card, raised a hand, or said a prayer. If you ask someone how they know they have eternal life, and they say something like “When I was 10 my church had a guest evangelist come speak, and when he gave an altar call I went forward and prayed the sinners prayer” it is possible that this person does not actually understand what the Bible says about how to receive eternal life.

Then there the millions of people who believe that our own good works play some sort of role in gaining, keeping, or proving eternal life. Some teach that “Jesus has done His 99% and we must do our 1%.” This is the idea that there is a role we must play to gain eternal life.

Others say, “No, we don’t have to do anything to gain eternal life; it is the free gift of God (Eph 2:8-9), but if we want to keep eternal life, we have to live a life of holiness and obedience. If you commit certain sins, or do not repent of your sins, or fail to confess a sin, or live in sin for an extended period of time, well, then you no longer have eternal life. Either you give it back or God takes it back.”

Finally, there are many who say that if a person truly has eternal life, they can never lose it, but their good works will prove that they actually have it. If they do not have the good works to back up their claim, then they never really had eternal life to begin with. Theirs was a false faith, a spurious faith, a fake faith.

What does the Bible say about about conversion?

The Bible pretty clearly indicates that eternal life is an absolutely free gift of God which He gives to anyone and everyone who simply and only believes in Jesus Christ for it (cf. John 3:16; 5:24; 6:47, etc.).

And since there is no good work that is necessary to earn eternal life, there is also no good work that is necessary to keep it. And while we would hope and expect that people who have eternal life will live lives of increasing holiness and obedience, the fact that God has given us freedom means that a life of good works is not guaranteed.

To sum up then, Jesus gives eternal life to anyone who believes in Him for it.

So what does all this have to do with the question of true and false conversion? Well, based on what we have seen so far, how can you know if you have been converted? Answer: If you have believed in Jesus for eternal life, then God promises that you have eternal life.

It really doesn’t matter how we feel at some point in our life, or what mistakes we have made, or whether or not we can sense the Holy Spirit’s presence. It is God’s guaranteed promise that if we believe in Jesus Christ for eternal life, then we have it.

This why I say that there are no signs of false conversion. To know whether or not we have been converted, there is only faith in the unfailing promises of God through Jesus Christ. Outward experiences, our own good works, and the inner feelings of our hearts are not reliable indicators of whether or not we are part of God’s family. Being part of God’s family is by faith from first to last.

All of that was to answer your first question about being falsely converted. How can you know whether or not you were falsely converted? Well, do you believe in Jesus for eternal life? If so, you have eternal life. It is God’s promise.

Knowing the Love and Acceptance of God

This then should help you with the rest of your questions. It is difficult being a pastor’s wife. It is difficult feeling that the Holy Spirit has departed (He hasn’t, by the way). It is difficult dealing with jealousy, envy, and anger. It is difficult feeling empty and dead inside.

But through all these emotions and feelings, remember this: God loves you more than you can possibly imagine. Though what you are going through right now is extremely painful, God is with you in this time and is seeking to strengthen and solidify your faith during this time. You are experiencing a winter in your relationship with God, a time that some have called “the dark night of the soul.” But spring will come. The light will dawn once again. The sense of God’s presence will return.

While you wait, remember God’s many promises in Scripture, that He loves you and will never leave you nor forsake you, and that you have eternal life because you have believed in Jesus for it.

If you want to weigh in on this theological question, please feel free to add your comments below. Also, please consider sharing this post on Twitter and Facebook below so that others can benefit from the discussion on this theological question.

Waving the White Flag Before the Onslought of God’s Violence

By Jeremy Myers

58 Comments

RETREAT!!!!!

I give up.

I wave the white flag.

I surrender.

I hang my head in defeat.

I slink off into the woods with my tail between my legs.

Over a year ago I set out to put a theory of mine down on paper about how to reconcile the violence of God with the self-sacrificial non-violence of Jesus Christ. The theory had been percolating in my mind for over a decade, and I finally decided to tackle the issue head on.

After 100,000 words, I give up.

If you read this blog much last year, it is almost the only thing I posted on… up until October 13. Then the posts stopped.

Why?

Because I hit a road block. A pot hole. A speed bump. A dead end.

What was the road block?

Only one little thing called…

…Scripture.

Most of what I had written was a hypothesis, a theory, about how to reconcile the violence of God in the Old Testament with the sacrificial love of Jesus in the New. My book was called When God Pled Guilty, and I was basically arguing that just as Jesus took the sins of the world upon Himself on the cross, so also, somehow, the violent portrayals of God in the Old Testament is God taking the sins of Israel upon Himself through the testimony of inspired Scripture.

In other words, to the outside observer, Jesus hanging on a cross looks guilty (even though He wasn’t). So also, a casual reading of the Old Testament makes God look guilty (even though He isn’t).

I thought that there were enough hints and clues scattered through the Bible to show that the violent portrayals of God in the Old Testament are really just Him taking the blame and shouldering the responsibility for the bad things that happen in this world which He does not prevent from happening.

I thought I had a pretty good theory going…. until I tried to get the theory to match with the violent portrayals of God in Scripture. I soon found that all my theorizing hadn’t gotten me past the 1 yard line… of my own side of the field. I still had 99 yards to go, and the defense was shutting me down faster than the Seahawks shut down Peyton Manning…. (sorry Bronco fans…. I wanted Manning to win too).

Sigh.

Honestly, I should have seen it coming. Want to know why?

My wife was never convinced.

My wife is the greatest theologian and Bible scholar I know.

She has what I call “intuitive theology.” She doesn’t read a lot of books or spend dozens of hours each week studying… but she always knows more theology than I do, and always asks penetrating questions which shoot holes through all my acadamagician ideas (Yes, I just coined that term… it’s a cross between academic and magician… because that’s what most theology is. We throw some verses in a pot, mix in some fancy Greek and Hebrew and a quote from Barth, mix it up, blow smoke in people’s faces, and then Voila! — A book that everyone must buy!)

Anyway, my wife was never convinced of my theory, and so I should have known it was doomed from the start.

Another nail in the coffin though, was when I was recently interviewed by Drew Marshall (listen to the audio) and when I briefly mentioned this idea to him, he asked if I had been smoking marijuana. Ha!

But aside from my wife and Drew, there are a few other reasons I am abandoning this theory.

1. Occam’s Razor

No, this is not a new razor put out by Gillette (Now with 8 Blades!!!).

Occam’s razor is a principle used in science and other problem-solving fields which states the simplest solution is often right. Specifically (according to Wikipedia), Occam’s razor states that among competing hypotheses, the hypothesis with the fewest assumptions should be selected.

If you did any reading of my hypothesis, you know that it was not simple. It is not a hypothesis with the fewest assumptions. To the contrary, my hypothesis was so complex, so difficult to grasp, and so full of details, I myself had trouble keeping it all straight in my own head!

Heck, I had already written 100,000 words on the topic, and was only about half-way done. (A typical 200 page book is about 60,000 words.)

2. Modern Disasters

A second reason I am giving up is because ultimately, I had no good explanation for the most difficult question of all… which is why bad things happen today. My hypothesis did very little to provide an explanation for this.

In my (abandoned) theory, I argued that the Old Testament portrays God holding back disasters upon people until, as a result of their great evil, they departed from God’s protective hand. I think that this can actually be seen time and time again in Scripture.

But then, what does this mean for the victims of Hurricane Katrina, or the December 26, 2004 tsunami that killed almost 250,000 people? How does my theory explain people like Hitler and Mussolini getting to live so long while they brought incredible amounts of evil upon the world? How comes they seemingly hadn’t departed from God’s protective hand?

What did my theory have to say to the millions and millions of little girls who are sold into sex slavery to be raped by as many as 40 or 50 men every single day?

Nothing.

Other than that “God didn’t do it,” my hypothesis could say nothing helpful, loving, kind, or hopeful to such situations or such people caught in a living hell.

3. Couldn’t Even Refute the Calvinists

I am actually not that interested in “refuting” Calvinists, but one area of Calvinistic theology which has always troubled me is the insistence by some that since God is sovereign, He is the cause of everything. If you press them, some will say that while God is not the “author” of evil, He is the primary cause behind all evil, sin, and suffering in the world. (For examples, see John Piper’s quotes here and here.)

Calvinists say that everything that happens in the world is because God’s wills it to happen.

So when a family gets in a car accident and the husband and wife escape, but their children die in a ball of flame when the car explodes, their Calvinistic pastor says that while we don’t understand why such things are God’s will, we must trust that God knows what He is doing because everything happens is according to His will. (This really happened, by the way).

The same argument is applied to Katrina, tsunamis, Hitler, and the raping of little girls.

In my opinion, such a god is monstrous, and is not worthy of worship.

But in the hypothesis I was presenting, I was saying that God “inspired” human authors to write negatively about Him in Scripture so that He could take responsibility for the bad things which happened on earth which He did not prevent from happening.

If that is true, then why I am upset at Calvinists for saying that God caused the bad things that they were ascribing to Him? If my hypothesis is true, isn’t saying “God willed your children to die in a burning car while you watched” the same thing as saying, “God sent a flood upon the earth so that everything which had breath died a horrible death by drowning”?

In my view, of course, God didn’t actually do either thing, but also in my view, God is willing to take the blame for that which He does not prevent, so I shouldn’t get too upset when people blame God for the evil things that happen in the world. After all, God apparently inspired some biblical authors to say the very same things about Him!

If God takes the blame for that which He does not prevent, then it is not wrong to blame God for the horrible events which happen in the world which He does not prevent.

This I could not accept.

4. Back to Ignorance

Last month I spent several days reading, editing, revising, and arguing with myself about the 100,000 words I had written.

I got the end (which was actually the middle, because the second half hadn’t been written yet), I realized I could have saved myself 99,997 words, and just written, “I don’t know.”

My fancy 100,000 word answer turned out to be little more than a long way of saying, “I have no idea how to reconcile the violence of God in the Old Testament with the self-sacrificial love of Jesus Christ in the New while still maintaining a conservative view of inspiration and inerrancy.”

Yes, I know. Many of you think I should just abandon inerrancy.

I would really hate to do that.

Pray for Me, Please?

Believe it nor not, this is a crisis of faith for me.

I cannot, CANNOT believe that the God revealed in Jesus Christ is the same God who drowns millions, burns cities, and commands His people to slaughter women, children, and animals.

Something else is going on in the text, but I just cannot figure out what.

My wife, with her intuitive theology, says it is something that cannot ever be figured out.

But my brain, which God gave me, cannot live with the tension. Something must give.

I seem to be left with only two options: Either Jesus truly is violent like God and He was hiding this dark side from us during His ministry, or Jesus truly revealed God to us and the violent portrayals of God in the Old Testament are in error.

The day after writing that post, when I was at work, a new thought occurred to me. A key, I’ll call it. It allowed much of the original hypothesis to remain intact, but organized it all around a central thesis which simplified and clarified the entire idea.

Although… just as I am writing this paragraph… a new thought has occurred to me…. what if? No. It can’t be.

Hmmm….

A brand new theory has just presented itself…

It seems simple…

Memorable…

Elegant…

…Heretical.

Hmm. I better run it by my wife…

If I decide to share it, you’ll be the first to know!

As a side note, many who read my blog tell me that Greg Boyd is coming out with a book later this year that sounds similar to what I was arguing. When I first heard this, I read some of his blog posts and listened to some of his sermons, and honestly, I cannot tell if he is arguing the same thing or not. I guess we will see. Apparently, if the ideas are similar, he has not hit the same road blocks I have… I look forward to reading his book… I think it is called The Crucifixion of the Warrior God.

Note: I wrote the preceding post last Saturday. As you see at the end, in the process of writing the post, a new idea occurred to me. I thought more about it on Sunday, prayed about it, looked at some key biblical texts, and (maybe most important of all – ha!) talked to my wife. She is still not convinced, but she sees promise in the idea. So, I’m back in the saddle again. Hopefully some new posts on understanding the violence of God will be published soon… I am still not sure my new approach has adequate answers to the four problems I stated above, but I think it is a move in the right direction.

Bible and Theology Questions 2

By Jeremy Myers

15 Comments

The last couple weeks I have been working my way through dozens of Bible and theology questions which people have submitted through that “ask a question” area in the sidebar. If you have been following along, you will note that some questions require a whole post to answer. Others can be answered more succinctly. These shorter answers get put in one post like the following where I try to answer several Bible and theology questions together.

This post deals with Bible and theology questions about attending church, tithing, and…. masturbation.

Feel free to leave your own comments about these questions in the comment section below.

Question on Going to Church

Can a person be a Christian and not go to church ?

Yes! A thousand times yes! People who believe in Jesus for eternal life are the church, whether or not they “attend church.”

It’s an old saying, but it’s true: Going to church doesn’t make you a Christian any more than going into a garage makes you a car.

Similarly, a car can be a car whether or not it ever parks in a garage, and a Christian can be a Christian whether or not he or she ever attends church.

Scripture backs this up as well, for there is not one place in the Bible that commands us to attend church. Not even Hebrew 10:25.

Question on Tithing

If it is the priests only God is speaking to through Malachi, then why in 3:6 does the audience seem to change to the “the children of Jacob” and “the whole nation of you” in verse 9 –it seems there is a change here.

I imagine you read this post about tithing and your question is based on what you read there? Maybe you could leave your question in the comment section there so that people could interact with you on it…

I probably should have clarified that Malachi was written primarily to the religious leaders of Israel, but not only to them. As the spiritual leaders, they were the spiritual representatives for Israel, and so naturally, Israel followed their lead. So Malachi 3:6 does mention the sons of Jacob, which may refer to all the people of Israel. Although even then, the statement in Malachi 3:6 is not so much about the actions of the son of Judah, but God’s long-suffering grace upon them. I read this verse as saying that God does not consume the sons of Jacob for the actions of the priests (or of the forefathers – Malachi 3:7). God is patient and long-suffering, and keeps His Word.

As to the statement in Malachi 3:9 about the whole nation, I did reference that in the post. Malachi is saying that the priests are not just robbing from God, but are robbing from the whole nation as well. This is further evidence that Malachi is primarily writing to the priests here, because if he were writing to all the people, it would not make sense to say that all the people were robbing from all the people. It makes more sense to see that the people are tithing, but the priests are stealing the tithe, and as such, they are robbing God and robbing the whole nation.

Question on Masturbation

I’ve been asking to be free/liberated from addiction to porn and masturbation. I have yet to be set free and I don’t want to lose my salvation because of it. Am I forgiven for doing theses things, because deep down I think it’s wrong, but I’m just not sure it’s a sin. I just know I’m a slave to this. Please help.

Honestly, this question probably demands a full post, but I just didn’t want to write a blog post with the word “masturbation” in the title… so let me see if I can answer the question briefly…

First, the Bible really doesn’t say anything one way or the other about masturbation. Sure, some people make some arguments from the Levitical laws, but I’m not going to get into all that. I don’t think they apply.

I personally do not think that masturbation is sinful.

Pornography, however, is definitely wrong, and almost all studies show that pornography and masturbation go hand in hand…. Sorry. Bad pun. Pornography objectifies women, creates unrealistic ideas about sex, and causes immense mental and emotional damage in the minds of men who look at it. Besides all this, there are numerous Scriptures which instruct men to not look at women lustfully (e.g., Matt 5:28).

But the real question is how to deal with the addiction of pornography and masturbation.

The answer to that is the same answer for any sort of addiction, whether it is overeating, drugs, alcohol, gaming, or gambling: Addictions are overcome only by the supernatural power of God.

How do you tap into this supernatural power of God? There is only one way: recognize that no matter what, God loves you and forgives you.

You asked about whether or not you will lose your salvation for looking at porn and masturbating. The answer is no. Why not? Because God loves you and forgives you. Only this knowledge will lead you to the freedom from sin that is yours in Jesus Christ.

As long as we are afraid of not being forgiven by God, that fear keeps us enslaved to sin. It only when we begin to understand the infinite love and grace of God toward us that the power of sin loses its hold in our lives. Fear keeps us in bondage. Fear keeps us trying to depend on our own effort and our own strength to liberate ourselves from our own sin… and it never works. Only when we lose the fear of losing God’s love, and come to see that God loves us and forgives us no matter what, do we get to the place where sin no longer has the draw that it once did.

I know that this seems backwards and upside down from what is taught in most Christian books and Christian pulpits.

I know that what I am saying sounds like people have the freedom to go sin all they want.

But you know what? This is what I read in Scripture. Sin has dire consequences, for sure, but one of those consequences is NOT that God will stop loving you or forgiving you.

I maybe should also share that I speak from experience on this sort of question. I have an incredibly addictive personality. I have been addicted to many things during my life (I am not comfortable saying which things on this blog). Some of the things I was addicted to for twenty years or more. For some it was only five years or so. Some of these addictions have caused great pain for myself and my wife.

I tried everything to conquer and defeat these addictions, from fasting and praying for days on end to accountability groups to self-help books. Nothing ever worked until I came to the realization that God’s love and forgiveness for me was without end. Though I continued to stumble and fall, the recognition that God loved and forgave me led, over time, to a lack of desire for that particular addiction. I cannot say “how” it worked, only that it did.

I’ll define the Trinity… If you define God

By Jeremy Myers

40 Comments

The last couple weeks I have been working my way through dozens of Bible and theology questions which people have submitted through that “ask a question” area in the sidebar. Below is a question that made me laugh, not because it was a silly question (there’s no such thing), but because of how impossible it was to answer!

The reader essentially asked me to define the Trinity…

I want to know more about the Trinity. Thank you.

Below is the answer I sent back to the reader. Feel free to help me out with a better explanation of the Trinity in the comment section below.

Whew!

Asking me to explain or define the Trinity is almost like asking me to define God! An impossible task!

There is so much to discuss and talk about regarding the Trinity, it is hard to know where to begin or exactly what you want to know about the Trinity. So let me do my best to briefly explain and define the Trinity, and also explain why the Trinity is essential and important for Christian doctrine.

Define the Trinity

First, the Trinity is best defined as “One God who exists in three persons.” There are not three Gods. There is only one God. But somehow, in ways beyond human comprehension, God exists in three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

There is no good analogy in creation, but some have likened the Trinity to the three forms of water, ice, water, and steam, while others have equated it to the light and heat of the sun. My personal preference (though again, it is a bad analogy) is how we as humans consist of body, soul, and spirit. We are one person with three parts. Of course, God does not consist of parts. Each person of the Trinity is fully God.

It is difficult to understand, but this is primarily because we are not God.

Explaining the Trinity to mortal human beings is like trying to explain colors to a blind man or sound to a deaf person. It like trying to use words to explain speech to a dog. You can bark at the dog, but that doesn’t help, and you can speak to a dog with words, but he won’t understand what you’re saying and will never be able to speak for himself.

Believing in the Trinity

So if the Trinity is so difficult to understand, why is it important to believe? There are probably thousands of reasons why the Trinity is critical to Christian thought, but there are three of the most important reasons. (Yes, I chose three simply because I am writing about the Trinity.)

1. First, the Bible teaches us that God exists as a Trinity.

No, the word “trinity” is never used in the Bible, but there are passages all over the place which reveal that there are three persons in the Godhead who exist together as one God.

We know, for example, that God is one (Deut 6:4; 1 Tim 2:5; 1 Cor 8:6; etc.), and yet Jesus, who most perfectly revealed God to us (John 14:7; Col 1:15; Heb 1:3) often spoke of His Father and of sending the Holy Spirit (e.g., John 10; John 14-17). Even at the baptism of Jesus, we see Jesus coming up out of the water and the Holy Spirit descending upon Him like a dove, and the Father speaking to Jesus from heaven (Matt 3:16-17).

There are numerous other passages, but the bottom line is that whether we understand it or not, the Bible teaches the reality of the Trinity (cf. Matt 28:19; 2 Cor 13:14; 1 Pet 1:2).

2. Second, the Trinity is important because it shows that God is relational and loving.

Christians believe that God does not change in His character or attributes. Yet think about what it would mean for God to not be a Trinity. If God did not exist as a Trinity, then prior to the creation of humans and prior to the creation of angels, God could not have lived in any form of loving relationship with anybody or anything.

Without the Trinity, God could not have lived for eternity in love or in relationship. The Trinity allows the loving and relational attributes of God to have eternally existed with God.

Other monotheistic religions which have no concept of the Trinity have great trouble explaining or understanding how God could be loving and relational. Why? Because for most of God’s existence, there was no one to love other than himself.

In fact, it could be argued that if there was no Trinity, there could have been no creation whatsoever. Why not? Because if the Trinity did not exist, then God would not be relational (because there was no one to relate to), and hence, there would be no reason for God to create anything with which to relate. The only way a non-relational God would decided to create being to love and take care of was if He recognized that without other beings in the universe, He was lacking or deficient in some way. But then, this makes God less than God!

A non-Trinitarian God could not and would not create, unless He decided to become relational and loving, in which case, He would be admitting some sort of imperfection in His being.

It is much better to believe what the Bible teaches, that God is loving and relational and as such, has always existed in a loving relationship within the Trinity. As a result of this loving relationship, God decided to create other beings with which to share the loving relationship He already experienced within the Godhead.

3. This then leads us to the third reason the Trinity is important: Christians love others because God is love.

Christianity is an outward, loving, relational-focused way of living. Part of this is because we believe in the Trinity. In Genesis we read that God created us in His own image. There is a wide range of ideas on what this means, but one thing that is certainly included in the truth of being created in God’s image is that we were created for community. Just as God had an eternal relationship within the Trinitarian Godhead, so also, humans are to live in relationships with God and with one another.

The love that each member of the Godhead shares with the other members of the Trinity was also shared with humans when we were created. We love because He first loved us.

If there was no Trinity and yet somehow, God inexplicably decided to create humans, then it would be logical to say that love and community was not an essential character of God, and therefore, need not be an essential part of our life either. If God did not eternally exist in a loving Trinity, then we would not need to exist in love either.

So again, without a belief in the Trinity, we lose a belief in a loving God, and therefore, lost any reason to believe that God wants us to love others. If we are to act like God and God has existed without showing love toward others for most of eternity, then there is little reason to live in loving ways toward others now, for love would not be an essential characteristic or attribute of God.

I could go on and on, but I hope that this answer helps briefly explain and define the Trinity and show why belief in the Trinity is essential to Christian belief and practice.

If you want to weigh in, please feel free to add your comments below. Also, please consider sharing this post on Twitter and Facebook below because then others can benefit from the discussion on this theological question.

Here are 10 Signs you Might be a Legalist

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Legalism is of the Devil

Legalists are Far from the Kingdom

Legalists Are Blind

The Holy Bible in Jewish Literature

The Holy Bible in the New Testament

Jesus and the Holy Spirit Transcend the Bible

There are none.

There is Such a Thing as False Conversion

What does the Bible say about about conversion?

Knowing the Love and Acceptance of God

…Scripture.

My wife was never convinced.

1. Occam’s Razor

2. Modern Disasters

3. Couldn’t Even Refute the Calvinists

4. Back to Ignorance

Pray for Me, Please?

Question on Going to Church

Question on Tithing

Question on Masturbation

Define the Trinity

Believing in the Trinity

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