Fight Club for Christians

Every week we do a chapel service for the staff at Dare 2 Share. All 48 of us gather to pray, worship, get updates and get fed from the Word of God. One of the things that I love about our D2S team is that they often taunt me during my talks. If I slip at all it is a free for all of “loving” sarcasm and preacher-focused heckles.

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But I get to dish it out too. Ha!

This week I’m starting a new series called “Fighting Words” that should lead to plenty of heckles (and not just from the Dare 2 Share staff, but also from my online friends.) This seven week series is built around seven sentences that should start a “fight” when Christians utter them. In other words these are sentences that I believe that we as Christians should stand up against.

Of course when I talk about this “Fight Club for Christians” I’m not talking about flying fists. I’m not even talking about angry screaming, pointing and blog flogging. I’m talking about engaging in real conversation in defense of the truth with gentleness and respect. Our Fight Club doesn’t end in bloody noses but paper cuts…from scouring the pages of Scripture in search of the truth.

Here are the seven sentences that, in my opinion, are fighting words:

1. “Christians shouldn’t debate theology.”

Did you know that it is a command of God to defend the truth of God’s Word against those who dare oppose it? Check out the words of Jude, “Dear friends, although I was very eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt I had to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints. For certain men whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you. They are godless men, who change the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord.”

Christians need to “contend for the faith” in love, but they need to do it. If we don’t then the garden of truth will be overrun with the weeds of heresy.

2. “Every religion ultimately leads to God.”

There is a growing universalism in the church today that states or implies (my more tricky friends do this a lot) that if someone truly follows their religion and whoever their concept of God is that God will let them into heaven. But Jesus himself took serious exception to this when he claimed to be the sole way to the Father in John 14:6. Someone once put it this way, “All roads do lead to God, most to his judgment, one to his forgiveness.”

3. “If a person lives a good life God will probably let them into heaven.”

The way of work verses the way of grace is an either/or proposition. If we choose the way of work then Jesus’ standards for entrance into heaven are impossibly high (check out Matthew 5 and Jesus’ “You have heard…but I say…” standards for real righteousness.)

But the way of grace was made possible by the only human that ever kept God’s standards perfectly, Jesus himself. If this grates against your soul then you are experiencing the offense of the cross.

4. “We can’t really ‘know’ anything for sure, especially when it comes to spiritual truth.”

The postmodern epistemological principle is that we can’t be certain about anything. But the Bible’s epistemological principle is that without certainty then the essence of faith is erased. Check out Hebrews 11:1-2, “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for.”

The Old Testament heroes were commended for their unshakeable certainty in the Person and promises of God that they ended up in the Hall of Fame of Hebrews 11. If we want to be included in their ranks then we need to embrace this same brand of certainty (not to be confused with know-it-all-arrogance that the Pharisees were condemned for). Anything less than full certainty in our God and his promises is faithless, enemic and, well, postmodern.

5. “I follow the red letters of the Bible more than the black ones.”