Tag: False Teaching

The Bishop: Beware the Middling Unprotestantizer

William Laud, the bane of the Puritans, was Archbishop of Canterbury under Charles I from 1633–1645.

“Laud’s real policy next demands our attention. What was it? What was he driving at all his life? What did he want to do? What was his object and aim? I do not believe, with some, that he really desired to Romanize the Church of England, or meant and intended, if possible, to reunite it with the Church of Rome. I think those who say this go too far, and have no sufficient ground for their assertions. But I decidedly think, that what he did labour to effect was just as dangerous, and would sooner or later have brought back downright Popery, no matter what Laud meant or intended. I believe that Laud’s grand idea was to make the Church of England less Protestant, less Calvinistic, less Evangelical, than it was when he found it. I believe he thought that our excellent Reformers had gone too far; that the clock ought to be put back a good deal. I believe his favourite theory was, that we ought to occupy a medium position between the Reformation on the one side, and Rome on the other, and that we might combine the ceremonialism and sacramentalism of St Peter’s on the Tiber with the freedom from corruption and ecclesiastical independence of St Paul’s on the Thames. He did not, in short, want to go back to the Vatican, but he wanted to borrow some of its principles, and plant them in Lambeth Palace. I see in these ideas and theories a key to all his policy. His one aim from St John’s, Oxford, till he was sent to the Tower, was not to Romanize, but to unprotestantize the Church of England. Some may think this a nice and too refined a distinction. I do not. A ‘Romanizer’ is one thing, an ‘unprotestantizer’ is another.”

The Bishop: Pernicious Trifles

“Now, I say there can be no greater mistake than to suppose that the great controversy of our times is a mere question of vestments and ornaments; of chasubles and copes; of more or less church decorations; of more or less candles and flowers; of more or less bowings and turnings and crossings; of more or less gestures and postures; of more or less show and form. The man who fancies that the whole dispute is a mere aesthetic one, a question of taste, like one of fashion and millinery, must allow me to tell him that he is under a complete delusion. He may sit on the shore, like the Epicurean philosopher, smiling at theological storms, and flatter himself that we are only squabbling about trifles; but I take leave to tell him that his philosophy is very shallow, and his knowledge of the controversy of the day very superficial indeed. 

The things I have spoken of are trifles, I fully concede. But they are pernicious trifles, because they are the outward expression of an inward doctrine. They are the skin disease which is the symptom of an unsound constitution. They are the plague spot which tells of internal poison. They are the curling smoke which arises from a hidden volcano of mischief. I, for one, would never make any stir about church millinery, or incense, or candles, if I thought they meant nothing beneath the surface. But I believe they mean a great deal of error and false doctrine, and therefore I publicly protest against them, and say that those who support them are to be blamed.” —J.C. Ryle, Light from Old Times

Straining towards What You Cannot Grasp (Philippians 3:11–16)

“Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own.” —Philippians 3:1

Perfectionism is a peculiar heresy. It is also a perpetual heresy. Part of its peculiarity is its perpetuity. How does this thing live on? A number of variations have afflicted the church throughout the years. All mutations of this virus are strains of Pelagianism. 

Pelagius was that British monk who balked at Augustine’s prayer from his Confessions, “My entire hope is exclusively in your very great mercy. Grant what you command and command what you will” Augustine confessed that man was bankrupt and dependent entirely on grace. Pelagius said man has what it takes in himself. There is grace to help, but it is not necessary.

Charles Finney, who is lauded by many evangelicals as a hero of the Second Great Awakening, was a rank heretic whose perfectionism had a strong Pelagian flavor. He denied original sin and total depravity. In contrast and yet developing from Finney, the most infectious forms of perfectionism today are semi-pelagian. They are an attempt to make pelagianism palatable, but pelagianism dressed in garb of grace is still the whore of works underneath.

Full blown pelagianism is the greater evil, but let’s give it this much, at least in pelagianism man may fully take responsibility for his delusion of perfection. Whereas in much perfectionism, man essentially “blames” God for the delusion.

Perfection may be redefined as not “knowingly sinning” as Wesley did. Since Wesley, most perfectionist theology has a strong experiential flavor as in the Keswick, Higher Life, Holiness, and second-blessing theologies. Through some “crisis experience” one comes to “entire sanctification.” Faith is often stressed in this, in contrast to Pelagius’ works.

But the most dangerous form of perfectionism for many is incipient perfectionism, perfectionism in the bud. You must realize that perfectionism finds prepped soil in the heart of every depraved sinner. In unearthing the origins of Finney’s perfectionism, B.B. Warfield, tracing it to New Haven, meaning Yale, and the professor N.W. Taylor, writes, “Pelagianism, unfortunately does not wait to be imported from New Haven, and does not require inculcating—it is the instinctive thought of the natural man.” Pelagianism is the instinctive thought of natural man.

Now if you don’t realize how subtle the danger can be and if you’re unable to identify this heresy as a sapling, consider this: you haven’t arrived even when you realize the flesh profits nothing and you count all as loss for Christ. You haven’t arrived when you realize you won’t arrive in this life.

The paradoxical position of the children of God is that in this life they are to press on towards that which they acknowledge they will never arrive at until the next. While it is premature to think one may attain perfection in this life, it is immature not to press towards taking hold of that for which you were taken hold of. The late R.C. Sproul once warned, “Sanctification is a process. It is a gradual process. Run for your life from those who promise you instant sanctification.” As Douglas Wilson says, the poison is so often found in the -ism. So you must run from perfectionism, and yet you must run towards perfection.

You must in this life run towards what you will only have in the next. If you’re not running, and using God’s grace as an excuse, then while denying perfection, you’re acting as though you already are.

Ridiculing as Rejoicing (Philippians 3:4–11)

“[R]ejoice in the Lord…

Look out for the dogs…

For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ…” (Philippians 3:1, 2, 8).

Rejoicing in the Lord corresponds to looking out for dogs in the same way that ridiculing the flesh corresponds to glorying in Christ. Steak at home makes the Slim Jim at the convenience store less appetizing. Joy in Christ not only frees you to not take false teaching seriously; it so liberates you that you can laugh at it—a gut-busting guffaw kind of laugh. If you used that emoji with the cocked head and tears in reply to false teaching, you wouldn’t be exaggerating.

Sometimes one ridicules in another what they lack in themselves. So it is that the geek mocks the jock for his lack of brain and the jock the geek for his lack of braun. The mockery is self-validating and the laughs are a thin attempt to hide jealously and insecurity. Paul, in contrast to this, holds up in himself everything they boast of and then laughs at his own refection. If these dogs are flexing in the mirror, Paul comes alongside them, demonstrates his superiority, and then laughs at how ridiculous he looks and how absurd such posing is.

Paul was no Gentile ridiculing Judaizers. Do you not see the wisdom of God in preeminently calling Paul to confessedly be “an apostle to the Gentiles” (Romans 11:11)? Yes, Matthew, Peter, and John were all Jews. Yes, they ministered to Gentiles too. But Paul was a Hebrew of Hebrews, and he was expressly an apostle to the Gentiles. Matthew was a tax collector. Peter and John were fisherman. Paul was a Pharisee. And here, he holds that up, and laughs at it. 

You must see that this passage is dripping with sarcasm. If this passage were a dog and sarcasm were water, this dog has just had a bath and is now shaking and rubbing its body against the carpet and furniture. What Paul says they put no confidence in, he now ridicules, not because he is laughingly lacking, but because that in which they boast in is laughingly lacking. Paul says, “I’ll play your game,” he scores the most points (v. 4), and then he demonstrates that the game itself, the whole thing, is a loosing enterprise.

Boasting in the flesh before the holy God of heaven is like a doughboy hoping to win World War I by playing chess with a German commander at the Battle of the Somme in no man’s land. Boasting in the flesh before the holy God of heaven is nothing more than a good way to get killed. Thinking you could win that way is laughable and fully worthy of mockery. Paul writes off all his attempts at self-righteousness as nothing more than a steaming hot pile (v. 8). “Rubbish” pathetically fails to capture, the color, or rather the smell of the original language. What the Judaizers hold up as a trophy is that which Paul doesn’t want to step in. These dogs are like children playing with their own diaper deposits, creating a mural on the wall, thinking they’ve exceeded Michangelo. “Look Daddy!”

Three times Paul writes off as loss, loss, and crap what he previously boasted in as credit. Each time he does so, these things are reckoned such in comparison to Christ. This is why Paul’s laugh isn’t off putting like that of a bitter critic. His laugh is infectious. It is infectious because he is infatuated. And it is because he is infatuated with Christ, that he can laugh at the advertisements of the false teachers like they were some corny infomercial. When you’re curled up on the sofa with that quilt your Grandma made and reading Tolkien, you don’t even know the Snuggie infomercial is on. But if you were to divert your attention for a bit, you know what your response would be. Righteous laughter.

When They Both Wear a White Hat (Jeremiah 28:1–17)

“Then the prophet Jeremiah spoke to Hananiah the prophet in the presence of the priests and all the people who were standing in the house of the LORD, and the prophet Jeremiah said, ‘Amen! May the LORD do so; may the LORD make the words that you have prophesied come true, and bring back to this place from Babylon the vessels of the house of the LORD, and all the exiles. Yet hear now this word that I speak in your hearing and in the hearing of all the people. The prophets who preceded you and me from ancient times prophesied war, famine, and pestilence against many countries and great kingdoms. As for the prophet who prophesies peace, when the word of that prophet comes to pass, then it will be known that the LORD has truly sent the prophet’ ” (Jeremiah 28:5–9)

cowboy-gunman-1419969-1279x1705In Jeremiah 28 we have a showdown between a true and a false prophet. There are a number of such face-offs in the Scriptures. The most memorable is perhaps that of Elijah and the prophets of Baal. In that instance it was 450 to 1, as far as mere human ratios go (1 Kings 22).  A less well known instance, not very far into the future from this one, is that of Ezekiel and Pelatiah. Pelatiah wasn’t a prophet, but a leader who gave wicked counsel and devised iniquity; so he pretty much functioned like a false prophet. Ezekiel is commanded to prophecy against him. As he does so, Peletiah dies (Ezekiel 11). In the New Testament, one thinks of Ananias (also not a prophet), who lied about the gift he gave to the church. When Peter confronted him saying, “you have not lied to man but to God,” Ananias fell down and breathed his last (Acts 5:4–5).

This episode is a bit more subdued, but the results are the same. There is a face-off, and though everyone walks away, one does so certain to die. In all of these instances, ultimately, the bad guy is on the ground and the good guy lives to ride on.

This is not the theme of every story. Sometimes the good guy gets killed. But this does speak to the way things play out ultimately. In Matthew 5:11–12 Jesus tells his disciples, “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” Winning in this life isn’t guaranteed. Persecution is to be expected. And the reward is to be found in heaven. But it’s episodes such as these that let you know with whom truth really lies. Men kill true prophets. In these instances, God kills the false prophets. When YHWH decides to draw, He wins every time.

What is peculiar about this showdown, is that if you immerse yourself into it as a single episode, you can’t distinguish the good guy and the bad guy by quick glance. When Elijah had a showdown with he prophets of Baal, they were wearing different colors. Both of these men speak in the name of Yahweh. Both of them are wearing white hats.

Here, Jeremiah and Hananiah both use the same formulas of expression. Much of what Hananiah speaks of, Jeremiah has also promised. Jeremiah too has said that the vessels will return (27:21–22) along with the exiles (24:4–7). He also has promised that the yoke of Babylon will be broken (27:7). 

In order to tell them apart one can’t just look. Nor can you casually listen for certain markers of orthodoxy. You must listen and you must listen carefully. We come to this story knowing who wears the white hat. But immerse yourself into the moment. Or, think of a parallel situation today. Two teachers stand opposite one another. Both make Biblical arguments. Both cannot be right. The differences are not negligible. Theirs is no gentleman’s argument over tertiary matters, but  a truth war, a matter of life and death. So how do are we to discern?

Deuteronomy outlines two tests concerning false prophets. First, if they make a prediction and it doesn’t come to pass, that prophet is not to be feared but executed (Deuteronomy 18:20–22). Second, when a prophet calls for them to go after other gods, to break covenant, he is to be executed (Deuteronomy 13:1–5). Obviously, Jeremiah applies the “wait and see test,” but I believe he does so in a way that says they don’t really need to wait and see.

The prophets were raised up by God to call the kings, the priests, and the people back to covenant faithfulness when the strayed. If mercy, grace, and peace were held out, they were promised on the other side of repentance or judgment. This is the precedent Jeremiah sets forth in this chapter, the precedent which Hananiah deviates from.

So how can you distinguish between the false and the true when they look similar, sound similar, and yet stand on opposite sides of critical issues? Yes, we must test them against the Scriptures, but false teachers are good at wrapping up heresy in Biblical paper so that we think they’ve handed us a gift. Before you tear in, look to see if some Biblical truth is exaggerated while another is absent.

Many false teachers have an over-realized eschatology, which is a fancy way of saying they’ve got their cart way in front of the horse. Eschatology is the study of the end. Prosperity teachers over-realize the end. They put the very end well before the very end. With Jesus’ first advent and resurrection, the future kingdom began breaking into the present; but that future is not fully present yet and the present is not yet fully past. Still, many false teachers today promise no pain, no suffering, and no sickness. All health! All wealth! All happiness! All victory! Some will even promise victory over sin in this life. A great deal of what they say the saints have in and because of Jesus is true. Like Jeremiah, we could say “Amen!” to much of their message, if we too add qualification. The problem is timing. The reason they get the timing wrong is because their hearts are wrong. They don’t really want Jesus, so much as they want His stuff, and like the younger brother, they’ll have it right now thank you! False teachers take God’s good gifts, paint “god” on them, and with faux piety, demand that God give them their “gods” in the name of God.

What is absent? Sin, judgment, righteousness, repentance, and wrath for starters. While their eschatology is over-realized, their Christology and soteriology are under-emphasized. They say Jesus’ suffering liberates us from suffering. It certainly will, one day, but do they speak of it as a propitiation, a sacrifice placating the righteous wrath of a holy God against our sins? Do they glory in the cross of Christ as a place of substitution, where the ransom of Christ’s blood was spilt to redeem us out of our bondage and pay our debt? Do they speak of Jesus life as one of obedience so that His righteousness might be imputed to us by faith? When they glory in the resurrection, do they mention that we were dead in our trespasses and sin, but by grace, we were raised with Christ? Do they speak of adoption as the highest privilege of the redemption we have in the only begotten Son, or do you sense that it is not really the Father they want, but an inheritance? And as evidence of this supreme love for God himself, do you ever hear them say with Job, “Though he slay me yet I will hope in him” (Job 13:15), or “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD” (Job 1:21)? 

Perhaps exaggeration was the wrong word though. It isn’t that the false prophets can promise more; they can only promise wrongly. They offer cheaply. There is so much less to their teaching. Less God. Less Jesus. Less suffering. Less beauty. Less meaning. Less glory.

Meridian Church · Jeremiah 28:1–17 || Showdown || Josh King

Do Not Listen! (Jeremiah 27:1–22)

“Do not listen to the words of the prophets who are saying to you, ‘You shall not serve the king of Babylon,’ for it is a lie that they are prophesying to you. I have not sent them, declares the LORD, but they are prophesying falsely in my name, with the result that I will drive you out and you will perish, you and the prophets who are prophesying to you” (Jeremiah 27:14–15).

Poison is just as deadly if you change the label. Speaking lies in the name of Jesus doesn’t make them true. Slapping the label “Christian” on the world’s product and cleaning it up a bit doesn’t make it beneficial. It doesn’t even make it benign or neutral. Not everything “Christian” is Christian. For the Christian, the most dangerous poisons are the ones labeled “Christian.” It’s the pills labeled with our name that we mistake as intended for our health.

The saint would likely never consider buying into the advertisements of bottles labeled secularism, humanism, new age, paganism, or Buddhism; but change the label, modify the phraseology, and now you’re curious. Let me give just one example, perhaps it is the most pernicious one there is—Christian music.

Slapping the adjective “Christian” on the noun “music” doesn’t make it so, any more than one could change the nature of a demon by calling him a holy demon. When you see the label “Christian” what is often concealed is nothing more than a slightly “modified” poison.

people-2562222_1280Bethel Church in Redding California is a cesspool of false teaching where angel dust falls from the ceiling, members practice grave soaking (soaking up the anointing of the deceased), and prophets declare fresh apostolic revelation from God. Though their following is huge, I venture that many professing Christians wouldn’t want anything to do with such poison. But Bethel Music, directly connected to the church, has multiple albums at the top of the Christian music charts. They have one won four GMA Dove Awards. Jeremy Riddle is associated with Bethel Music and has “led worship” for them. Heard “Reckless Love” by Cory Asbury? Yes, that hose is connected to this cesspool. Still want a drink? Phil Wickam has also recorded songs with them and taught at their school.

Vineyard Music is, you may have guessed, part of the Vineyard Movement. See the pattern? They’re not making it hard. Vineyard shares more than sharp naming skills with Bethel. They like to jam together sometimes. You’ll see some of the same artists associated with Bethel here as well. Their churches share much of the same theology.

Kari Jobe is a member of Gateway Church in Southlake, Texas which preaches a slick hip version of the prosperity gospel and also has ties to Bethel Church. Todd White has preached there! Enough said. What Joel Osteen was to Benny Hinn, Robert Morris (their pastor) is to Joel Osteen—a repackaged product to market to a fresher demographic.

Finally, consider Hillsong United coming out of Hillsong Church (yep), which not only preaches the prosperity gospel but has waffled on issues regarding gender and sexuality. It was the pastor of Hillsong New York, Carl Lentz, who baptized Justin Bieber. No comment.

I’m not aware of one song from any of these sources that explicitly preaches their more heretical views, but the worldview of the lyrics is frequently and thoroughly alien to the Scriptures. Their message apes that of pop psychology, self-help, and humanism. Such music is the bait Satan uses to hide the hook. Many evangelical protestants likely never become prosperity gospel charismatics as a result of listening to such music, but they do become experiential, feelings-driven, and mystical in their approach to God. Satan doesn’t mind diluting a deadly poison and sweetening it up with some truth, or even adding some beneficial nutrients, so long as it remains poison just the same.

It is true that sometimes false prophets can speak truth, but such instances are very rare and not to be sought. God used Balaam. But how are you to know when God is using Balaam? Are you too going to claim to be a prophet? Ah, let’s test is according to the Word right? If it’s Scriptural, all truth is God’s truth, right? We’ve done such with Horatio Spafford’s “It Is Well with My Soul.” He drifted into heresy. We use his song. Yes, but very few know this and virtually no one is led into Spafford’s heresy by his enduring hymn. The danger of Bethel Music and Hillsong is different. The virus is living. Throngs are attracted to their ministries by their music. The appeal is to bypass the mind go straight for the emotions. It is not truth but the aesthetic that is the attraction. It isn’t a theological commitment, but a taste of genre that draws one in.

What should we do then? I believe the answer is clear from Jeremiah 27. Do not listen to them! If for no other reason than this, can you not sense the narcissism, the self-centeredness, the self-obsession that dominates the music? The music is full of lies that will drown you in the image of your own reflection. Do not listen! It is a lie that they are prophesying to you.

Meridian Church · Jeremiah 27:1–|| 22 Bear the Yoke and Do Not Listen || Josh King

The Tools You Use Tell Me What You’re Building

“WHEREAS, Concerns have been raised by some evangelicals over the use of frameworks such as critical race theory and intersectionality; and

WHEREAS, Critical race theory is a set of analytical tools that explain how race has and continues to function in society, and intersectionality is the study of how different personal characteristics overlap and inform one’s experience… be it…

RESOLVED, That critical race theory and intersectionality should only be employed as analytical tools subordinate to Scripture—not as transcendent ideological frameworks…” —Resolution 9, On Critical Race Theory and Intersectionality

The permitted is certain to be utilized. This is what frightens me.

Yes, God’s common grace pervades the world and grows in unexpected soils, but this is no reason to promote the nutritional value of radioactive apples grown in Chernobyl. Some fields devoid of saving grace are ripe with common grace. I don’t think that’s where we’re gleaning. While Paul did quote a few pagans, he didn’t commend Stoicism or Epicureanism themselves as useful tools. I may have quoted Freud once but I’m certain I’ve never commended Freudian psychoanalysis. Critical race theory has tools within it but is itself is a theory, not a tool. Trying to use it as a tool is like trying to use abortion as a tool for life. Intersectionality as a tool for racial reconciliation is about as valuable as using the morning-after pill as a prenatal vitamin. Wrecking balls make poor hammers when you want to drive nails and build something good.

life-after-the-soviet-union-2-1244693-1279x1705

But what about demo work? Racism, injustice, and tyranny are evils, but critical race theory and intersectionality are not the tools the saints should use to tear them down. When you use the devil’s tools to tear down the devil’s works, you’re still playing in his toolshed. Taking over a racist Nazi regime with a revolutionary Communist one is not the answer. Instead of destroying strongholds, we’ve built new ones and now labeled them safe playgrounds, with the qualifying fine print of playing by the rules of Scripture of course. We’ve traded our DeWalt tools for those of Playskool because we’ve been told they’re “safe” and cannot be used for oppression. This is just a ploy of Big Brother to keep potential usurpers under control. Also, these toy tools are likely coated in toxic paint.

Some tools are custom made for evil jobs such that the tool cannot be separated from the designated task. Further, to seek some redeeming use of such tools is folly when we already have that through which God is building up a new creation. He has promised to supply the power, we need only pick up the tool. Our task is simply to be faithful. The gospel is the tool. The Word is sufficient. If you want an analytical tool, it pierces and divides. If you want to build unity, it’ll do it and it alone. Why buy a dusty pagan stone axe when you’ve got a chain saw?

If I am told that such tools can help me in using or applying the tool, yes, perhaps the abortionist may have some information that can help a doctor deliver a baby. Common grace can indeed grow in such places. But the worldview ain’t that tool and that is what it seems I’m being permitted to pick up. I don’t feel as though I’m being asked to sniff the flower of God’s common grace so much as the manure pile it grew out of. The Word itself is the best lens by which to read both the Word and the world. When I breathe in the Word, I notice more clearly the stink of the world and am better able to spot and appreciate a flower when I find one growing there.

True, God’s big book of natural revelation does help in understanding His small book of special revelation, but it’s one thing to pick up a flower, another to pick up forceps. Look at the build date and the manufacturer. Creation was made good by our good God. Intersectionality was crafted by man post-fall (for some background on its forging, listen to this episode of Al Mohler’s The Briefing). It is an idol. I don’t need to learn from Baal to understand how YHWH liberates his people. A study of Baal may help me understand sinners, and in this way, what God is communicating to them; it might serve as a dark backdrop, contrasting God’s truth with this world’s lies; it cannot, however, in itself, serve as a tool in the way of righteousness.

Where others see permissible “analytical tools” I see a hammer and sickle: a hammer that cannot build but only tear down the church and a sickle that can only gather weeds and not wheat. Let us lay them down and take up again the sword of the Word.

An Empowering Reply to an Encouraging Inquiry

Dear Sister,

For the message you recently sent me I am downright grateful.. It was encouraging. I pray that you will find this empowering.

Screen Shot 2019-06-14 at 9.33.23 AM.pngRegarding women preaching, you’re correct, the current quake finds its epicenter in Beth Moore’s tweet that she would be preaching on Mother’s Day (reportedly at North Point Church where Andy Stanley is). On the heels of this, was news of her invitation to Truett Seminary for their  “National Preaching Conference”, being listed as a “Guest Preacher.” Many have been supportive of Moore, even out of reformed camps.

Frankly, I’m glad the cat is out of the bag and that she isn’t pretending to do anything otherwise than preach. She’s been flying under the radar for far too long. Calling a missile a bird might fool some, but now there is no excuse. Will we stand on the side of Biblical orthodoxy or join those attacking it?Screen Shot 2019-06-14 at 9.25.47 AM.png

Additionally, I would add that my biggest concern with Moore isn’t that she is a woman. She would be disqualified if she were a man. Mysticism, emotionalism, and poor exegesis permeate her teaching. You mentioned your past experience in the heretical Word of Faith movement and how this all sounds eerily familiar. I believe the Charismatic movement has been subtly making major inroads in Baptist circles for decades (i.e. the soft prosperity of The Prayer of Jabez). We came to a fork in the road way back and chose the wrong path. This is just the latest incident demonstrating that we haven’t turned around. Another disconcerting mark of her teaching noted way back was the use of word studies to find the broad semantic range of a word as leverage for eisegesis, that is, reading her desired meaning into a text. I don’t think Moore’s intent is to be unfaithful to the text, but that is the result.

Regarding the trajectory of the denomination, my biggest concern is how deeply this is tied to feminism, #MeToo, cultural marxism, and intersectionality as driving forces in the culture. The current is strong, and I’m afraid we’re not acting like salmon anymore. I agree, we need to hate all evil acts of abuse, but when you use the devil’s tools to destroy the devil’s works, you need to know you’re just playing around in his toolshed. We’ve come to another fork, and I think the disaster is going to be more severe. If at first fork we chose a path leading to false teaching, we’re now pondering one that leads to apostasy.

Yes, historically it has always been the orthodox belief that the office of elder is limited to qualified men. The main “Biblical” argument for including women is to recall the small number of prophetesses we find in the Scriptures. While there obviously are female prophets, we never find a woman who is “king.” Though Athaliah makes a run as queen and Jezebel is essentially pulling all the strings, these are not exactly positive role models. Nor do we find women acting as priests. The function of teaching is tied to the priests and Levites more than the prophets. The prophets preeminently spoke God’s word, rather than teach it. Also, in this vein, when Paul gives instructions concerning women prophesying in the New Testament, she is to do so manifesting that she is under a head, (cf. 1 Corinthians 11:2–16). This connects to Paul’s prohibition of a woman teaching men or exercising authority over a man in the church (1 Timothy 2:12).

The novel spin being put on 1 Timothy 2:12 today, making room for women preachers, is that it should be read as a hendiadys, that is, two words joined by a conjunction to express a single idea. If what was banned was a woman “teaching and exercising authority over a man” as a single idea, then a woman could be permitted to exercise the function of an elder, teaching, while being denied the office. This is what some are calling “soft complementarianism.” I think it’s rather a hardened compromise.

But this anticipates the question you asked, what of those men who teach in the assembly who are not elders? While it’s understandable that the question arises, as it is deployed by opponents of the Biblical view, it is a smoke screen. When a non-elder preaches he isn’t violating any prohibition. Let me demonstrate with a question. How is one to know if a man is qualified when one of those qualifications is being “apt to teach” if he is never able to teach until he is an elder?

Truly, all teaching in the church should be under the elder’s oversight, as part of his promoting truth and guarding against false teaching. When the elders permit a woman to preach, then automatically, in the very act, they and the woman involved have already violated the Scriptures, however orthodox the sermon may be.

I thank God for your recognizing the rightness and goodness of God’s order and recognizing the lies of the world and your desire to mortify them as they seek to take root in your own heart. “Feminism” is a peculiar word for that which is an attack on the feminine, saying that if womanhood is to have any value, it must be equivalent to manhood. I’ll allow Douglas Wilson to colorfully reiterate the point: “Ironically, we call this attempt by some women to be more like men “feminism,” which is a bit like calling an attempt by cats to be like dogs felinism.” And thus we have already tilted the hat to gender confusion in the church.

In reply to the accusation of belittling women, I believe the Biblical view bebigs them. Womanhood, motherhood, and sisterhood are glorious things in which women are immeasurably superior to men. Chesterton nailed the disparity when he said, “Nothing can ever overcome that one enormous sex superiority, that even the male child is born closer to his mother than to his father. No one, staring at that frightful female privilege, can quite believe in the equality of the sexes.” Equal in value, dignity and worth? Certainly. In roles? Heaven forbid!

Yes, the serpent is whispering in Eve’s ear again as you suggest, and the blame still lies with Adam, but at least in the Garden his sin was one of passivity. Now he is actively inciting his wife with snake’s crafty lies. “Become like me, and you’ll be like God.”

Dear sister, I thank God that you are feeding on that which is far more nourishing and empowering, the Word of truth.

Running Well by Standing Fast (Galatians 5:7–12)

“You were running well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth? This persuasion is not from him who calls you. A little leaven leavens the whole lump.” —Galatians 5:7–9

The race of faith is one in which if you are cut off, you take the blame. If you’re tripped, you’re at fault for not being ready. If you’re not running well, it’s because you’re not standing fast (Galatians 5:1). Enemy interference is expected. This is no gentleman’s race. It is a race for warriors.

The word translated “hindered” can carry the connotation of being cut off. It’s hard to avoid the double entendre. By circumcision the Judaizers were trying to cut the Galatians off in the race of faith. The knight cannot reason that he committed treason because his opponent had a bigger sword.

If you are duped by a false teacher, the blame falls on you. If you eat the apple, you cannot blame the serpent. Tolerated lies are soon digested. Stand firm. Do not submit. Give no quarter.

Rest assured, the serpent and his spawn have been crushed under the crucified foot of Christ. Our Lord will manifest this victory when He returns in glory and the serpent is crushed under the feet of the saints (Romans 16:20). But the saints are those who persevere in the faith. So, paradoxical as it may seem, if you are to run well, you must stand fast.

The Shocking How of a Shocked How (Galatians 3:8–11)

“Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to those that by nature are not gods. But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world, whose slaves you want to be once more? You observe days and months and seasons and years! I am afraid I may have labored over you in vain.” —Galatians 4:8–10

Here, Paul is shocked that those who were once the lowest of slaves but who have become sons of the highest of kings, would turn back to their slavery. But just as shocking is the how of this how. How is it that these sons are turning back to slavery to the “elemental spirits of this world”? How is it that these former idolators are returning to the bondage of those that are not gods (cf. Deuteronomy 32:17)? By observing days and months and seasons and years.

The context of Galatians insists we understand these to be the Jewish Sabbath and Feasts. These are part of those works of the law wherein they were seeking to stand just before God (Galatians 2:15). The law is a pedagogue meant to bring sinners to Christ (Galatians 3:24–26). To return to the law from Christ is to swim against the current towards death. To turn from Christ back to the law is to turn from the law as it is of God, to a perversion of the law that is of demons. Luther comments,

“Whoever falls from the doctrine of justification is ignorant of God and is an idolater. Therefore it is all the same whether he then returns to the Law or to the worship of idols; it is all the same whether he is called a monk or a Turk or a Jew… For once this doctrine undermined, nothing more remains but sheer error, hypocrisy, wickedness, and idolatry, regardless of how great the sanctity appears on the outside.

…There is no middle ground between human working and the knowledge of Christ; if this knowledge is obscured, it does not matter whether you become a monk or a heathen afterwards.”

To the Jews who insisted that they were the children of Abraham and that God was their father, but who rejected Jesus, Jesus said, 

“If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and I am here. I came not of my own accord, but he sent me. Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot bear to hear my word. You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies. But because I tell the truth, you do not believe me. Which one of you convicts me of sin? If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me? Whoever is of God hears the words of God. The reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God” (John 8:42–47).

The highest moral efforts, devoid of Christ, are nothing more than slavery to demons.