Does truth matter?
This question leads to general agreement, for most people believe that truth is important, it does matter. However, there is little agreement when one asks “What is truth?” Even when we narrow this discussion to those who confess Christian faith, it seems like there is little unity on the answer to this question.
It seems to me that one of the contributing factors in the diversity of answers to the question, “What is truth?” is that the role of scripture has changed. More and more it seems to me that scripture has less value in the pursuit of truth. Values within our culture have been placed above scripture. Individual experience and personal feelings hold more sway than the Word of God. Often one hears, in conversations about faith, appeals to “my truth” as the ultimate source of authority on almost any subject.
In this way, scripture is often devalued in matters of faith and excused as an ancient cultural value system that is no longer relevant to our times. Or it is set aside as just “one man’s truth” which has little or no value when stacked up against my own personal beliefs.
It is certainly not a new trend to devalue the Word of God and to place it under our own value system. Jesus noted that the Jews were less than welcoming of the prophets whom God had sent to deliver truth (Mat. 23:37). Paul gives thanks to the church in Thessalonica that they received the Word of God from him and accepted it as not “human” word but God’s Word. And this was so, even though some “who killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets” had also brought suffering to the followers of the Word. (I Thess. 2:13-16)
On some level, our dedication to the truth delivered by the inspired apostles will always create tension with the cultural values of the day, even the values of the religious world.
In fact, as we evaluate the relationship of scripture to truth, we find that the scriptures leaves little doubt about what the Saints should value when it comes to truth. The apostle Paul beautifully expresses this in 1 Tim. 3:16-17 when he wrote: “All scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”
If I elevate my feelings or values above scripture, am I not saying that I possess more truth than God? How can a holy God shape me and mold me if I devalue his Word and refuse His divine rebuke, correction, and training?
To those who had received this precious faith, Peter wrote,
“His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.” (2 Peter 1: 3-4)
What allowed the Saints to participate in God’s divine nature was their knowledge of God, as over against the corruption of their individual desires. It was their willingness to be firmly established in the truth (delivered by the apostles) that allowed them to overcome their sinful selves. Peter establishes the priority of the message delivered by the apostles with this encouragement:
“We also have the prophetic message as something completely reliable, and you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts. Above all, you must understand that no prophesy of scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation of things. For prophesy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.” (II Peter 1:19-21)
So, while our personal desires are corruptible, and other teachers may teach false things, Peter holds scripture to be infallible, meaning there is no error in it. The scriptures are correct. First and foremost, God is the author of scripture. While it is true that God used men in the process of delivering his Word, we understand that it is ultimately God who is truth itself, and is the author of scripture.
Not only did God’s word exercise authority over individual beliefs and feelings, this was also true of congregations.
When John wrote the Revelation, he delivered a message from Christ to the churches. Part of his message called out both beliefs and behaviors that needed to change. Entire churches were called to repent. It seems clear that some of those churches (or Saints) were willing to add to the Word of God, or take away from it what they did not like. (Rev. 22:18-19) The Prophet warned them of the consequence of adding or taking away with a strong warning—their spiritual lives were dependent on believing the truth of the prophesy.
This is readily seen when Paul wrote to the church in Corinth. He addressed many personal and congregational issues. So for example, in Chapters 12-14 he discussed the use of spiritual gifts in the assembly. And after giving instructions he adds this warning—”Did the word of God originate with you? Or are you the only people it has reached? If anyone thinks they are a prophet or otherwise gifted by the Spirit, let them acknowledge that what I am writing to you is the Lord’s command. But if anyone ignores this, they will themselves be ignored.” (I Cor. 14:36-38)
Church history traces the human practice of elevating personal beliefs, values and preferences above the Word of God. It is treated as if it is below us instead of above us. Perhaps most telling is the fact that these Biblical warnings were not given to those outside of the church but to the community of faith.
May we heed the warning! May we always hold as precious – the wonderful revelation of God to his Church, the Scripture. May we accept it for what it is… God-breathed and the standard by which we will one day be judged. May it enrich our souls as we are taught, corrected, rebuked and trained by His wisdom.
Regina, SK
The scriptures provide a fairly clear picture of the work of the Holy Spirit in the process of inspiration. He was involved in revealing God’s will to Man. He helped those who received God’s message to understand what was said and guided the preservation of what was revealed so that the written record lost none of its content or clarity.
We must remember that Christians in the first century enjoyed ‘spiritual gifts’ which they received directly from the Holy Spirit at the instigation of the apostles who prayed for them while laying their hands upon them. Some received the gift of prophecy, some the gift of interpretation, the gift of wisdom or the gift of interpreting tongues (I Cor 12-14). The scriptures make it clear that these ‘gifts’ ceased with the passing of the apostles and those upon whom they had laid their hands.
The question for us is:
The first century experience:
Regarding those to whom God first revealed his will – the apostle Paul discusses the connection between the Holy Spirit and human understanding in I Corinthians 2.
Paul recognized that the wisdom which he proclaimed to the Corinthians was not his own, but from God. It was a hidden wisdom that was ordained by God before the world began. God revealed this wisdom to Paul, and the church in Corinth, by His Spirit. This allowed Paul to state that his words were those taught by the Holy Spirit, so that he was in fact teaching spiritual truths in spiritual words. (I Cor. 2:6-13).
Paul claimed to be inspired of God. He then, followed up with a profound statement in I Cor. 2:14 “The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.”
Over the years, this verse has led to various interpretations.
However, the context of Paul’s letter to the Corinthians suggests that he was describing the special relationship that an inspired writer has both with the Holy Spirit and with passages of scripture authored by the Holy Spirit. In Paul’s day, part of what the Holy Spirit revealed was the meaning, application and fulfillment of what He had had preserved in the Old Testament.
To write under the influence and control of God’s Spirit included inspired interpretation. It was a case of the author of a previous work (the Holy Spirit) appearing later in time to explain that which had been formerly written. The apostle Peter makes it clear that elements of what had formerly been revealed and written by inspiration remained for a time unfulfilled and unexplained (1 Pet 1:10-12). Not even those who wrote by inspiration, fully understood what God intended to say or how his plan would be fulfilled. Therefore Paul put himself and other inspired writers of the first century in a category by themselves.
Regarding the first century church, Paul certainly finds the Spirit’s role significant when he prayed for the church in Ephesus, asking God to give them “a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him.” He also prayed for the “eyes of their understanding to be enlightened” to know the riches of God’s glory in the saints. (Eph. 1:17-18).
Yet given that this was written to people with ‘spiritual gifts’, Paul may be indicating that ‘spiritual gifts’ do not always result in understanding and comprehension. It was certainly true that the church in Corinth was ‘gifted’ by the Holy Spirit but not ‘led’ by the Holy Spirit. Access to God’s word frequently does lead to insight or to obedience. All of which means that what Paul prayed for was perhaps more a change of heart for his readers than a special eye-opening work of the Holy Spirit. Jesus said that it was those who seek, who find, and those who knock, to whom God’s word is opened. It is our own choices that produce eyes that see, ears that hear and hearts that are receptive. This remains true today.
The scriptures however were written to be understood and no genuine fault may be found in them. The problem in I Cor 3:1-4 lies with the church and not with God.
Paul wrote: “I cannot address you as spiritual, but as worldly…You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarrelling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere men?”
Christians in Corinth had been baptized into Christ and were both indwelt by God’s Spirit and “gifted”. In at least some cases, the problem was not a lack of knowledge but of obedience. Nor was theirs a lack of special knowledge ‘mystically received’. They resisted the Holy Spirit by persisting in sin, closing their minds and hardening their hearts.
There has always been a difference between knowing and doing. You can know about someone, or you can truly know someone because you have lived with them and experienced life with them. I thought that I knew my wife when I asked her to marry me, and indeed I did know some things . After living with her for almost 40 years, I know her in ways that were impossible in the beginning. Sharing life together and staying in constant communication has given me insight and understanding that goes beyond words. It is richer and deeper than ever before.
I believe this is the knowledge that Paul is referring to in I Cor 3. The person who is not indwelt by the Spirit of God cannot begin to walk with Him. And those who resist the Spirit fail to practice God’s will. True insight into the person of God can only be had by obeying God’s will. His will is available to us through a studied and proper handling of God’s word and the reshaping of our inner person into the image of God through the obedience of faith.
The more we experience life in Christ, the more we discern the wisdom of God. There is knowledge, understanding, and discernment, that only comes through our experience of obedience to our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.
Coming back to our original question, it is perhaps answered by Jesus himself who taught that a proper handling of scripture was all that was needed for insight and understanding (Mt. 7:7) Consider how often he asked: ‘have you never read?’. Jesus knew that his audience had ‘read’ the passages to which he referred. What he was asking, was, ‘given that you know of these scriptures, how is it that you have missed what they mean to say?’ Do the things written in scripture and then explained by the inpired writers of the N.T. require further explanation. Or do they more correctly call for greater effort on our part to properly understand them?
As to the full adequacy of God’s word, Jesus answered each of Satan’s temptations with a quote from scripture. Human failure to resist Satan has never been due to some fault on the part of scripture. Human failure to understand and or unwillingness to apply what God has written lies at the root. Given that the New Testament is God’s full and final revelation, there is surely no fault in it, or for that matter, special assistance needed.
The apostle Paul urged Timothy to diligently apply himself to a proper handling of God’s word (2nd Tim 2:15). Leaders in the first century church exercising ‘spiritual gifts’ still had to engage in due diligence in their interpretation of scripture. The apostle Peter warned against the tendency to distort of God’s word for the purpose of doing what we wish to do instead of following and honouring the will of God (2nd Peter 3:16).
The principle remains that God rewards those who seek and who knock, who worship and obey. Someone has correctly observed that ‘our knowledge ought never outstrip our obedience. God adds to those who put into practice that which they know to do from his word. It is always right and proper to ask God to help us understand his word and to receive it with humility. We may also be certain that the abilities that God gives to us through His providence is sufficient without miraculous assistance.
Regina Sask
The Bible is a message of hope. This hope is understood as God’s choice to be involved with his creation, and to be in relationship with those whom he has created. God did not fashion robotic creatures who would always conform to His will but be incapable of love. He chose to create creatures “in his image”, who like God could respond in love. Love demands a choice, and so even in the garden, Adam and Eve had the choice to love him or reject him.
Many struggle to understand in the words of the prophets as message of hope. The prophet is seen as one coming to declare God’s wrath and inevitable punishment on his wayward people. The nature of prophesy was to give people a choice to repent, and give God an opportunity to respond in grace to people’s repentance.
Consider God’s message to the prophet Jeremiah as recorded in Jeremiah 18. Jeremiah was called to witness the potter working on a pot. When the pot was marred, the potter started over, reshaping the clay into another vessel. God’s message to Jeremiah was “Can I not do with you, Israel, as this potter does? If at any time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be uprooted, torn down and destroyed, and if that nation I warned repents of its evil, then I will relent and not inflict on it the disaster I had planned.” The nature of prophesy was not just to declare destruction, it was to give a wayward sinful people an opportunity to repent, and to change God’s action from cursing to blessing. The goal was to re-establish God’s Lordship and rule among his people, to restore a covenant relationship.
The message of the prophet Joel is a wonderful example of the nature of prophesy. Joel shows up to forecast a locust plague of terrible proportions. What could be understood as a natural disaster turns out to be a supernatural event—the locust will be God’s army. They are unstoppable and relentless, devouring all vegetation until nothing is left but the expectation of famine and starvation. The day of the Lord has brought judgment on the house of Israel, who can endure it?
But that is not the end of the message. “Even now,” declares the Lord “return to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning.” Rend your heart and not your garments. Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and he relents from sending calamity. Who knows? He may turn and relent and leave behind a blessing. (Joel 2:12-14)
God desires a relationship with his people, but He is not blind to the elements of that relationship. He is holy, he cannot ignore sin and rebellion. He will never be content with a relationship lacking all that is good; trust, faithfulness, love, and mercy. Therefore, the prophet comes announcing judgment, that the abandonment of one’s faith in relationship means the loss of the blessings of relationship. God is just to condemn and is just to permanently sever the relationship broken by man’s unfaithfulness. But that is not the final act of God in dealing with His people. In Joel’s day, he acts out of grace to send the prophet, to warn His beloved, and to open a way out of destruction to salvation. He gives them the opportunity to repent of their actions. Again, God gives His people a choice. Choose judgment: remain hard-hearted or repent. God’s character: His love, His grace, His compassion, allow man a final opportunity to choose the outcome of His judgment. If mankind continues in sin, he has chosen condemnation. If man repents, God can also repent of sending calamity on His people. God allows our choices to affect His action.
God speaks through Joel of a future Day of the Lord, a day when all nations will be called to the valley of Judgment. Peter identifies the fulfillment of this prophesy with the events of Acts 2. On this day, God once again acts out of love and mercy. He sends his Son and gives people a choice. All men are guilty of sin, and all have fallen short of God’s glory. All stand condemned but God, slow to anger and abounding in love, acts to redeem a broken relationship. He is a God of love, and instead of carrying through with just condemnation, he gives mankind a choice. It is an opportunity for us to repent so that He then also can turn and relent. “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
Regina SK
For those of us whose faith has been so deeply shaped by our worship experiences, the current trend of worship as a professionally programmed performance, can be quite upsetting. Yet, as always, not every challenge to our faith and practice must be seen in a negative light. If those challenges lead us back to the Word and will of God by calling for us to reevaluate our worship tradition in light of God’s will, then this can be very positive. Worship, is after all, not directed toward us but toward God.
It is this fundamental truth regarding worship that I would like to emphasize: Worship belongs to God. He has called us to this event, which we in turn did not create. The summons is not from us to Him. Instead, He has called us to come before him, both privately and as a community. Having done so, he also defines what it is that constitutes worship. Many in the biblical story offered “worship” to God, but only God determined whether or not it was true worship. Just because we feel that what we are doing is worship, does not make it so. This was one of the critical messages from Paul to the church in Corinth. What they considered Table Fellowship, he described as “eating the bread and drinking the cup in an unworthy manner.” They were in danger of bringing judgment upon themselves because of what they considered worship. God did not have to accept it, nor does it appear that he did.
The purpose or direction of worship matters. There has been a big push recently to organize our worship service as a way to attract seekers, in what has been called a “Seeker Service.” The purpose of such a worship is evangelistic, and it is directed toward those attending the service. This is not really new. I have even known some congregations to declare that unless an invitation is given at the end of each sermon, worship hasn’t happened. Worship is seen as the time to invite the unsaved, to proclaim the gospel and to evangelize the community.
There are good and honourable motives behind this push, and I am not opposed to evangelism. It is part of who we are and why we exist as a church. However, evangelism is not why we worship. Worship is directed toward God and not toward the seeker. It is primarily focused upward and not outward. We gather to praise God, to give thanks to Him, to listen to Him, to talk to Him, “singing and making melody in our hearts to the Lord, giving thanks to God the Father for everything.” (Eph. 5:19-20 emphasis added) The unbeliever may be convicted by our worship (I Cor. 14:24-25), but that conviction comes from a worship directed toward God, not toward the unbeliever. When the direction of corporate worship shifts from God to the outsider and/or is composed primarily of individual expressions, the tendency is to create a “worship” that does not allow the community to commune with God. There are appropriate times to focus on individual expressions of worship, and ways to focus on evangelistic outreach. But when the church assembles for worship, may God always remain the object of our praise and adoration…the one whose glory we extol and whose favour we seek.
Rapid changes in our music have had both positive and negative impacts on our corporate worship. I do appreciate and value those which refocus our attention upon God. Rather than expressing truths about Jesus or about God, they are sung directly to God. They express our praise and adoration in a beautiful way.
Here are a few examples:
You are beautiful beyond description, too marvellous for words,
too wonderful for comprehension, like nothing ever seen or heard.
Who can grasp your infinite wisdom, who can fathom the depths of your love?
You are beautiful beyond description, majesty enthroned above.
And I stand, I stand in awe of You. I stand, I stand in awe of you.
Holy God, to whom all praise is due, I stand in awe of you.
(Music and words by Mark Altrogge)
Come, let us worship and bow down; Let us kneel before the Lord our God our maker. For He is our God, and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand. (Dave Doherty)
I have such wonderful memories of growing up in the churches of Christ and participating in worship. While every congregation that I was a part of was quite small in number, that made little difference to my experiences. I am grateful for those who shared their faith with me and I shall always be indebted to those many hours of fellowship around the Table and the Word.
Regina SK
I was asked some time ago to address the subject of being “Led by the Spirit.” While the phrase is in common use, it does not mean the same thing to all those who use it.
The role or work of the ‘third’ member of the godhead known as the Holy Spirit has been the subject of study and investigation for hundreds of years. Much has been written about what it means to be “led by the Spirit” or “Spirit led,” and just what that looks like in real life.
In the New Testament, the writings of Luke give prominent attention to the work of the Holy Spirit. The gospel of Luke highlights the Spirit’s role of inspiring Jesus and empowering him to do miracles. Following the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost in Acts, the apostles were also inspired to speak and able to do miracles by the power and presence of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit made them adequate to meet every situation and provided the words for them to speak. Jesus and the apostles were ‘led by the Spirit’ in this very unique way.
Now it turns out that there is only one context in which the phrase “led by the Spirit” is used in the Gospels :
“Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.” (Mat. 4:1 and Luke 4:1)
Immediately following his baptism, it was the Holy Spirit who led Jesus into the wilderness where he stayed for 40 days and during which he was tempted by Satan. This is a clear parallel to God leading his people in the wilderness of Sinai for 40 years for the purpose of testing them (Dt 8:1-4).
When Satan appealed to Jesus saying, “If you are the son of God, turn these stones into bread” Jesus answered: “Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God”.
Moses had said:
“Remember how the Lord your God led you all the way in the wilderness these forty years, to humble and to test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commandments. He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna…to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.”
The Holy Spirit provided Jesus with the same answers to temptation that he had given to Moses and preserved in scripture. The Holy Spirit leads those who know the scriptures and trust God enough to obey them.
Traditionally we have understood that the Spirit leads us for the purpose of bringing about our moral refinement. The sanctification of Christians is both immediate when we enter God’s kingdom and the process by which we grow ever more into the image of God’s Son.
The Pauline letters support this view and supply the only two passages where the phrase is used outside of the Gospels. In Romans 8:14 Paul wrote: “because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God” and then in Galatians 5:18 “but if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the Law.”
In Galatians Paul contrasts the fruit of the Spirit with the fruit of one’s sinful nature, concluding that those who “live by the Spirit will keep in step with the Spirit.” While sanctification is the goal and work of the Holy Spirit, our continued sanctification is the very thing that we are commanded to pursue. To be Spirit led then, is engage by faith in a process whereby the Lord humbles us, tests us and disciplines us. “The Lord disciplines those whom he loves” (Heb 12:6)
Even our Lord who was holy and pleasing to our Heavenly Father, needed to be tested. The writer of Hebrews identifies testing as an experience common to all humanity:
“Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.” Hebrews 2:18
Furthermore, Jesus needed to experience suffering to become our high priest in the service of God:
“Son though he was, he learned obedience from what he suffered…and once made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him.” Heb.5:8-9
Too often we desire the fruit of the Spirit without choosing to take the path of the Spirit, a path that shapes us into the image of Jesus through discipline, hardship, testing and suffering.
George Matheson puts it this way in the words of his prayer.
“My God, I have never thanked you for my thorns. I have thanked you a thousand times for my roses, but not once for my thorns. I have been looking forward to a world where I shall get compensation for my cross; but I never thought of my cross itself as a present glory. Teach me the glory of my cross; teach me the value of my thorn, show me that I have climbed to you by the path of pain. Show me that my tears have made my rainbow.”
Regina Saskatchewan
