8-13-18<\/p>\n
Years ago our family worshiped at a neighborhood church in Connecticut. By \u201cneighborhood\u201d I don\u2019t imply small; it was where a lot of our friends spent their Sunday mornings\u2026 and Wednesday nights, and Saturday mornings for Bible studies, and many weekend evenings for fellowship and book review groups. A thriving church.<\/p>\n
The pastor had been converted to a fervent Christianity in his youth by Billy Graham; and, ironically, when he \u201cgraduated\u201d from the church he joined the staff of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association in North Carolina. He was a wonder pastor; more, a great teacher.<\/p>\n
One of the adult Sunday School classes was in his office. Changing topics and lessons, but my wife and I were in the sessions about some of the Pauline letters \u2013 the Epistles of Paul on his fascinating and varied missionary journeys. <\/p>\n
My wife and I had recently, in a different church and under different teaching, become Pentecostals, believing in \u2013 accepting \u2013 the Gifts of the Spirit as described in the Book of Acts; listed in I Corinthians 13; and elsewhere in the New Testament. We had traveled to crusades held by Jimmy Swaggart, the great R W Schambach, Kenneth Copeland, and others; and some couples in this new fellowship had, with us; and were intrigued by ministries of tongues, healing, wisdom, prophecy, and such.<\/p>\n
There are 12 such \u201cGifts of the Spirit\u201d listed carefully in the first letter to the church at Corinth. Now, this new church of which I speak, was not a Pentecostal church; it was Evangelical Free. And the good pastor was not Pentecostal, evidenced by his answer to the question posed by one of the couples, \u201cWhat do you think of the 12 Gifts of the Spirit?\u201d<\/p>\n
He answered, \u201cWell, they are in the Bible, yes; but I have a problem with several of them.\u201d Wise-guy Rick immediately asked, \u201cHowe many of the 10 Commandments do you have a problem with?\u201d<\/p>\n
My timing might have been that of a wise guy, but my point was, and is, serious. I know (believe me; from hundreds of discussions and debates) I know the arguments of the anti-Pentecostals \u2013 that the Gifts of the Spirit were specific \u201cministry gifts\u201d for the First-Century Church; that such miracles were withdrawn by the Giver of the Gifts after the Apostolic Age, after the Apostles were all martyred. And so forth. Of course the Gospels say no such thing; the Books of Acts recorded miracle-gifts throughout; there is no hint of expiration-dates in the Epistles of Paul and other writers; no warnings in the Book of Revelation. In fact John wrote there of the End of Times, not the End of Gifts.<\/p>\n
Beyond my spiritual snarkiness just concluded, I do not, here, want to litigate the question that will be solved to our satisfaction when we arrive in Glory.<\/p>\n
But I do want us all to consider the manner of Christian religiosity that my tale represents. All of us, me too, and conservative and liberal Christians; Catholics and Protestants; evangelical and Pentecostal and fundamentalist and \u201cseeker\u201d and post-modern and Orthodox; in other words, all human beings\u2026 practice at the altar of a Pick-and-Choose belief system. <\/p>\n
In a way, of course, that is another way to describe hypocrisy; but few of us intend to be hypocrites, especially in matters of core beliefs. These days, it is explained away as \u201crelativism\u201d in many places, in the way (it seems to me) that skin cancer could be called an itch. Now, I recognize that this dilemma is not restricted to religious beliefs, but political affiliations or even patriotic fervor do not have rules that are strict.<\/p>\n
\u201cStrict\u201d? Yes. We \u2013 in the 21st-century West \u2013 scarcely regard our spiritual affiliations as requiring strict adherence. As recently as a century ago, this would have been regarded as anathema by most of those spiritual affiliations \u2013 denominations.<\/p>\n
My daughter, a youth pastor, has been hired by churches where she was not required to know denominations\u2019 doctrines, yet was obliged to teach children. Not Luther\u2019s Catechism in a Lutheran church, not Calvin\u2019s Institutes in a Presbyterian. Sort of like joining the Boy Scouts without having to be a boy\u2026 oh, wait.<\/p>\n
To take to its logical extension, what is the point of systematic theology? God gave humankind the Ten Commandments, not the Ten Suggestions. Jesus taught; He did not propose debates. When He healed and forgave, He said \u201cGo thou and sin no more,\u201d not \u201cHey, whatever; go for it.\u201d When talked about the necessity to be Born Again, He did not say, \u201cNo one gets to Father except through Me\u2026 and Buddha and Tuesday Meditation classes and Oprah.\u201d<\/p>\n
The culture seduces us; and the double-edged swords of modernism and intellectual vanity, and secularist education. And the mistaken trust that everything in life is either settled democratically\u2026 or according to whatever the heck feels right to us.<\/p>\n
Think of every challenge that might confront you, or disaster that might threaten you. You might pick a certain reaction, or choose a way to respond\u2026 but the serious things in life are not defined \u2013 cannot be defined \u2013 by a pick-and-choose acceptance or rejection. Life is real; life is earnest, as Longfellow tellingly wrote.<\/p>\n
And nothing is more real than the disposition of your soul for eternity, and your respect for the word of God.<\/p>\n
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