The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron....

If you point these things out to the brothers, you will be a good minister of Christ Jesus, brought up in the truths of the faith and of the good teaching that you have followed. Have nothing to do with godless myths and old wives' tales; rather, train yourself to be godly...

Don't let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity. 

 Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to preaching and to teaching...

Be diligent in these matters; give yourself wholly to them, so that everyone may see your progress. Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers.

Listening to Christian radio on WAY-FM last week, we heard Wally talking about how he was sold a false gospel.

Wally said that God is sold like the latest and greatest product to resolve your problems, and many act like marketers, and start lying to make the sale.

People were calling into WAY-FM to talk about what they were told life would be like if they became a Christian:

• God will make life easy. 
• You'll be healthy. 
• You'll live longer.
• You'll be rich. 
• Life will always be fun, and you'll always be happy.
• And more...

With my friends and those with whom I volunteer, I've seen a lot of these ideas lived out. When we are sold these false ideas, our faith becomes idolatry: we start to believe that God exists to serve us.

God's promises are far more significant than an easy life, health, long life, or wealth.

When we believe or tell deceptive views of the gospel, we're turning things upside down. It doesn't matter if you're rich - it matters if you have treasure in heaven. It doesn't matter if you live a long life - it matters that you're looking toward your eternal life.

Jesus didn't teach his disciples to pray for extravagance for themselves.
     He taught them to pray for their daily bread.

Jesus didn't teach his followers they'd have fun lives.
     He promised they'd be persecuted.

Is Jesus your genie in a bottle that you'll leave behind if he stops granting your wishes? Or is he your Lord to the extent that none of these worldly values affect your faith?

What are you communicating about the gospel by how you live? Most people stop trusting perpetual smilers because like the bikini-clad girls in beer commercials, it just seems fake. The life of faith isn't lollipops and sugar rolls.

Further, the point of sale is not the goal.

All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age. (Jesus, as recorded in Matthew 28)

Discipleship. Obedience. This is what we are called to. How did Jesus give an alter call?

If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple. And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.
"Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Will he not first sit down and estimate the cost to see if he has enough money to complete it? For if he lays the foundation and is not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule him, saying, 'This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.'
...
any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple.
(Jesus, as recorded in Luke 14. for the "..." content, read Luke 14,the post was just getting really long.)

Jesus did not offer a discipleship of convenience. He didn't offer lives of ease. He said that we have to give up everything to serve him.

• Were you sold a false gospel?
• Are you tempted to think of the blessings in your life as guaranteed from God?
• Do you consider this life and physical blessings greater than that of eternity?

Thanks for visiting. It seems that someone has engaged in a word-of-mouth campaign to bring more people to my blog.  Who told you about this blog? Leave me a comment below and let me know.

I'd love your feedback about this proposal for a new direction for the blog: A Refuge for Truth.

Throughout history, we can see a clear need for those willing to stand for what's right and true. Here's the first lesson I learn about truth from history:

Truth is not decided by the majority Majority rules works in various venues, but it is not a valid reasoning to discover or argue for competing truth claims. You may be able to "rally your troops" to stand up for saying that the sun is made of spare ribs, but that doesn't change the facts.

In fact, the majority often chooses what is wrong and untrue. Throughout the Bible there are accounts of the "remnant," the relatively minuscule group of individuals who are willing to stand for what's right, even in the face of the majority. Even in the face of intimidation. Even in the face of defamation of character and slander. Even in the face of false prophets, wicked leaders, and those who twist the word of God.

• Elisha was up against evil leaders that had been brought in, and cries out to God from his anguish that there were so few people in Israel willing to stand up for truth - everyone was falling in line with the King, regardless of what was right and true.
• Jesus stood up for what was right, and when the pressure changed, the crowds dispersed. Those who had followed him in what was right, now followed others in what was wrong.
• The early churches dealt with this:

1. Jude writes to a church where certain teaches who brought a different message had "secretly slipped in," and the teaching had been tolerated because the appointed leaders of the church were not standing up for what was true, but were ok with the grace of God being used as a license for immorality. Yet Jude still had some people to write to to encourage to stand for truth and save others from the false message.
   
2. The churches in Revelation were warned about tolerating individual teachers who taught different messages, but even then there was a remnant standing for what was true
   
   
3. Jesus' own life is a clear example of the remnant standing for truth. His followers were so fickle that they turned from following his teaching, and turned back to those who wanted to murder truth. Only a small remnant was still standing up for what was right and true.

The majority cannot be used as a measuring rod for what is true, or what is right. Do these questions have anything to do with majority opinion?

• What is true?
• What is the right thing to do?

I'd love your thoughts!

(This is the first in a series working  toward exploring a possible new goal for the website of making it a refuge for truth.)

Good Morning!

I am considering moving this blog in a new direction with a new clear purpose. As I work though this transition to the next chapter in this blog, stay tuned. I'll be posting updates about the purpose of this blog as I get all my ducks in a row.

The saying goes: "If liberals had any brains they'd be conservatives, and if conservatives had any heart, they'd be liberals."

Conservatives are said to have no heart. They must not care about the poor, it is said, or they'd want more government programs to help the poor, etc.

"Conservatives are more likely to give than Liberals and give more, even in blood donations. They are also twice as likely to attend religious worship. But still... Religious people give more to secular causes than do secular people." (mint.com blog)

they know "...that it is [Conservatives] who are motivated by compassion, and that their cold-heartedness is only apparent. They are the ones who have taken up the cause of society, and who are prepared to pay the cost of upholding the principles on which we all -- liberals included -- depend.

To be known as a social conservative is to lose all hope of an academic career; it is to be denied any chance of those prestigious prizes, from the MacArthur to the Nobel Peace Prize, which liberals confer only on each other. For an intellectual it is to throw away the prospect of a favorable review -- or any review at all -- in the New York Times or the New York Review of Books.

Only someone with a conscience could possibly wish to expose himself to the inevitable vilification that attends such an "enemy of the people." And this proves that the conservative conscience is governed not by self-interest but by a concern for the public good. Why else would anyone express it?" (Totalitarian Sentimentality by Roger Scruton)

It should never have to happen
Ideally, confrontation would never have to happen. People would be convicted of their own sin, and would repent.

• Private sin with a confession to God and seeking forgiveness & reconciliation from any people indirectly affected.
  
• Public sin confessed and corrected in the same venue. If between two people, correction made there, if publicly, correction with to the same audience, whether from the pulpit in the classroom or on TV.
  

The purpose of confrontation
The purpose of confrontation is the care for the spiritual well-being of others. It is primarily unselfish, and done in the pursuit of unity. Correction is done to bring people back to the unity of the one Spirit and one faith. If someone is in sin, they are divided from the unity of the Spirit.

Doesn't public confrontation causes trouble
The right thing to do is the right thing to do. Do the right thing, regardless of the consequences.

As Martin Luther King Jr. said, "The time is always right to do the right thing."

Isn't confrontation divisive and slanderous, especially if it's public?
Jesus, Paul, and John taught that this was the way to confront religious or church leaders that were leading people away from the true message. I'm not ready to call Jesus and his apostles slanderous.

Divisive is used to mean the opposite of unifying. Paul is clear in Ephesians 4 that unity is not a product of keeping sins hidden, but of growing together in preserving the unity provided by the one Spirit. If someone is in sin, especially if their sin is in what they are teaching that is leading others astray, that's what is divisive and disruptive to the unity in the faith.

I'll write more on what unity in a Christian church is, according to the Bible soon.

Biblical Confrontation Applied
The Bible teaches us one motivation and two methods for confrontation and correction:

Motivation: Care for the spiritual well-being of others who are fellow disciples of Jesus.

Methods:

• Personal/private sins are dealt with as privately and quietly as possible and escalated if the person shows no repentance, the goal being to save the spiritual well-beingof the individual in sin.
  
• Public teaching sins are dealt with publicly. The goal being to save the spiritual well-being of those under the influence of the one in sin.
  

Should I confront someone?
The biblical teachings and examples are all of people who profess to be followers of the God of the Bible. I don't think this necessitates application to those not in the church.

If someone is a believer and you know they are in sin, then it needs to be confronted. Your motivation needs to be care for their spiritual well-being.

Should I confront someone publicly?
This is not a light task. I'm not convinced Jesus made friends when he went into the temple with a whip he had made, and started overturning tables during a time of worship. In fact, this is when some people started plotting his death.

But don't do the wrong thing because the right thing is intimidating. The motivation is the care for believers' spiritual well-being. How much do I care about another's spiritual well-being if I choose to allow them to be misled because of my own desire for what is comfortable?

Here's some intermediate steps that I might suggest. (These are not commanded or modeled in the scriptures that deal with public teachers that lead people astray):

• Seek counsel from those you know are wiser than you.
  
• Seek clarity with the leader privately first.
  
• Seek action by those to whom the teacher is responsible.

Here's what you may learn:

• The person you want to confront has likely spent more time studying and preparing for what they're doing, you may have something to learn - you may well be wrong. Be humble and teachable but not a push-over.
  
• You may learn that (s)he recognizes the error and is preparing to correct the error from the correct venue.
  
• You may lean that there is an issue but it's very minor.
  

Public confrontation is for things that matter.
But, it's not limited to blasphemy - (what most people mean when they say heresy, which is any false teaching) . Paul confronted Peter about acceptance of non-Jewish believers. John confronted Diotrophes in a letter that was sent to church members about him keeping people out of the church who were believers.

In my life
I've taught in some venues before. Rather than someone standing up and shouting me down on why I'm wrong on something, I'd much rather them talk to me and/or the person over me in that venue. If there is an error, I'll get up and correct myself at the soonest opportunity before all those whom I taught. If there isn't an error, then the one who asked the question has earned my respect for engaging in the conversation.

If I don't see a real problem but my superior does, then (s)he ought to make the correction in the same venue.

Public confrontation seems more fit for a consistent problem that is misleading people. If that's the case, then there ought to be public confrontation of the person in charge (for condoning the false teaching), and me.

I have personally stood in front of a church and issued an apology and correction for something I've said, and I've been in a church where the Senior Pastor stood up and apologized and corrected what he had taught the previous week.

I have never seen a public confrontation of someone who has consistently misled a church through false teaching. All of this is just my working through what the Bible says on the issue.

Public offense: A person is endangering others' souls.

If the only way to confront is to keep things hidden until church leadership allows you to bring it up publicly, what about the following:

• Jesus called attention to religious leaders publicly for leading others astray. He called them hypocrites, because they boasted about their works and their righteousness.³
• Jesus also made a whip (per John's record) and was violent in the place of worship, overthrowing tables (though not harming any of the animals) when the temple leadership was causing people to not worship.⁴
• Paul confronted Peter in front of the church, not privately, when Peter's sin was leading others astray.⁵
• John wrote to churches about an individual bad leader who was misleading people and trying to keep some believers out of fellowship. John wrote that he'd also call them to account when he came to visit.⁶

The difference is that in these situations, it's not a matter of the individual being at risk, but because these are all matters of public spiritual teaching, they are endangering other people's souls.

I've read accounts of teachers in the church saying any public confrontation would be sinful⁷. Of course as the leader of the church they simply never allowed the charge to come against them which is in violation of Matthew 18 anyway.

Public confrontation of spiritual leadership is modeled for us by Jesus. More specifically, after Jesus left, and the church began to exist, his apostles modeled how it should be done in a local church setting.

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Footnotes:

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³ This occurs several times in the Sermon on the Mount. See Matthew 5, 6 and 7

⁴ "On reaching Jerusalem, Jesus entered the temple courts and began driving out those who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves, and would not allow anyone to carry merchandise through the temple courts. And as he taught them, he said, "Is it not written: 'My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations'? But you have made it 'a den of robbers.'" - Mark 11:15-17

⁵ When Peter came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he was clearly in the wrong...The other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, so that by their hypocrisy even Barnabas was led astray.

When I saw that they were not acting in line with the truth of the gospel, I said to Peter in front of them all, "You are a Jew, yet you live like a Gentile and not like a Jew. How is it, then, that you force Gentiles to follow Jewish customs? - Paul, Ephesians 2:11,13-14

⁶ I wrote to the church, but Diotrephes, who loves to be first, will have nothing to do with us. So when I come, I will call attention to what he is doing, spreading malicious nonsense about us. Not satisfied with that, he refuses to welcome other believers. He also stops those who want to do so and puts them out of the church. - The Apostle John, 3 John 1:9-10

⁷ Google Matthew 18 or "biblical confrontation" and you'll find people's accounts of this.

Personal offense: A person's own soul is in danger.

"If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over. But if he will not listen, take one or two others along, so that 'every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.' If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector." -- Jesus, Matthew 18:15-17

Similar to talking to your co-worker when you think they stole your stapler, only then going to your supervisor and then up the ladder. When an individual has sinned against you, it's that individual's responsibility to seek reconciliation with you (Matthew 5:23-24).

It is also your responsibility. Not to prove you're right and (s)he is wrong - it's not about that. It's about sin. We ought to be looking out for each other and wanting to win each other over from the entanglements of sin. I think the perspective is this: A person's soul is at stake!

When an individual is affected by their sin to the point that you are offended, correction is handled privately, then with a few witnesses, then before the entire church. If they still don't repent, then you've got someone who is in refusal to repent. This is not characteristic of a believer, so then you treat them as they're acting - like "a pagan or a tax collector."²

This is one of the ways confrontation is taught.

If the only way to confront is to keep things hidden until church leadership allows you to bring it up publicly, there's some serious problems with how Jesus and his apostles handled confrontation.

More on that tomorrow.

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Footnotes:

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² Nothing against IRS agents here. Tax collectors at the time were infamous. It was bad enough that they were teamed up with the empire that was oppressing the people, but they were also known for cheating people out of their money with the power of the Roman empire behind them.

New job orientation often included how to handle conflict.

Employees are to talk to the person with whom they have a problem, then escalate it up the ladder: If Jimmy steals your stapler, you talk to him about it. If there's no resolution or you're not comfortable talking to Jimmy, you go to your supervisor. Repeat the steps with your supervisor and their boss, etc. until there's resolution.

Wouldn't it be nice if the Bible taught us how to handle conflict, problems, and sin¹? Not in the workplace, but in regular life, dealing with other people who are supposed to be Christians.

The Bible teaches two types of confrontation that I'll blog on over the next few days, followed by a discussion about unity.

As always, I'd love to hear your thoughts, and if I write anything incorrectly, please let me know!

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Footnotes

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