M-G: 11.29.16 // When Our Love to God Becomes Suspicious

I ran into a cordial individual last evening. We struck up a conversation, and it went spiritual on his initiative after the exchange of some pleasantries. He is currently attending a church in Knoxville and plans to relocate to that city. I met him in a store in Cleveland. He had a “high regard for Scripture” and used the word “context” quite often. I appreciated that. As he further spoke, I wanted to question him, however, on the meaning of that word being stretched, context. Not surprisingly, there is a predilection by many to fabricate a context to justify a particular teaching.

What I found curious and troubling was how he thought he was safeguarding and staying open to the revealing of new truth by the Holy Spirit by the way he handled the absolute or eternal nature of Scripture. Now keep in mind; I was simply looking for a mundane item in the store that had nothing to do with any theological discussion on my part. As we talked I was slightly concerned that he would get into trouble conversing with me, but it turned out that he had some flexibility for he was the store manager!

He expressed to me that in order for him to stay open to further truth from the Holy Spirit in Scripture, he doesn’t take an absolute position on any particular truth. My mind immediately went to Jn 14:6, but I remained silent to hear him out. I didn’t get the chance to ask him about the absolute truth of salvation (Acts 4:12). He was driving the conversation; I chose to listen more than I spoke. In this man’s mind, becoming dogmatic would shield or prevent him from receiving further truth from the Holy Spirit in any given passage. The danger of this sort of practice is that it is anti-doctrinal in nature. Is it stupid, yes; is it subtle, yes; is it serpent-like, oh yeah!

Here is what I took away from this conversation before he was paged and had to leave. This man believed that the Bible was the supreme authority in all matters of faith and practice. I asked him! He declared that doctrine was divisive (Divisive is not necessarily a bad thing), but I held my tongue. I didn’t get the chance to ask him what he thought about the highly dissentious truth of Jn 14:6? He told me that his Christian friends were always complaining about doctrine (being sectarian). I thought of the Holy Spirit’s words of all scripture being profitable for doctrine….” (2 Tim 3:16-17).

This man truly believed that in order for him to be open and receptive to the Holy Spirit, he had to avoid doctrinal orientation that blocks, at least in his mind, the ability to receive further truth! If you go to my page in M-G entitled, “Essentials,” you would have to conclude that he and his friends would disagree with me, for I am one of those “doctrinal dudes” who supposedly create division and quenches the Holy Spirit by my sectarian viewpoint, hmm.

I imagined that this whole enterprise of theological thought from this very mild and mannered man was embedded in his rhetorical question to me, “I don’t know what you think about the spiritual gifts,” but yada, yada, yada. I had told him earlier that I attended First Baptist; he attended a non-denominational church. So, this discussion probably had Pentecostal overtones. I wasn’t able to share my views on spiritual gifts either.

Can you sense the obvious that this nice young man, along with his friends in Knoxville who were probably pleasant as well, were interested in spiritual things? He spoke highly of the Word, considered the “context,” and was “opened” to the teaching of the Word (as long as it didn’t come across as doctrinal, sectarian, or different than his interpretation, of course.).

In reality, he was handling the absolute truth of God’s Word from a position and practice of relativity in order to be receptive to new spiritual truth! It sounds a bit like a proposition of New Age thinking. I think it would be fair in my assessment to say that this man believed, “If you say there are absolutes, then you have to embrace a doctrinal position.” I would counter, if you declare everything is relative based upon the interpreter of Bible truth, you have no doctrinal position which is contrary to NT thought. An old proverbial saying comes to mind. He who stands for nothing falls for anything.

I didn’t get the opportunity to tell him that he was actually practicing a false doctrine that inevitably generates an abundance of spiritual errors post haste or very quickly. His philosophical and theological cores are founded in the tenets of religious humanism, and his mishandling of the Word of God is simply a byproduct of such spiritual error.

Allow me to be guilty of what the world hates, by being biblically divisive. It is only divisive because it counters the thinking, feeling, and acting of this world without Christ. If someone claims to love God and mistreats the Word, his or her love for God is suspect, and rightly so; For our thoughts, words, outlook, choices, and actions must all be in unison and in harmony with the absolute truth of the teachings of Scripture. Agape love grabs a hold of the whole of man, not just in part.  

This is the only way we are able to show our love to and for God in the here and now (Jn 14:15-16, 21-24; 15:10; 1 Jn 2:3-5; 5:2-3; cf. Prov 3:1; Psa 119:11, 16, 34). Obedience engages and includes the way we think; the way we feel; and the way we act upon the truth of Scripture. It is a byproduct of agape love that flows from the heart (Rom 5:5), not out of a sense of duty.  <><

“But we have renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways. We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God's word, but by the open statement of the truth, we would commend ourselves to everyone's conscience in the sight of God” (2 Cor 4:2, ESV).

THOT: Spiritual error occurs whenever there is a clear departure from the historical/grammatical approach to Scripture.