Don't Trust Your Perceptions

“We must remember this perspective in our times of desolation, grief, and loss.  How things appear to us, and how they actually are, are rarely the same. Sometimes it looks and feels like the Almighty is dealing “very bitterly” with us, when all the while he is doing us and many others more good than we can imagine. God’s purposes in the lives of his children are always gracious. Always. If they don’t look like it, don’t trust your perceptions. Trust God’s promises. He is always fulfilling his promises.”[1]

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[1] Jon Bloom. Things Not Seen: A Fresh Look at Old Stories of Trusting God’s Promises (Kindle Locations 1317-1321). Crossway.

An Important Balance to the Prosperity Gospel

In a thought-provoking essay by Rev. P. Andrew Sandlin, titled: Economic Atheism, he offers some important challenges to our Christian view of wealth.  Within the context of his discussion he makes an assertion that I would hope all evangelical Christians would support.  He writes:

"The prosperity Gospel is a travesty of the biblical Gospel."  

Now by the prosperity Gospel he means that view whereby "God wants everybody to be healthy, fat, rich and happy -- and if we aren't, it is because we lack faith."   I'm not sure that this perversion of the Gospel includes "fatness" but basically he is correct. I would add that usually proponents of this view include the proviso that if you aren't healthy and wealthy, it is either a lack of faith (as he says) or sin in your life (example: Job).

But then Sandlin goes on to touch a nerve.  This nerve, I confess, seems to pervade even some of my own favorite preachers and authors.  Sandlin writes, "An overreaction to the prosperity Gospel is the poverty Gospel."   Here we get this notion that God always sides with the poor; and poverty (if not subsistence living) is to be the norm.  We can accidentally fall into the trap that says poor, simple, living receives God's blessing, whereby the pursuit and creation of wealth is an abomination.  The reality is that this is not so.  More importantly, Sandlin writes,

"When we attack wealth and its creation as such (not its perversion) we are attacking a critical part of the Lord's plan for extending his Kingdom in his world."

The problem among some well-meaning, anti-capitalistic, often "back-to-earth", "back-to-the simple-life" dwellers is that they forget that their choice of minimalist simplicity also diminishes their capacity to further the Lord's work.  Thank God for the entrepreneurial profit-seeking Christians who, in good conscience, and with right motives, support the millions of missionaries world-wide in accordance with how the Lord has prospered them.

There are of course a multitude of things that inhibit the expansion of God's kingdom.  But in my experience, in relation to money, there are two that stand out.  One has to do with Christians who live so beyond their means that their debt-load renders it impossible for them to help others and support the endeavors of the Church.  The second has to do with well-meaning Christians who reflect a cynical and judgmental attitude to those who are seeking to work hard, invest well, earn a substantial profit and of course: support the Lord's work both at home and abroad.  Both views limit Christian endeavors.

In our abhorrence with the prosperity Gospel, let's not buy into the poverty Gospel.

Do We Need Crosses and Images to Enhance Our Worship?

I had an interesting discussion today about icons, idolatry and the incomparable glory of God.  A summary of that discussion could be clarified through this simple syllogism [1].  It would go this way:

Premise One:  Nothing created adequately describes God in all His glory.
Premise Two:  To use earthly representations to facilitate worship is idolatry.
Premise Three:  The written Word of God is an earthly representation.
Conclusion: The Bible should not be used as a means of worship.

The conclusion may be logical but it is wrong.  What was not included in the logic is that the Bible is God's ordained means to reveal God in a redemptive sense.  Although the Bible does not contain all truth, the Bible is all true.  And more importantly the Bible is sufficient.   The Doctrine of the Sufficiency of Scripture is an important aspect to our Evangelical worship.

The Scriptures ALONE are able to lead a man or woman to saving faith and through to sanctification in grace.  No other created thing, no picture, icon, or image can do that.  No program or mountain peak can do that.  Although we are called by the Second Law of the Ten Commandments not to be devoted to any created thing or image, we can be faith know that the Bible is the exception.  The is the pulse beat of Christianity.  It is the heart of what it means to be Protestant.  It is this truth that separates us from Roman Catholic and Eastern churches.

God's Word ALONE is sufficient.

2 Timothy 3:15 (ESV)

¹⁵ and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.

Acts 20:32 (ESV)

³² And now I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified.

No, we don't need crucifixes, icons, images and pictures to inform our worship of God.  The Bible is sufficient -the rest is insufficient, and by default: idolatry.
 




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1. A syllogism (Greek: συλλογισμός syllogismos, "conclusion, inference") is a kind of logical argument that applies deductive reasoning to arrive at a conclusion based on two or more propositions that are asserted or assumed to be true.