Apologetics – Page 2 – Elkan's Word For Today

Pluses and Minuses of Doctrines

By salt2010 0 Comments

…rightly dividing the word of truth. – 2Ti 2:15

The term “Doctrine” as being used in this series refers to any systematic collection of biblical propositions. So, while it includes classical doctrines such as “Trinity”, “Eschatology”, etc.; it’d also include other bodies of teaching that may not be technically considered “doctrine” in a typical School of Theology, e.g. the doctrines of “faith”, “discipleship”, “holiness”, “social justice”, etc.

As already seen in the previous post, doctrines are indispensable to Bible study. If you want to know about the Trinity, for example, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel by reading from Genesis to Revelation to see what the Bible says about it. The doctrine has already done the hard work for you; all you need to do is take the cited verses (and sometimes accompanying explanations) and continue your study from there.

Doctrinal formulation, however, comes with its own hazards, which is why a Believer should not swallow every “wind of doctrine” that comes his or her way (Eph 4:14).

Firstly, doctrines use a pattern of Bible study that we normally frown upon: taking verses out of their immediate context. Doctrinal presentations usually come as a string of Bible verses; whole chapter are rarely cited. Thus the verses cited may or may not be talking about that subject. Of course, the diversity usually helps to correct that issue; (For example, the deity of the Holy Spirit was not the subject matter in Acts 5:3&4 but with the collection of other Bible passages we can safely say we’re not misquoting Peter there).

Secondly, studying a particular doctrine can give the impression that that’s what the Bible is all about. For example, someone studying “prosperity” who notices that it’s mentioned from the very first page of the Bible (Gen 1:26-30), continues all through various characters and events in scripture, and up to the very last page with glorious, Edenic life for the Believer (Rev 22:1-5) may be tempted to think that the Bible is all about Prosperity.

The same would go also for almost any other body of teaching, like “mentorship”, “fatherhood” or even “marriage”. As long as you’re studying it specifically, you’ll find it mentioned throughout the Bible – from Genesis to Revelation. But you can only conclude that’s the message of the Bible if you forget that you’re not literally reading from Genesis to Revelation but skipping entire bodies of scripture that are currently not relevant to the subject matter.

This leads us to the third drawback, which is that it can make one to see the Bible in one colour where everything being said is about that topic. A classic example is the “prosperity” doctrine where Abraham’s blessing is always cited as proof that God wants us wealthy (Gal 3:14). Nevertheless, the “blessing of Abraham” which was to pass on to the gentiles was not physical riches but justification by faith (Gal 3:6-9, Rom 4:3-17).

AMEN.

GREG ELKAN

Doctrines and Scientific Theories

By salt2010 0 Comments

Study to show yourself approved unto God, a workman that needs not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. – 2Ti 2:15

Sceptics sometimes point out to Christians that things like “Trinity” and “rapture” are nowhere to be found in the entire Bible. In a sense, they’re right. “Trinity” is not a Bible passage, it’s a doctrine. There’s no Bible book, even Bible chapter whose subject of discuss is “Trinity”. In fact, if we observe, the existence of God is taken for granted in the Bible. The inspired writers speak of His existence as an already established fact. No Bible book has “God” as its subject; so if you want to know about God – His existence, His power, His attributes, etc. – you will have to read through all of the Bible, Genesis to Revelation, to get it.

This is where Doctrines (in the modern sense of the word) come in handy. A Doctrine does the hard work of combing through the Bible to find – from the words of different authors and through different stories – all references to a particular topic; and from that collection, create a comprehensive picture.

Take angels for example. No Bible book or even chapter has angels as a topic. Any time we see “angel” in the Bible, something (or someone) else is the subject being talked about and angels are only mentioned because they happen to be part of that particular story. Nevertheless, a good theologian can gather all such incidental references and use them to develop a holistic doctrine of angels (which is actually how we get “Angelology”J).

In this sense, doctrines are similar to scientific Theories. The World we live in did not come with a user manual explaining how things work. So it’s left to Man to observe and posit explanations of what he sees around him in nature. It is from these observations that we get things like the “Theory of Relativity” in physics, the “Big Bang theory” in astronomy, the theory of “continental drift” in geology, and so on.

This understanding of “Doctrine” is vital as it will help us in proper study of the Bible and will eliminate the much confusion that some Christians have over doctrinal matters.

[TO BE CONTINUED…]

More Blessings await you today; you’ll not miss them in Jesus’ Name.

GREG ELKAN

The Concept of “Doctrine”

By salt2010 0 Comments

Every group of people, if they get together long enough, will naturally develop their own jargon: their unique insider language that they employ for the sake of identity, clarity, and summary. Lawyers, doctors, soldiers, etc. all have it.

The modern-day Church, too, has its own jargon: words that possess meanings different from everyday usage; (think “quiet time”, “charismatic”, “the Fall”, “the lost”, “tarry in prayer, etc.). There’s nothing wrong with this and is actually inevitable. Nevertheless, for us in the Church, a problem can arise when our “jargon” is an already existing word in the Bible. When this happens, we inadvertently transpose our modern-day meaning to the Bible word, resulting in scriptural misunderstanding. Examples of such church words are “Bishop”, “repent”, and one most of us easily forget is a jargon: “DOCTRINE”.

The term “doctrine” is lexically defined as a BODY OF IDEAS, held as being truthful or correct, and taught as the belief of the church. Or you can see “doctrine” as Truth statements drawn out of scripture.” Examples are “doctrine of Trinity”, “doctrine of prosperity”, and “doctrine of holiness”.

“Doctrine” in the Bible, however, is simply referring to any form of “instruction” or “manner of teaching”. As such we read of Jesus’ “doctrine” (Mat 7:28), “the doctrine of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees” (Mat 16:12), “the apostle’s doctrine” (Act 2:42) and even “doctrines of devils” (1Ti 4:1). As you can see, the modern restricted (‘theological’) meaning is not the same as the Bible meaning.

So, before we specifically explore the concept of doctrine, one lesson we can learn today is to be conscious while reading the words of scripture to take care not to impose our modern meanings into it. Because this will cause us to THINK we know what the Bible is saying, when in actual fact we’re the ones putting words into the mouth of the Bible authors.

AMEN.

More Blessings await you today; you’ll not miss them in Jesus’ Name.

GREG ELKAN

The Salvation Process: Simplified

By salt2010 0 Comments

For by grace are you saved THROUGH FAITH; – Eph 2:8

You must have heard of the evangelism method mantra: “There’s only one way to the Father, but there’re many ways to Christ”. Well, as it turns out, the ways to Christ are not exactly infinite.

Romans chapter 10 contains one of the clearest, most unambiguous explanations on the process and path to salvation. In verse 9, Paul calls what we preach, “the word of FAITH” (not the words of induced Fear). Why?

“Because if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord (not confess a list of your past sins) and believe in your heart (not acknowledge with your head) that God raised him from the dead, you WILL be saved.

Note the simplicity. Note the straightforwardness. And in case it isn’t clear enough, the Apostle further explains:

For with the heart one believes and thus has righteousness and with the mouth one confesses and thus has salvation. (vs 9,10 NET, amplifications and emphasis mine).

When the Philippian jailer asked Paul and Silas, “What must I do to be saved?” Paul gave a direct reply “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved.”

Let’s keep the message simple and straightforward. The Gospel is about FAITH in CHRIST Jesus.

So FAITH comes from hearing the Good News. And people hear the Good News when someone tells them about CHRIST. – Rom 10:17 (ERV).

AMEN.

More Blessings await you today; you’ll not miss them in Jesus’ Name.

GREG ELKAN

Eugene Peterson Warned Us, 13 Years Earlier

By salt2010 0 Comments

Have you heard of ‘The Secret’? If you’ve a Christian and a member of the Pentecostal movement and have never heard of ‘The Secret’, you will definitely feel left out of something BIG. And ‘The Secret’ is big – Hollywood-blockbuster big; New-York-Times-best-seller big.
‘The Secret’ is a film consisting of a series of interviews designed to demonstrate that everything one wants or needs can be satisfied by believing in an outcome, repeatedly thinking about it, and maintaining positive emotional states to “attract” the desired outcome. In a nutshell, it’s the “Law of Attraction” in video format. As a movie, it raked in over 65 million dollars at the box office (not bad for a movie that cost $3.5 million to produce). As a book, it has sold millions of copies and comes in various forms: cassette, CD, Kindle, etc. it even has a version for teenagers. Oprah Winfrey championed it in two of her shows and said its principles were what she lived her life by. Impressed? You should be. ‘The Secret’ comes packaged with its own endorsement. Not only is it presented by well-known personalities who are bestselling authors in their own right; but it claims that this “Secret” is the principle that renowned icons of our human history lived by: Plato, Shakespeare, Isaac Newton, Hugo, Beethoven, Abraham Lincoln, Albert Einstein, the list goes on.
How did I know all this? Well, I was forced to. While I admit to being curious by nature, my curiosity didn’t get me into all this; the hype did. Everyone seemed to be talking about it. And pastors (some unwittingly, some flagrantly) endorsed the movie and the spinoff book from their pulpits. I decided I had to know what this “secret” was all about. I finally got the book; and found myself stuck – on page 1! There was something odd about what was being spoken. I couldn’t put my finger on it yet. However, it just didn’t fit. Then all of a sudden, three things struck me:
1.       The title, “THE SECRET”, promises to let the reader in on some hidden knowledge that others do not have access to: a promise that was once promised about two millennia ago by the GNOSTICS. [Gnosticism was an esoteric religious movement that flourished during the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD and presented a major challenge to orthodox Christianity. Most Gnostic sects professed Christianity, but their beliefs sharply diverged from those of the majority of Christians in the early church. The term gnosticism is derived from the Greek word gnosis (“revealed knowledge”). To its adherents, Gnosticism promised a secret knowledge of the divine realm. (source: Microsoft^® Encarta^® 2009. © 1993-2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.)]
2.    The presentation was all too smooth and too Dan-Brownish to me and rang too familiar with the Da-Vinci Code brouhaha and all the “Lost Gospels” drama 10 years ago: Dan Brown’s source materials were, of course, the discredited “Gospels” of 200+ A.D. – written by the GNOSTICS.
3.    Finally, with shock, I realised that this type of presumptuous claim of possession of some special knowledge was exactly the problems the Apostolic writers tackled with in their days. Specifically Paul (in Colossians), John (in 1 John), and Jude. And surprise, surprise, those claims were being made then by, well, GNOSTICS.
I quickly discovered that this material wasn’t a secret at all; at least not to Bible students. Mark Earley, President of Prison Fellowship, summed up ‘The Secret’ in just four words: “New Book, Old Lie”.
I put these observations of mine to a brother in my church who I found reading the book and he attacked me for being ignorant. He said the authors of the book were well-versed and well-learned and even know the Bible much more than I would ever know. I remember particularly pointing out to him that it was stuff like these that made Paul write to the Colossian church in the 1st century A.D. But he would have none of it and I let him be.
So you would understand my shock and amazement two days ago when I read Colossians chapter 2 from The Message Bible. The Message is a Bible translation by Eugene Peterson that is notorious for its extreme idiomatic and dynamic equivalent paraphrasing of the original Greek and Hebrew texts. (You need to read Genesis 1:1 in that version to see what I mean). Well, I was reading Colossians 2 in the Message version and this is what I found in verses 2 – 4. (Emphases are mine).
“I want you woven into a tapestry of love, in touch with everything there is to know of God. Then you will have minds confident and at rest, focused on CHRIST, God’s great mystery. All the richest treasures of wisdom and knowledge are embedded in that mystery AND NOWHERE ELSE. And we’ve been shown the mystery! I’M TELLING YOU THIS BECAUSE I DON’T WANT ANYONE LEADING YOU OFF ON SOME WILD-GOOSE CHASE, after other so-called mysteries, OR “THE SECRET”.
Yes, you read it correctly; he put THE SECRET in quotation marks. Colossians was translated by Eugene Peterson in 1993. “The Secret”, by Rhonda Byrne, was released in 2006 – 13 years later.
SELAH.
Greg Elkan

Spirituality or Spiritism?

By salt2010 0 Comments

Asceticism does not mean spirituality. Col 2 tells us that exaggerated show of godliness, self-abasement and neglecting of the body has no impact on one’s standing with God.
External sanctimony and air of ‘spirituality’ was one of the many gripes our Lord had with the Pharisees during His walk on Earth. Ironically, the reverse was one of theirs with Him!
Jesus didn’t ‘dignify’ Himself the way they did. He milled around with the common folks, ate publicly, and was so regular that at the time of His arrest the soldiers needed an insider to spot Him out from among His disciples.

We doctrinally affirm that Christ was FULLY man, yet we sometimes shy away from the implications of that truth. The man Jesus was as just a man as we are (or else the point of the Incarnation is defeated). He didn’t speak in tongues to re-energise His body when He got tired; no, He slept, and probably snored too. He wasn’t pretending to be asleep during the storm in Mar 4:35-41, he was physically – deeply – asleep. He Himself admits that He was notorious for his “eating and drinking” (Mat 11:1). And if He ate, that means He also had to go see ‘john’, (the euphemism, not the Apostle)!

Why then do we as ministers publicly pride ourselves in not eating and sleeping? While our tight schedules may impose such extremes on us (it happened to Jesus, too), it doesn’t mean we should then wield it as a badge of honour. There’re no rewards for the abuse of the body on Judgment Day.
Historically, extreme asceticism does not lead to spiritualty but actually to SPIRITISM – an undue emphasises and fascination with spirits and communications with the spirit world. The scriptures never sanctioned us to directly seek to communicate with spirits – whether angles or demons; biblical spiritualty is expressed in our obedience to the leading of the Holy Spirit as outlined in His Word, and commutating with Him in prayer, (Rom 8:14).

AMEN.

More Blessings await you today; you’ll not miss them in Jesus’ Name.

GREG ELKAN

Category: Apologetics