Christ Is Risen, A Core Doctrine: a Series on Christianity's Core Beliefs

Ending our series on the core doctrines of Christianity, I wanted to address what I consider to be the most important doctrine in all of Christianity, the doctrine upon which our entire faith rests: the resurrection of Jesus the Christ. We were all reminded of this doctrine yesterday, on Easter Sunday, as we went to church and our pastors preached the good news of the risen Christ. Paul goes far enough to say that Jesus' resurrection is what our entire faith hinges on. He says, "Now if Christ is preached, that He has been raised from the dead, how do some among you say that there (W)is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, not even Christ has been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is vain, your faith also is vain" (I Corinthians 15:12-14). If Jesus' resurrection did not occur, then we might as well leave the faith.

But Jesus' resurrection did occur, he lived, he died, and he rose again, defeating death and giving us all hope. But I am sure that none of my Christian readers would dispute that.

I am reluctant to say that this is a much debated doctrine today, but none of the really core doctrines of Christianity are much debated. I would even venture to say that those doctrines which are core are the ones the vast majority of Christians agree on, and those that are marginal (doctrines that do not have ultimate significance for our faith) are the ones we tend to debate about.

That is why I think many of our debates, you know, the ones where we get so infuriated that we resort to name calling and online tirades, are in vain, because we are fighting so voraciously over doctrines that do not even matter, and in the long run end up turning people away from the Christ. The most important thing for us to believe is the Jesus rose from the dead; in the long run, that is all that matters.

I agree that it is fun to engage in philosophical, though provoking debate. But if we do not do it out of an attitude of love, we are running away from the greatest commandment Christ gave us: to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love our neighbor as ourself.

My purpose for this series was not to look in depth at the different doctrines. It was not to provide an all inclusive look at the marginal and core doctrines of Christianity. My purpose was to get Christians to see and to understand how and why we treat other Christians the way we do. This lack of distinction we tend to have between core and marginal issues is one of the reasons we treat each other so poorly at times. We take a marginal issue and make it a core issue, and end up fighting barbarically for our side. Or we take what is a core issue and fight barbarically for it. With marginal issue, such as what is and what is not sin, we need not argue voraciously for our viewpoint. We can state our viewpoint, tell the other person that they have the right to their opinion, and when the do not agree with us, we can drop the issue. When we are arguing for a particular core doctrine, the resurrection for instance, we can do the same thing. The most important thing Jesus wanted us to practice was love. So in the name of love, in the name of Jesus, let us be more peaceable to one other, allowing others to have their own viewpoint, without feeling the need to convince them, knowing that giving up the argument does not mean we are giving up our own beliefs.
Happy Easter.
-Brandon

Jesus Died, a Core Doctrine: A Series on Christianity's Core Beliefs

Yesterday I talked about Jesus' divinity as core to our faith and an issue that we cannot compromise on. I brushed over the fact that Jesus' humanity is equally important in our faith, and the culmination of his humanity took place on this day nearly 2000 years ago in his death on the cross.

This is not an issue many people argue about (nor do many argue anymore that Jesus was fully God). But the point of this series is not to decide on what we should and should not argue about, but about deciding on what we can agree upon, and knowing that the rest should not points of division in the church.

That Jesus really died on the cross during the first good Friday is absolutely essential because if he did not, then he did not actually defeat death, which was the main enemy he was battling in his crucifixion. If the greatest punishment ever given was that of death, given to Adam and Eve outside of the garden, the greatest gift we can receive is victory over death. Therefore, if Jesus did not actually die, he did not accomplish what was necessary.

This is also true because of the necessity of a sacrifice for the sins of the people. Leviticus 16 discusses the day of atonement when the priest goes into the holy of holies and provides for the forgiveness of peoples sins, first by sacrificing for his own sins, and then by sending off a scapegoat with the sins of the people of Israel.
Jesus' death on the cross is necessary as the ultimate sacrifice for the sins of the people so that no sacrifice is ever needed again. If Jesus did not die, then a sacrifice is yet to be paid.

So the second core doctrine of Christianity that we need to agree on is that Jesus actually died, which will tie into the third and final core doctrine to be discussed in my next post.

Before I end this post, I want to focus for a minute on the death of Jesus. One thing we often forget is that Jesus died so that everyone will live in eternity with God, not just Christians. This does not mean that I believe in universalism and that all will be saved. What I do believe it means is that just because we are Christians we are not better than non-Christians. I think we too often have a superior attitude that makes us condemn and ridicule non-Christian sinners in ways that were not intended. But if Jesus was willing to die for them, certainly we can make the sacrifice to love them and show them love, can't we? As we move from good Friday, into Saturday, we are meant to experience the feeling of hopelessness that the disciples felt on the Saturday before the first Easter, as they felt that their chance for salvation was lost in the death of Jesus. For those two days (Good Friday and Saturday) Jesus' followers experienced the worst hurt anyone could feel, the hurt of grief. Grief over the loss of a friend. Grief over the loss of dreams and hopes. Grief over the loss of their own lives, as they had devoted the last three years to what turned out (or so they thought) to be a lie. If you can emphathize with their hurt, you can emphathize with the hurt everyone goes through. Let us use good Friday as a day to learn to love, even those that are hardest to love.
Blessings,
-Brandon

Jesus is God, a Core Doctrine: A Series on Christianity's Core Beliefs

Last week I discussed 3 doctrines in the Church that I consider to be marginal issues. They are doctrines that regardless of where you stand on them, have no impact on your salvation. Again, I define marginal doctrines as those doctrines that you could disown without effecting your status as "saved." I could probably write a blog every day for the next year, and still not be done with marginal doctrines. Such doctrines as the virgin birth, proper age and execution for baptism, and whether Satan exists or not are all marginal doctrines that divide Christians because we take them to be necessary for our salvation. If we do not take them to be essential for our salvation, then our arguing is done in vain.

If you haven't guessed already, I define "core doctrines" as doctrines a Christian must believe in order to ensure their salvation. The first doctrine I would like to address as core is the doctrine of Jesus' divinity/humanity. I place divinity and humanity together as each attribute tends to be overemphasized in certain groups and it is forgotten that Jesus was 100% human and 100% divine. This doctrine is important and core for multiple reasons. The main issue is that, as Scripture points our throughout, it is important not to worship any false gods. Exodus 20:3 is clear that "you shall have no other gods before me." God wants us to worship him, and no idols that we make up and place as God. Therefore it is important to know who God is and who he consists of, in order to ensure that we are worshiping the one true God.

Therefore, if Jesus is divine, and therefore considered one with God, it is important that we address him as God, because if we do not, then we are not worshiping the one true God.

We have from Scripture numerous sections that refer to him as God. Most clearly he is referred to as God in John 1:1 which states, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." Also in John 20:28, after Jesus revealed himself to doubting Thomas as the resurrected Lord, Thomas exclaims, "my Lord and my God" falling down to worship him. In every other Scripture passage where someone falls down worship someone that is not God, including the angels, that person is told to get up and not to worship them for they are not God. In this passage Jesus responds, "seeing you have believed. Blessed are they who having not seen, yet still believe." So it is clear from these passages that Jesus is God.

Jesus does many things that only God can do, including forgiving people of their sins, and knowing their thoughts. It is clear from Jesus' actions that he is God.

It is clear from much of the New Testament that we are to include Jesus as part of the Godhead. Therefore, if you do not believe in the divinity of Jesus, you are not worshiping the one true God.

Now, I am not going to argue for the trinity in this post, but let me say that it is necessary for one to believe in the trinity in order to be following the proper God. The reason for this is that it is clear that God states he is one, and that there is only one god. Deuteronomy 6:4 states, "hear o Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one." Therefore, if we are to worship the proper God, he must include Jesus, and yet remain one.

So it does not matter what one thinks about end times, about what specific actions count as sins, or about the inerrancy of the Bible. In the long run, none of those beliefs matter. But one belief that does matter, is that Jesus is God and that God is One. Come back tomorrow as I continue my series on the Core Doctrines of the Church as we discuss the next core doctrine.

Is the Bible Inerrant: A Series on Christianity's Core Beliefs

As controversial as the previous two marginal beliefs were, I think the doctrine I am going to discuss in this post will be the most controversial of all, and that is the doctrine of inerrancy. If there is one thing Christians fight over more than anything else, it is what the Bible says, and how authoritative the word of God is. One end of the spectrum says that the things in the Bible transcend all culture and all human values, and provides us with the ultimate truth. There is the other end of the spectrum which says the Bible is full of good stories that we can learn from, but ultimately is not a good source of objective truth. I do not fall on either end of the spectrum, and do not believe Christians should hold firmly to either side.

Before I go any further let me clarify that much of the Bible should be taken as having actually happened. The historical account of Jesus Christ that we find in the Scriptures should be believed and not doubted in the slightest. Much of the events recounted in the Old Testament can be believed as completely true. And most of the precepts taught in Scripture are good rules to live by that ultimately bring us closer to God. But let me also be clear that we worship Jesus Christ, not the Bible. To adhere to the claim that the Bible is perfect in every respect and does not speak wrongly in any way, is to set the Bible up as an idol and sets your faith up for failure.

If your faith rests on the idea that the Bible contains no errors, the moment an error is shown to you, your faith will crumble. And it is not difficult to show errors in the Bible. For instance, Joshua 10:13 describes a moment in battle when the Israelites were defeating a community in the land of Canaan and Joshua prayed for the sun to stand still to allow for a longer day so that they could be victorious. In this passage we are told that the sun stood still, which would accord with a world that believed the sun rotated around the earth, but is not accurate scientifically. Therefore, this is an error in the Bible, showing that Scripture is not inerrant. I do not believe it would be fruitful to continue on with more examples here, so I will allow the Joshua example to suffice.

Lifting up the Bible as inerrant makes it an idol and creates a Church that practices what Karl Barth called "biblio-idolatry."



Biblio-idolatry is the practice of holding up everything in Scripture as good to do. But if we read Leviticus 20:13 as something good to do, we would be rounding up the gay community and putting them to death. I am sure no one would abide by such a barbarous rule today. Yet there are Christians who hold so strongly to particular interpretations of Scripture and uphold the Bible as a god, that you wonder if they have room for the love of Jesus in their lives.

This is another area where if we find ourselves in debate with another Christian about a particular text in the Bible, or even just debating about the inerrancy of Scripture, if there is no give from the other person, we should not feel the need to debate to the death. The Bible, we need to remember, was written 2000 years ago in a completely different culture by many different men and women, in multiple languages, and consists of 66 different books spanning several thousand pages; and our fallible and finite minds are not capable of interpreting the Bible perfectly, and we need to allow for error in our own interpretations.

I do stand by 2 Timothy 3:16-17 which says, "All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work." Many often turn to this passage as proof that Scripture is without error. First off, you should not use material from the very resource you are debating to prove that resource is without error. Secondly, this passage simply says the Bible is good for our edification in good works. It does not say that the Bible always gets things right. All of the commandments in the Bible are intended to bring us to two things: 1. love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength and 2. to love our neighbor as ourself. To these two things do all the law and the prophets point. So let us love one another and get along in peace.
Blessings,
-Brandon

End Times, a Marginal Belief: A Series on Christianity's Core Beliefs

Beginning our series on core vs. marginal beliefs, I have decided that I will start by discussing marginal beliefs and end the series by discussing core Christian beliefs. That was the easy part as I planned for this series. The difficult part was deciding what marginal beliefs to discuss. As I discuss the marginal beliefs, I want to pick out the ones that Christians today tend to fight most over. It would do no good to point out marginal beliefs that most Christians already agreed were marginal. What is important is that we establish what marginal beliefs we most argue over with the hope that, knowing they are not part of the core of what we believe, we will no longer view them as worth arguing over. One of the most divisive of all of these marginal doctrines centers around end times theology, or eschatology.

I have seen churches split over end times theology. I have seen members thrown out of churches because of their eschatology. I have seen Christians attack each other in the name of the end times. When the number two commandment in Scripture is to love your neighbor as yourself, defending end times theology to the death is wrong whether it is a core belief or not.

There are several different beliefs regarding the end times that have caused many splits and many different factions within Christianity. There are churches that devote every worship service to preaching the end times. But is end times theology all that important? Does it make a difference in the lives of Christians? Does our salvation depend on having a correct eschatology? The answer to the last question will determine whether eschatology is a core doctrine or a marginal one.

As I read Scripture, though it is important for us to know that Jesus will come again, it is not important for us to know when or how. Matthew 25:1-13 is a parable that many interpret as a parable about the return of Christ at the end of time. Verse 13 is especially insightful: it starts our by telling us to "be on the alert" for his return. So we are asked by him to acknowledge that he will come back and to be aware that it could be anytime. But the second part of the verse warns, "for you do not know the day nor the hour." This verse assumes that even we today do not know when his return will be, or even if we will still be here on this earth. Therefore, to conjecture about when Jesus' return will be is fruitless, and to argue over the details and fight with other Christians about it, is to miss the point of the end times: we do not and cannot know when it will be.

Finally, Jesus' words in Matthew 24:36 are informative: "But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone." If not even Jesus himself knows about the details of the end times, who are we to think we can? If only the Father knows, is it that pertinent for us to attempt to attain such high knowledge? Our eschatology, our knowledge of the end times do nothing for our salvation and say nothing about our position in the Church, within the body of Christ. The Bible is clear on this, end times theology is a marginal belief that should not be defended to our utmost. If there is any core doctrine in Christianity relating to the end times, it is that Jesus is going to return, and I question even if that is core. Whether we believe if Jesus will return or not does not effect our salvation according to Scripture.

So as we interact with other Christians, let us continue to engage each other with an attitude of love and compassion, and when we are debating about the end times, let us be willing, for our edification and theirs, to let go of arguing, knowing that this is a marginal belief.

The Bible and the Will of God: a Series on Christianity's Core Beliefs

From the beginning of Church history, all the way up until today, the most divisive issue for us Christians is doctrine. One person believes in infant baptism and another does not, so you fight. One person believes in having communion every week and another does not, so you fight. One person believes Jesus will return before Christians are taken up another does not, so you fight. I have been staying away from the Christian message boards because instead of being places of love and compassion, acting out Jesus' example, they are more like theological boxing rings where Christians try to knock the other person out with their best argument for their particular theology. But this is not how Jesus intended for Christians to treat each other. 1 Thessalonians 5:10-11 says "[Jesus] died for us, so that whether we are awake or asleep, we will live together with Him. Therefore encourage one another and build up one another, just as you also are doing." This is the purpose of the body of Christ, the Church, to build one another up in mutual encouragement, not to tear each other down for bad theology.

That does not mean that we are not to beware of false teachings, however. We are taught in 1 John 4:1, "Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world." The Bible is clear in many places that we are to beware of false teachings. Paul himself wrote many times to defend against false teachings that were being brought into the Church.

During Jesus' ministry, he warned against false teachings that came from the Pharisees called "the tradition of the elders." We find this in Mark 7 where Jesus and his disciples were eating. While they were eating, we are told that the Pharisees came up to Jesus and asked him why his disciples had not washed their hands properly before eating. This had nothing to do with germs, and everything to do with spiritual cleanliness. The Pharisees believed in the traditional teachings from older scribes who interpreted the Old Testament law in such a way that they believed it taught that one had to wash their hands a very specific way before they could eat. There were many such laws that came from the tradition of the elders, that the Pharisees believed in and was much of the reason they went around criticizing Jesus and his disciples, because they were not abiding by such traditional laws, which the Pharisees felt they needed to in order to maintain their Jewish identity against the foreign occupation of Rome.

In much the same way, Christians today hold on to interpretations that come from tradition of men rather than from the Bible, and argue for their beliefs in such a way that if you do not believe in them, you are not a good Christian. The problem is two-fold. First of all, it comes from a lack of distinction between core and marginal beliefs. Core beliefs are those beliefs that one truly must believe in order to consider oneself a part of that world view. For Christians, a core belief is a belief that is necessary for one to believe, in order for that person truly to be a Christian. Marginal beliefs are beliefs held by Christians that one can change, reformulate, or even drop, and still be considered a Christian. What often happens is that marginal beliefs are confused with core beliefs and people argue for these beliefs as if they are the most important belief one can hold. This often happens with end times beliefs. End times beliefs are really a marginal belief that many people count as a core, necessary belief, and they get enraged if you call yourself a Christian and do not believe the doctrine as they do. I will discuss this more later this week as we go through this series on core vs. marginal beliefs.

The second problem for Christians is there argumentative style. We are reminded in 1 Peter 3:15 "but sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence." It seems like we all too often forget that "with gentleness and reverence" part.

As we argue for our beliefs, we need to match our tenacity with the kind of belief it is. The more core a belief, the more tenacious we can be in how we argue. If it is a marginal belief, give-in if it is obvious the other person is being stubborn. It is not worth the argument. If it is a core belief, you don't have to give-in, but remain loving, gentle, and reverent through the entire debate.

We are supposed to be Christian brothers and sisters in Christ, present for the mutual uplifting of one another. For the next three or four days I will discuss certain core beliefs that we should remain strong on, and certain marginal beliefs that we need to begin being less strong on. Remember as I go through these core and marginal beliefs that what is most important is that we follow the two greatest commandments taught to us by our Lord Jesus Christ: "to love the Lord God with all our hearts, souls, minds, and strength; and to love our neighbor as ourself." Never lose sight of the greatest commandments: the commandments to love.
Blessings,
-Brandon