Dakota Community Church
May 15, 2011
Mighty to Save 1
Last week with mother’s day and communion we did not get to finish our look at how we reconcile the Just and Holy judge who commands the death of “everything that breathes” in the nations that occupy the promised land (in order to avoid idolatry) with the God who is slow to anger, abounding in mercy and forgiving toward sinners. We begin with wrapping that up:
Prosperity Gospel Explanation:
For years these issues were brought to me by people in the prosperity camp. Has God changed? I know He wants me to have my best life now; but what about all this Bible stuff? My answer would be that the Bible is true in the sense that it’s true that the authors saw the events in this way
– The authors believed it was God ordering them to kill every man woman child –
- The authors believed God was telling them to stone the Sabbath breaker –
- The authors believed that God consumed Aaron’s sons –
- The authors believed that 70,000 died at God’s hand for David’s census -
But He really wouldn’t do that - but that they were misunderstanding the true nature of God
The problem with this answer is that the TEXT CLEARLY SAYS OTHERWISE!
In this answer we make the text subjective – we change it to line up with our beliefs.
The Problem with Making the Text Subjective:
Once you abandon belief in the text as objective truth the scriptures lose all authority. Any verse you do not like can be explained away if the meaning is not in line with your theology.
YOUR INTELLECT BECOMES GOD
A Holy Just God who punishes sin can be transformed into a doddering kind grandpa who winks at sin.
The Jesus who claims to be the only is really speaking from a position of ignorance trapped as it were in first century Palestine and unable to see as we now do that all religions are true and all paths lead to God. Jesus did not even know that there was a Mount Fuji let alone that there were many ways to reach the summit.
The idea that homosexual behavior is a sin can now be seen as the misguided viewpoint of a dessert dwelling shepherd not the revealed law of God communicated face to face and carved in stone at Mt. Sinai.
The Bible cannot be the revealed inspired word of God AND a subjective helpful voice in our journey to spirituality … UNLESS:
Post modern thinking is embraced.
The Problem of Reasoning with Post-Modern Thinkers:
Post moderns reject the logical law of noncontradiction.
The law states that nothing can be both A and not A; a proposition cannot be both true and false.
The binder in my hand is black therefore it is not white according to the law of noncontradiction.
The post modern thinker agrees that the binder is black for ME but that it may be white for someone else.
In the post modern thought world it is true that Jesus is the only way to God, it is also true that there are other ways.
The post modern thinkers do not want to be held to a literal interpretation of the text, they want to interact with it and find their own meaning from what is being said.
These ideas are held to only in the realm of philosophy or religion – post moderns still stop on red and go on green, they still insist on logical absolutes in the financial realm.
What is My Answer Now?
Sin is far worse a problem than I imagine – the Old Testament more than illustrates that and the fact that sins solution involves God on a cross seals it
The justice of God is outside of my ability to comprehend in fact everything within me screams unjust, unfair, the punishment does not fit the crime.
The text rules, it does not bend to suit my theological preferences.
The GOOD NEWS is far better news than I ever imagined possible
“The law detects, grace alone conquers sin.” - Saint Augustine of Hippo (354-430)
PowerPoint available (Free of charge) on request dcormie@mts.net
