Category: Sermon Supplements

Knowing What You Should Know (1 Timothy 3:1-7)

Questions beget questions. 1 Timothy 3:1–7 gives us the qualifications for what the KJV terms “bishops.” What is a bishop? Modern translations help in well communicating the original meaning with the word “overseer.” What is an overseer? When was the last time you heard it clearly communicated who the overseers were in your church? When Paul lists the qualifications for elders in Titus he goes on to call them overseers. Overseers are elders. Does that help? What is an elder? An elder is a pastor. Overseer, elder, pastor—all are the same office.

Diabolically perhaps, many churches uses the least common terms in the Bible, and have abandoned the most common. As a result, the Scriptures sound foreign to us. There should be a ready, one-to-one correspondence when we read about overseers and elders such that we exclaim, “I know (experientially) that,” or “I should know that!” What should be domestic, is alien, and we are like sheep without a shepherd for it. Pastor (shepherd) is only used one time as a noun in Scripture to indicate this office (Ephesians 4:11), and even then, it isn’t a proper title but a metaphor. Elder and overseer, those are the titles (by the way, “minister” and “preacher” don’t officially count either). Shepherding is the chief metaphor, teaching, the essential job skill. That this is so is seen in the following passages (all emphasis are mine):

“Now from Miletus he [Paul] sent to Ephesus and called the elders of the church to come to him.  …he said to them…‘Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock [this be shepherding language], in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood (Acts 20:17–18, 28 ESV).’”

“So I exhort the elders among you, as a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, as well as a partaker in the glory that is going to be revealed: shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight, not under compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you; not for shameful gain, but eagerly (1 Peter 1:5–7 ESV).”

Two things seem especially pertinent: 1. There are multiple elders in a singular church, 2. Overseers oversee souls.

The task of shepherding the flock isn’t to be done alone. Without exception, the pattern in the New Testament is that churches are to be shepherded by a plurality of elders. This was true of the church at Jerusalem (Acts 15:22), Ephesus (Acts 20:17), Philippi (Philippians 1:1) the churches in the towns of Crete (Titus 1:5), the churches that Peter wrote to (1 Peter 5:1), the churches that Paul planted (Acts 14:23), the churches that James wrote to (James 5:14). Shepherds are to look after their own souls as well as the flock’s. Shepherds need other shepherds to help look after the flock, but also to look after them. They need other overseers to oversee their souls  for the sake of the flock’s souls.

Overseers oversee. They do not oversee the church as though she were an organization, a company, a business, a non-profit, a trust, or a charity. They oversee souls. Why did the early church esteem the office of overseer so that a “trustworthy saying” spread through the churches calling it a “noble task” (1 Timothy 3:1)? Why are they not esteemed so today? Because too many look at their leaders as professional managers, visionary CEOs, program developers, entertainers, charismatic personalities and dynamic communicators, whereas the early church knew their elders the way a sheep knows its shepherd. They knew their overseers’ feeding, leading, guarding, and knowing of their souls.

When you know this truth, you then read through the Scriptures and either know that you know (again experientially) this, or know that you should know this shepherding of your souls. And that leads to this final wowzer of a thought: as a regenerate church member, there is no bigger decision you make in the church, than who the elders of that church are, or, as a Christian, the biggest factor to consider when joining a church is who the elders are that you will entrust your soul to.

Fertile Femininity and the Impotent Feminist (1 Timothy 2:9–15)

Femininity is under attack and there is too little masculinity to protect it. Feminists are the ones who are actually anti-women, desiring to erase that which is particularly and gloriously feminine in women by trying to make them men. Part of the genius of their ploy is neutering men so as to eliminate any resistance. “Make the men women and we can make the women men.” It is serpentine—both crafty and destructive. “Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the LORD God had made. He said to the woman… .”

Gender, sexuality, manhood, and womanhood are where the battle lines are drawn for our times. Bruce Ware captures this well,

Today… the primary areas in which Christianity is pressured to conform are on issues of gender and sexuality. Postmoderns and ethical relativists care little about doctrinal truth claims; these seem to them innocuous, archaic, and irrelevant to life. What they do care about, and care with a vengeance, is whether their feminist agenda and sexual perversions are tolerated, endorsed and expanded in an increasingly neo-pagan landscape. Because this is what they care most about, it is precisely here that Christianity is most vulnerable. To lose the battle here is to subject the Church to increasing layers of departure from biblical faith. And surely, it will not be long until ethical departures (the Church yielding to feminist pressures for women’s ordination, for example) will yield even more central doctrinal departures (questioning whether Scripture’s inherent patriarchy renders it fundamentally untrustworthy, for example). I find it instructive that when Paul warns about departures from the faith in the latter days, he lists ethical compromises and the searing of the conscience as the prelude to a full-scale doctrinal apostasy (1 Tim 4:1-5).

This means that when we come to a text like 1 Timothy 2:9–15 we mustn’t cringe in embarrassment; we must glory and rejoice. We must remember that the joy of the Lord is our strength, and, that a glorying in Biblical manhood and womanhood is a rejoicing in the Lord. This joy isn’t one that we must fain or force. Femininity is a glorious, beautiful, graceful, and strong thing, and when a woman embraces it, she outshines the world’s perversions the way the sun outshines a lightning bug.

Imagine coming up to a group of builders using hammers to drive screws and screwdrivers to drive nails. “No. You’ve got it backwards. That isn’t using them according to design.” The foolish builders say that design, function, purpose, and roles are relative and to be determined by self. Using a hammer for a screwdriver opens the door to using a wrecking ball for a hammer, and then it won’t be long before the house comes crashing down. When men are men, and women are women, it is then that they are most glorious because it is then that they are most godlike, functioning according to design, imaging forth the Designer.

Femininity is a powerful and glorious thing; something in which women are far superior to men. In a unique way that men are not able to, Christian women get to model for all humanity the grace, beauty, and glory of the submissive quietness of Christ’s bride. Submission and obedience don’t kill, they give life. When Adam and Eve rebelled and did what they wanted this house came down, and it came down because Adam didn’t step up and protect Eve’s femininity; he sat in his recliner, did nothing, and ate the food that he let her eat, and that he let her bring to him (Genesis 3:6). Freedom is a fish in water; a man under God. Under authority, man flourishes. When a godly woman is under a godly man under our gracious God, she is a glorious living parable of this truth.

This kind of beauty is attractive and powerful. It makes men want to be men. It will produce men who will bleed for such beauty, and, like our Savior, bleed to beautify it.

Headship Is (1 Timothy 2:8)

When there are problems in the church, start with the men. When there are problems in the church, men are always responsible for them; either because they caused the problem, or failed to address it. If men haven’t caused the problem, they must deal with it. If problems are not dealt with in this way, you intensify your problems. When men have failed in the church and women have stepped in to fill the void, this hasn’t solved any problems, but caused larger ones. When women lead it doesn’t help men be men, and thus, it doesn’t help women either. Women can’t help men to be men when they try to be men.

Men are women’s biggest problem (outside their own sin), but right behind men is feminism. Have feminist and egalitarians championed some righteous causes. Certainly. But this wasn’t because they were feminists. Did Nazi scientists make breakthroughs beneficial for mankind? Certainly. But this wasn’t because they were Nazis. Feminism is problem for women because it amplifies men being a problem for women.

We have so feminized the church that it is as attractive to men as a feather boa. Men failed, women stepped in, and now there aren’t any men, only mothers and boys, mothers who perpetuate the boyhood of boys. The women do while overgrown boys sit on their duff playing video games. Oh, but their video games without x-rated material, supervised by upright mothers! Right.

The reason why a disregard for gender fundamentally fails is because headship is. When Scripture speaks of husbands being heads of their wives, it doesn’t come as a command, but as a statement of fact.

“For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior (Ephesians 5:23 ESV).”

“But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God (1 Corinthians 11:3).”

Headship is stated as an indicative fact, not an imperative command. Irrevocably, men dominate. That is to say they have a headship that affect all that is under them. Douglas Wilson gets at this well,

“Because the husband is the head of the wife, he finds himself in a position of inescapable leadership. He cannot successfully refuse to lead. If he attempts to abdicate in some way, he may, through his rebellion, lead poorly. But no matter what he does, or where he goes, he does so as the head of his wife. This is how God designed marriage. He has created us as male and female in such a way as to ensure that men will always be dominant in marriage. If the husband is godly, then that dominance will not be harsh; it will be characterized by the same self-sacrificial love demonstrated by our Lord—Dominus—at the cross. If a husband tries to run away from his headship, that abdication will dominate the home. If he catches a plane to the other side of the country, and stays there, he will dominate in and by his absence. How many children have grown up in a home dominated by the empty chair at the table? If the marriage is one in which the wife ‘wears the pants,’ the wimpiness of the husband is the most obvious thing about the marriage, creating a miserable marriage and home. His abdication dominates.”

In conclusion, let me say a few words to ward off any naysayers and gender benders. First, if you erase male/female distinctions you open the door wide to homosexuality and transgender endorsement. Second, if you have a problem with submission, you have a problem with the godhead as seen in 1 Corinthians 11:3. Third, just as in the godhead, having different roles in which one submits to the other does not mean that men and women are not equal in value, dignity, and worth any more that the Son is less God or less worthy of worship than the Father. Finally, I leave you with Chesterton’s short poem, “Comparisons.”

If I set the sun beside the moon,
And if I set the land beside the sea,
And if I set the town beside the country,
And if I set the man beside the woman,
I suppose some fool would talk about one being better.

Theology Is as Practical as the Prayers on Your Lips (1 Timothy 2:4–6)

In 1 Timothy 2 Paul urges Timothy to urge prayer. In doing so Paul not only tells Timothy what to do, he shows him how. Paul wants the Ephesian church to say all kinds of prayers for all kinds of people (2:1). Paul says that such prayer pleases God (2:3), and then goes on to describe God and what he has done (2:4ff). Paul’s solution to the prayer problem was theology. This is natural, for the prayer problem was caused by bad theology. Paul tells Timothy, “First of all, then.” The “then,” relates this admonition to the “certain persons,” like “Hymenaeus and Alexander,” who were teaching “different doctrine.” Theology is as practical as the prayers in your mouth.

If you are prayerless, or if your prayers are small and selfish the wrong place to start is with disciplines regarding the time, posture, and method of prayer. The proper place to begin is disciplines regarding Bible study, Bible reading, Bible memorization, and Bible meditation. The professional interviewer who spends all of his time practicing in the mirror concerning his posture, using the right intonations and emphasis in his speech, and making sure that the time and setting of the interview are perfect, rather than studying the interviewee, will be a poor interviewer. Likewise, the Christian who spends all their time thinking about posture, time, and method will pray small, selfish prayers because all their focus is on themselves. Get to know God, and you’ll pray. You’ll know the right kind of questions to ask. You’ll grow in prayer. Your prayer life can only be as big and deep as your theology.

House Rule Number One: Pray (1 Timothy 2:1–3)

First of all—pray. Paul begins a list of house rules with prayer (1 Timothy 3:14–15). But this isn’t merely serial list so that number one could have easily been number two. Prayer is a priority. House rule number one is emphatically this: the family must pray to the Father. Paul says, first of all “then.” The calling for Prayer is related to the good warfare mentioned previously. In the very heat of this battle against false teachers, Paul says, first of all, pray.

When you move from the church to the temple there is continuity and discontinuity. Some things go, some things remain, but everything is changed because of Jesus. I’m afraid the American church has kept the bad and failed to carry over the good. We’ve carried over what was never meant to have a place among the people of God. When Jesus cleansed the temple He said, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you make it a den of robbers.” We have carried over the commercialization of the temple and not its supplications. The church today majors on entertainment, not intercessions; on production, not prayer. D.A. Carson captures the sin adequately,

We have become so performance-oriented that it is hard to see how compromised we are. Consider one small example. In many of our churches, prayers in morning services now function, in large measure, as the time to change the set in the sanctuary. The people of the congregation bow their heads and close their eyes, and when they look up a minute later, why, the singers are in place, or the drama group is ready to perform. It is all so smooth. It is also profane.

I don’t think God is impressed with the show. Our acting betrays a boredom with God’s drama of redemption. Our productions indicate a faith in our works instead of God’s. We must pray when there is false teaching, but what evangelicals now also know is that we must pray lest false teaching.

The Backroads to Heresy (1 Timothy 1:18–20)

“…wage the good warfare, holding faith and a good conscience. By rejecting this, some have made shipwreck of their faith…” 1 Timothy 1:18b-19

Paul gives two combats tips concerning waging the good warfare; a weapon for each hand. You fight the good fight of the faith by holding faith, and holding a good conscience. The first tip makes perfect sense, as much as the drill sergeant yelling, “You kill the enemy by shooting him!” But the second tip sounds like, “You kill the enemy with good hygiene.” Huh? Yet, it’s as simple as this, when trench foot impairs, disables, or kills you, it hurts the campaign. Shoot the wolves, and stay healthy—that’s how we win.

“This,” in v. 19 is singular. It is by rejecting a good conscience particularly that some have made shipwreck of the faith. Holding a good conscience is waging the good warfare. We must contend for the faith lest we be a heretic.

There are two routes to heresy, the interstate and the backroads. The interstate is clearly marked with big green signs that read, “PELAGIANISM—NEXT RIGHT,” or “MODALISM—THREE MILES.” You know where you’re going and you mean to go there. Then there are the backroads of immorality. You were on the well-lit heavenly highway but you messed up. You pulled off the road because you wanted some darkness. Now your lost and scared, but you like this darkness, so you delude yourself. You redraw the map. You convince yourself that if you just keep this direction, you’ll still get to the heavenly city.

John Calvin wrote, “All the errors that have existed in the Christian Church from the beginning, proceeded from this source, that in some persons, ambition, and in others, covetousness, extinguished the true fear of God. A bad conscience is, therefore, the mother of all heresies.” Really? But listen to how well Calvin’s assessment jibes with Scripture.

“If anyone teaches a different doctrine and does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching that accords with godliness, he is puffed up with conceit [Do you hear ambition?] and understands nothing. He has an unhealthy craving for controversy and for quarrels about words, which produce envy, dissension, slander, evil suspicions, and constant friction among people who are depraved in mind and deprived of the truth, imagining that godliness is a means of gain [See covetousness?].” —1 Timothy 6:3–6

Still not convinced?

“But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction. And many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of truth will be blasphemed. And in their greed they will exploit you with false words. Their condemnation from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep.”

Just as sound belief and sound behavior go together, so do heresy and immorality (1 Timothy 1:5–6, 10; 6:3). And the relation is mutual. Heresy not only leads to immorality. Immorality leads to heresy.

“Doctrinal purity must be accompanied by purity of life. There is an inseparable link between truth and morality, between right belief and right behavior. Consequently, theological error has its roots in moral rather than intellectual soil (cf. Matt. 7:15-20). People often teach wrong doctrine to accommodate their sin. That truth is borne out by the immorality that so often characterizes false teachers.” —John MacArthur

A Religious Assassination (1 Timothy 1:12-17)

Why was Paul saved? “I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life.” Paul’s salvation wasn’t accidental. Paul didn’t chance upon the opportune place at the opportune time where and when grace happened to burst through the earth’s crust. Nor was it that Paul had a core of virtue beneath a veneer of vileness so that universal grace found a ready subject.

Saving grace isn’t a shotgun; it’s a sniper rifle. God is a hunter, a sniper, who has a specific target to make a loud statement. This is an assassination to make a religious statement. The assassination was followed by resurrection. Saul became Paul because of Jesus, and Jesus killed and resurrected Paul to communicated this to wretched sinners: He can kill and resurrect any one of you.

God has a galaxy of grace to match your Jupiter of sin. Do you feel the crushing, unbearable weight of your sins? Do distress if God’s grace can match them? This is as brainless as fretting if there is enough Milky Way for Jupiter. Jupiter’s covered, and so are you if you are in Jesus.

Your thirst isn’t bigger than this ocean. Your darkness isn’t as potent as this Son’s light. Your stain is not as set as His blood is cleansing. Your sin isn’t bigger than Jesus’ atonement.

The Fountain of Eternal, Infinite Bliss (1 Timothy 1:11)

…the gospel of the glory of the blessed God. —1 Timothy 1:11

The gospel is a gospel of glory and the glory is the glory of God, but is Paul wanting to say something more specific than that? Is “blessed” just a chance adjective that Paul uses to describe God here such that he could have just as coincidentally said the gospel of the glory of the holy God, the immortal God, or the gracious God? 

Rewind thirteen years. I come home and tell my parents that I have good news. Specifically, I say that I have “good news of the beauty of my godly fiancé.” When I use that phrase, do I desire to tell them about her beauty in general, such that godly is a chance adjective, or is the specific beauty that is such good news the beauty of her godliness? If you know my parents then you would know that the news that would most thrill them would be the news of her godliness. When you understand the person, then you realize that the adjective isn’t a chance choice.

When you understand the persons involved in 1 Timothy 1:11, then you know that “blessed” isn’t some chance adjective, and by persons I don’t merely mean Timothy and Paul. I mean the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. When you understand the Trinity, then you see that the good news is good news of the glory of God’s happiness, His eternal bliss, His unconquerable joy.

Why is God so happy? The short answer is that He is God. But our sinful minds can misunderstand that too easily. We read Psalm 115:3, “Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases,” and we think God is happy simply because He can do whatever He wants to do. We say we would be happy too if we were God. Like the little child that sees dad and mom staying up late, watching a movie, eating popcorn and thinks that being an adult is the happiest thing in the world because you can do whatever you want, we are naive. Their are deeper joys and complexities beyond the child’s comprehension. So it is with God, but we do get glimpses. One such glimpse is at Jesus’ baptism. There we get a snippet of how the Triune God has eternally related. The Son does the Father’s will, The Father sends the Spirit to anoint His Son and exclaims, “This is my beloved Son with whom I am well pleased.” No dad rising from the bleachers has ever matched God the Father’s rising from the throne, rending the sky and exclaiming His joy. The Father is happy because the perfect Son perfectly reflects His perfect glory.

God’s happiness rests ultimately not on what He does, but in who He is. God is love. God’s being love didn’t happen once upon a time. It didn’t rev up at creation. It didn’t ignite when God breathed into man the breath of life. Eternally the Father has delighted in the Son, the Son in the Father, and the Spirit in the Father and Son.

Redemption overflows from this love. Creation and redemption speak to the fullness of God’s delight in God. Why did the Father plan our redemption? For the glory of the Son (Philippians 2:8–11; Colossians 1:15–17). Why did the Son accomplish our redemption? For the glory of the Father (John 12:27–28; 14:31; 17:1-4). Why does the Spirit apply our redemption? To glorify the Son and the Father (John 15:26; 16:14).

But now for the goodest part of this goodest of news. Our redemption not only flows out of God’s joy in God, it flows into God’s joy in God. At the end of Jesus’ prayer in John 17 He asks His Father, “that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.” With what love do you love Jesus? You love Jesus with the Father’s love for Jesus put in you by the Spirit. Your love for Jesus is an expression of the Father’s love for Jesus. Astoundingly, in John 15:9, Jesus says that He loves us as the Father has loved Him. How is this not idolatrous? Because His love for us and toward us is an expression of His love for the Father. Jesus goes on to say that He has spoken these words (Joh 15:9-11) so that His joy may be in us, and that our joy may be full. Our love for God is God’s love for God. Our joy in God is God’s joy in God.

Behold the fountain from which our salvation flows and which it flows into—the blessed triune God. This fountain is its own undiminishing source, so it is natural that it would flow back into itself. The ocean of bliss from which our salvation flows, is the fountain from which it gushed. God is the Alpha and the Omega of our salvation. Our salvation flows out of God’s delight in God, and into God’s delight in God so that we exclaim with David, “in your presence there is fulness of joy, and at your right hand are pleasures forevermore (Psalm 16:11).” This is the gospel of the glory of the blessed God.

For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen. —Romans 11:36

For the Love of the Gospel, Love the Law (1 Timothy 1:8–11)

“The law is good (1 Timothy 1:8).” That short phrase could do a lot of bad theology a lot of good. The law is good, and the gospel is glorious (1 Timothy 1:11); and the gospel’s being glorious doesn’t undo the law’s goodness.

The law is good, if one uses it lawfully. This is like saying that cars are good, if one uses them lawfully. When a drunk, reckless, or irresponsible driver gets behind the wheel, that mass of metal, plastic, oil, and gas becomes a bad thing for humanity; but we don’t outlaw cars. We understand that the problem isn’t the car, but the driver. Likewise, when Paul says the certain persons who are teaching “different doctrine,” want to be “teachers of the law,” we must understand that the problem isn’t the law. Cars are good, but that doesn’t mean we let the immature or blind use them at their leisure. Likewise, when the spiritually blind, or the immature young convert gets behind the wheel of the law  all alone, the best place to be is behind them. Young converts have their permits, but they need a mature Christian to teach them how to drive the law. How then should we use the law? Lawfully.

To make the likening more accurate, when Paul says that the law is to be used lawfully, it is like saying that cars are to be used car-fully. Cars are meant to be used as cars, not kamikaze missiles. How was the law to be used? Protestants have long spoken of three uses of the law. The law is a bridle to restrain sin. It is a mirror to show us our sin. And it is a map for the Christian showing them how to live the blessed life. Amen. But there is something more foundational. How does one use the law lawfully? What was the point of the law?

Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. —Jesus, Matthew 5:17–19

Jesus shows us what the point of the law is—Him. The law was never meant to be used without reference to Jesus. Never! When God gave His good law to his people at Sinai, a lamb had been slain first, redemption out of slavery had already happened, and a promise had been made to Abraham generations before. We should be slow to throw away as unnecessary that which Jesus kept perfectly for our salvation. The law shows us how to love God and love our neighbor. Jesus kept that good law perfectly for us, and bore God’s just wrath for all of our law breaking. If you love Jesus, you will love the law. If you love redemption, you will love the law. If you love grace, you will love the law. You will plead with the psalmist, “graciously teach me your law (Psalm 119:29).” You will exclaim, “Oh how I love your law! It is my meditation all the day (Psalm 119:97).”

Towards a Healthy Immune System (1 Timothy 1:3-7)

When you read the details of the death of some ancient, be slow to give a diagnosis. With the exception of Galatians, I’m not sure we can be very precise as to the exact heresies Paul is speaking about in various letters. We see the church with puffy eyes, and a bad cough, but we are unsure of the disease. She’s sick, but what’s the sickness? We get clues and hints and we learn of elements and emphases, but no robust heretical synopsis is presented. We jump into the middle of letters, of conversations, where much is understood by the original “to” and “from.”

I believe this is best for us and that we have received the letters as they are because of God’s gracious wisdom. Because of this fuzziness we are more inquisitive and alert concerning these heresies. Instead of a specific vaccine to combat just one virus, we develop a healthy immune system to fight against many. The lack of specificity helps us to produce generalized antibodies that attack a wide range of theological bacteria and heterodox viruses. What little we learn of the false teachers in 1 Timothy 1:4 builds an immunity to a wide spectrum of threats to the body of Christ.

It causes us to be wary of anything with a mystical flavor; anything that seeks to commune directly with Christ. For example, I remember in seminary a number of us were reading Richard Foster’s Celebration of Discipline. At the time my diagnostic skills were not keen enough. Foster is a Quaker. Quakers emphasize looking for the light of Jesus within them. If you’ve read Foster, read him again in this light and you’ll see Scripture is generally set aside and direct communion with God by means other than Word and Sacrament are emphasized (if you’re looking for a solid book on spiritual disciplines I would commend Donald Whitney’s Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life). Man’s speculations are set above God’s revelation, of which we are stewards (1 Timothy 1:4). A more widespread cousin virus goes by the name Experiencing God, that effects the body in much the same way.

Along these lines you can identify Heaven is for Real as a viral virus that has infected the body. Remember, viruses try to look like normal body cells. Here again man’s speculation is elevated above God’s revelation. I am thankful that the title is so helpful in pointing out the problem. Heaven is for Real, really? Because of a boy’s vision we now have greater assurance, peace, and faith? Never mind the Father’s infallible, inerrant, inspired, incredible words about His Son, we now have a boy’s vision. If your faith isn’t settled in the Bible, it isn’t Biblical faith (Romans 10:17). Besides Scripture’s being sidelined, compare the boy’s nonchalant, casual encounter with the risen Christ, with the awe and glory of His New Testament appearances. Compare Burpo’s book to Randy Alcorn’s excellent book Heaven. By the way, if you are a properly functioning antibody, you must alert the body for her health. We must name the virus, anything else is unloving. It matters not if the virus’ host is a little boy.

Also, bacteria like the Bible code, hidden meanings, and the prophecy specialist with his charts, dates, and antichrist suspect list now are recognized for what they are. But a bacteria that still goes unnoticed by many is those who are orthodox on paper, but whose papers are pretty hidden. The doctrine is the fine print, the experience gets the bold face, colored, graphic-designed font. Beware the church that is all about providing you an experience, and beware your own heart if that is what you are seeking. When experience becomes the priority, the doors are wide open for false teaching, both for “shepherds,” and the flock. Look at the charismatic crazies. The glue that binds together all kinds of incompatible doctrines is experience—a direct experience with the Holy Spirit, so they say.

Don’t play in man-made, putrid, stagnant, bacteria-ridden, tepid, toxic ponds, swim in the God-accomplished, God-revealed, sweet, refreshing, and pure ocean of the gospel found in the Holy Bible.