Open Blogging
This is what happens when you will not teach the sacraments as efficacious in the believer’s life – but just as obedience rituals Baptism, the Lord’s Supper and Absolution come to us from outside of us, they are all given to us so that we have assurance of our salvation.
Without them you end up with teachings like this one from Tim Keller where now your assurance must come from within yourself. It’s deadly
From the link, Keller wants people to do a self-examination to see if they are a fake Christian or not. He asks, as proof of genuineness:
How real has God been this week to your heart?
Have you been finding Scripture to be alive and active?
Are you finding God’s grace more glorious and moving now than you have in the past?
These are the types of questions that caused me so much personal misery for 30 years.
How can you answer these questions honestly, anyway? It’s all based on emotion. How am I “feeling” about God this week. Shall we quantify it? On a scale from 1 to 10 how good am I feeling about God? Did I forget him for a few hours while I was watching TV?
And if I am forgetting God now and then, and not finding lively nuggets of Scripture on a regular basis, and I am not accelerating my sense of God’s glory fast enough…. I am a fake Christian? If so, WHAT MUST I DO TO BECOME A REAL CHRISTIAN?
See, I thought this guy was a monergist. I didn’t think he’d believe there was anything one could do to become a genuine (non-fake) Christian, that God does it all.
So Mr. Keller, what must one do?
What does he mean by ‘fake” Christian, anyway? You are either a Christian or you’re not and believe me, it doesn’t depend on how I was feeling about God last week or if I discovered some new treasure in the Bible.
This was the kind of thinking that drove me to despair.
It’s salvation by works of the worst kind. Actually, it’s salvation by emotion. Salvation by sincerity. Me drumming up good thoughts about God.
i won’t even bother with the link, so i probably shouldn’t be posting a comment, eh? 🙂
FWIW
i’ve said before, and i believe it, that feelings are intended to be the appreciators of life, not the governors of same…
e.g. we just had to return a rescue dog – a good dog – a rowdy, lovable galoot that deserves a good home and, for many unresolvable reasons, we aren’t it… our feelings said, “keep this dear dog,” but our minds had to prevail – that doesn’t stop us from praying for the creature, tho – God be merciful to us and renew our minds as needed
when it comes to the spiritual life, are we not taught that the heart is deceitful and to renew our minds? brainwashing is not always bad
Rom 12:2 – Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. … i don’t think we ‘test’ by feelings, but by the Word
that said, i read Xenia’s list of three questions and i think they are applicable to ‘real’ Christians, not fake…
Keller’s evangelical side outweighs his “Reformed Presbyterian” side in this (and I am sure this comes out of his greater teachings.) He does not see a place that the gospel comes to us from the outside – even to the believers. It is always a “self check”
It doesn’t matter that Jesus said he would always be with us – it doesn’t matter that Jesus said that nothing could successfully come against his church – we must run the self check on our feelings to trust that we are secure.
I don’t think Tim Keller was the guy responsible for the title: “3 Questions Fake Christians can’t answer”. It seems like a staff writer is the guy who came up with that title. The worse I heard Tim Keller say in the video was questions designed to wake up sleepy Christians. This seems to me a big difference from Fake Christians which I didn’t hear Tim Keller mention. The title doesn’t match the video and is somewhat misleading. Whether you agree with the questions or not, doesn’t make asking the questions terrible. In fact I think this kind of dialog can be healthy in a small group. If your baptism is the most meaningful thing in your relationship with Christ, than you can certainly give these answers to the questions and I would respect that. Give the guy a break. If we did it the Lutheran way, we wouldn’t have any small groups at all other than to study the book of Concord or something like that. Tim Keller seems to be trying to facilitate discussion and community which he is big on.
If I was a media exec from any outlet in a hostile stance with Trump, or Republican backers….man, I’d hire that guy Monday AM. He’d be my new rotating Evangelical guest commentator. If I was a CNN exec, I’d give my left nut to have viewers associate him with Evangelical Industrial support for Trump.
I wouldn’t really care what he said on air / online at all, as long it came across as Evangelical. Get him on the set. Turn on the mike and turn it up. Let him run unto the next commercial break.
Steve,
And here you claim to not be the typical evangelical, and here you are supporting Keller by advocating that Christians need to get busier around church – join a new Bible study etc.
Let’s look at this – who is a sleepy Christian? Is there such a thing, or do you and Keller just associate it with someone who does not do their Christianity the way you do? But Keller’s biggest fault here is that he is teaching a whole room full of people to go out, diagnose sleepy Christian and set them up with the hot seat questions.
These are the things that make people doubt their faith and fall away. You are not helping a single person be closer to Jesus by running them through the Keller drill.
btw, you could do much worse than having a Bible study on the Book of Concord. Much better than the 5 Smooth Stones type bible studies.many evangelicals are attracted to.
Who was it that said: “you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth”? I’m pretty sure it wasn’t the POTUS.
#11 – hmmm…
i have told young Mormon doorbellers to not give up on Christ as they get older and, perhaps, begin to question the history of Mormonism… and i have prayed that the sect would wake up to who Jesus Christ really is and how they’ve insulted God’s majesty and loving sacrifice by making Jesus a created being, dismissing the triune nature… Orthodoxy wasn’t what i was praying for, but thank and praise God for those who are recognizing who God is and what it means to accept Him – even if they do have to go back to square one to do so… nothing says you have to be a Baptist to be saved…
I am not advocating getting busier at church. I am advocating community. This means relationships with one another, fellowship, getting to know each other, etc.. I host a monthly fellowship at my home. Its a highlight for me and not something I dread. If this makes me a typical evangelical, than I’m very proud of that label. There is no manipulation to join our group and no pressure. We don’t put labels on folks either such as sleepy Christian label. Regarding Tim Keller I’m not a huge fan and I understand your concerns and I share them. I sometimes feel he borders on man centered sanctification. With that aside, I do think he has a heart for community that seems to be sorely lacking in much of Christianity in America and for this I commend him.
This is a short piece from my upcoming book 2 in the Raven and The Owl series
Please let me know your thought and critiques outside of grammar.
Hope you enjoy.
A Place Beyond
By RebelpJones
I sat to write
as any night
in ritual form
A glass of wine
A bit of smoke
Some painful
memories
with creative
approach
How much of
my own truth
Should I really
Divulge
How much of this
magic should I
really indulge in
Too much of anything
They say is a bad thing
Darkness befell me
as a soft delicate touch
of a womans hands
Covered my eyes
A familiar presence
Approached from
the night.
Only one name
Comes to mind,
Lilitu
I whisper her name
Every moonlit night
With doubt that
her presence would
Ever return,
Left me hungry
Left me thirsty
for more.
She had a knack
for painfully touching
my soul
And showing me truths
I would’ve otherwise
never known
Before my eyes
she became a mist
that became my breath
That scorched my lungs
Every breath I took
Felt like firey Hell
Inside my chest
Without notice
or warning
I became possessed
And I felt her press
Extreme pressure
Within my breast
She squeezed my
heart
A painful piercing
burning feeling
Of being torn apart.
Then euphoric and
feeling weightless
I see we’ve taken flight!
A place beyond but
exists within
A realm of
unbelievable sights
Ignited by the wisdom
Of the Goddess
and the night shining
A path for the great
warrior knights of
the old
That secure the
gates of our two worlds.
ahhh, beware the wisdom of the Goddess – reading the poignant words brought to mind a proverb – 🙂 the raucous raven and the silent owl – nature has its lessons, but…
Pro 14:12 …There is a way that seems right to a man,
but its end is the way to death.
What do you think of the notion that what we don’t do correctly at the Lord’s Table is that we come for repentance when we ought to be exceedingly joyful, praising Him for what He has done, given is life absolution once and for all…? Shouldn’t our hearts be right before we offer the praises of our lips when we show up on Sunday, not just the insurance warning to the sinner so that they do not bring judgement upon themselves?
It’s all yours today…
Open Blogging
This is what happens when you will not teach the sacraments as efficacious in the believer’s life – but just as obedience rituals Baptism, the Lord’s Supper and Absolution come to us from outside of us, they are all given to us so that we have assurance of our salvation.
Without them you end up with teachings like this one from Tim Keller where now your assurance must come from within yourself. It’s deadly
http://churchleaders.com/pastors/videos-for-pastors/176648-tim-keller-questions-for-sleepy-or-nominal-christians.html
Read the 3 paragraphs and then watch the less than 2 min video.
Ah, good. Something MLD and I can agree on. 🙂
From the link, Keller wants people to do a self-examination to see if they are a fake Christian or not. He asks, as proof of genuineness:
How real has God been this week to your heart?
Have you been finding Scripture to be alive and active?
Are you finding God’s grace more glorious and moving now than you have in the past?
These are the types of questions that caused me so much personal misery for 30 years.
How can you answer these questions honestly, anyway? It’s all based on emotion. How am I “feeling” about God this week. Shall we quantify it? On a scale from 1 to 10 how good am I feeling about God? Did I forget him for a few hours while I was watching TV?
And if I am forgetting God now and then, and not finding lively nuggets of Scripture on a regular basis, and I am not accelerating my sense of God’s glory fast enough…. I am a fake Christian? If so, WHAT MUST I DO TO BECOME A REAL CHRISTIAN?
See, I thought this guy was a monergist. I didn’t think he’d believe there was anything one could do to become a genuine (non-fake) Christian, that God does it all.
So Mr. Keller, what must one do?
What does he mean by ‘fake” Christian, anyway? You are either a Christian or you’re not and believe me, it doesn’t depend on how I was feeling about God last week or if I discovered some new treasure in the Bible.
This was the kind of thinking that drove me to despair.
It’s salvation by works of the worst kind. Actually, it’s salvation by emotion. Salvation by sincerity. Me drumming up good thoughts about God.
That was an odd presentation from a Reformed Presbyterian…
i won’t even bother with the link, so i probably shouldn’t be posting a comment, eh? 🙂
FWIW
i’ve said before, and i believe it, that feelings are intended to be the appreciators of life, not the governors of same…
e.g. we just had to return a rescue dog – a good dog – a rowdy, lovable galoot that deserves a good home and, for many unresolvable reasons, we aren’t it… our feelings said, “keep this dear dog,” but our minds had to prevail – that doesn’t stop us from praying for the creature, tho – God be merciful to us and renew our minds as needed
when it comes to the spiritual life, are we not taught that the heart is deceitful and to renew our minds? brainwashing is not always bad
Rom 12:2 – Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. … i don’t think we ‘test’ by feelings, but by the Word
that said, i read Xenia’s list of three questions and i think they are applicable to ‘real’ Christians, not fake…
Keller’s evangelical side outweighs his “Reformed Presbyterian” side in this (and I am sure this comes out of his greater teachings.) He does not see a place that the gospel comes to us from the outside – even to the believers. It is always a “self check”
It doesn’t matter that Jesus said he would always be with us – it doesn’t matter that Jesus said that nothing could successfully come against his church – we must run the self check on our feelings to trust that we are secure.
#5 – that is one dangerous place to try live the Christian life from… delusional
I generally don’t bother with some freak preacher’s psyco-babble. My time is better spent in the word with my family. 😉
I don’t think Tim Keller was the guy responsible for the title: “3 Questions Fake Christians can’t answer”. It seems like a staff writer is the guy who came up with that title. The worse I heard Tim Keller say in the video was questions designed to wake up sleepy Christians. This seems to me a big difference from Fake Christians which I didn’t hear Tim Keller mention. The title doesn’t match the video and is somewhat misleading. Whether you agree with the questions or not, doesn’t make asking the questions terrible. In fact I think this kind of dialog can be healthy in a small group. If your baptism is the most meaningful thing in your relationship with Christ, than you can certainly give these answers to the questions and I would respect that. Give the guy a break. If we did it the Lutheran way, we wouldn’t have any small groups at all other than to study the book of Concord or something like that. Tim Keller seems to be trying to facilitate discussion and community which he is big on.
About Saeed
If I was a media exec from any outlet in a hostile stance with Trump, or Republican backers….man, I’d hire that guy Monday AM. He’d be my new rotating Evangelical guest commentator. If I was a CNN exec, I’d give my left nut to have viewers associate him with Evangelical Industrial support for Trump.
I wouldn’t really care what he said on air / online at all, as long it came across as Evangelical. Get him on the set. Turn on the mike and turn it up. Let him run unto the next commercial break.
Steve,
And here you claim to not be the typical evangelical, and here you are supporting Keller by advocating that Christians need to get busier around church – join a new Bible study etc.
Let’s look at this – who is a sleepy Christian? Is there such a thing, or do you and Keller just associate it with someone who does not do their Christianity the way you do? But Keller’s biggest fault here is that he is teaching a whole room full of people to go out, diagnose sleepy Christian and set them up with the hot seat questions.
These are the things that make people doubt their faith and fall away. You are not helping a single person be closer to Jesus by running them through the Keller drill.
btw, you could do much worse than having a Bible study on the Book of Concord. Much better than the 5 Smooth Stones type bible studies.many evangelicals are attracted to.
EO News!
Apologies if this has already been shared sometime on the blog:
http://www.sltrib.com/news/5243596-155/utah-mormons-protestants-finding-new-spiritual
I would say on balance, this is encouraging.
Other thoughts?
Who was it that said: “you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth”? I’m pretty sure it wasn’t the POTUS.
Being formerly from Utah, I read that EO article this morning. But I must confess I only went to the SL Trib website for news about the Utah Jazz.
#11 – hmmm…
i have told young Mormon doorbellers to not give up on Christ as they get older and, perhaps, begin to question the history of Mormonism… and i have prayed that the sect would wake up to who Jesus Christ really is and how they’ve insulted God’s majesty and loving sacrifice by making Jesus a created being, dismissing the triune nature… Orthodoxy wasn’t what i was praying for, but thank and praise God for those who are recognizing who God is and what it means to accept Him – even if they do have to go back to square one to do so… nothing says you have to be a Baptist to be saved…
MLD,
I am not advocating getting busier at church. I am advocating community. This means relationships with one another, fellowship, getting to know each other, etc.. I host a monthly fellowship at my home. Its a highlight for me and not something I dread. If this makes me a typical evangelical, than I’m very proud of that label. There is no manipulation to join our group and no pressure. We don’t put labels on folks either such as sleepy Christian label. Regarding Tim Keller I’m not a huge fan and I understand your concerns and I share them. I sometimes feel he borders on man centered sanctification. With that aside, I do think he has a heart for community that seems to be sorely lacking in much of Christianity in America and for this I commend him.
This is a short piece from my upcoming book 2 in the Raven and The Owl series
Please let me know your thought and critiques outside of grammar.
Hope you enjoy.
A Place Beyond
By RebelpJones
I sat to write
as any night
in ritual form
A glass of wine
A bit of smoke
Some painful
memories
with creative
approach
How much of
my own truth
Should I really
Divulge
How much of this
magic should I
really indulge in
Too much of anything
They say is a bad thing
Darkness befell me
as a soft delicate touch
of a womans hands
Covered my eyes
A familiar presence
Approached from
the night.
Only one name
Comes to mind,
Lilitu
I whisper her name
Every moonlit night
With doubt that
her presence would
Ever return,
Left me hungry
Left me thirsty
for more.
She had a knack
for painfully touching
my soul
And showing me truths
I would’ve otherwise
never known
Before my eyes
she became a mist
that became my breath
That scorched my lungs
Every breath I took
Felt like firey Hell
Inside my chest
Without notice
or warning
I became possessed
And I felt her press
Extreme pressure
Within my breast
She squeezed my
heart
A painful piercing
burning feeling
Of being torn apart.
Then euphoric and
feeling weightless
I see we’ve taken flight!
A place beyond but
exists within
A realm of
unbelievable sights
Ignited by the wisdom
Of the Goddess
and the night shining
A path for the great
warrior knights of
the old
That secure the
gates of our two worlds.
I like to boil the Christian experience (from the human side of things) down to 5 words:
Believe
Receive
Confess
Abide
Testify
ahhh, beware the wisdom of the Goddess – reading the poignant words brought to mind a proverb – 🙂 the raucous raven and the silent owl – nature has its lessons, but…
Pro 14:12 …There is a way that seems right to a man,
but its end is the way to death.
skipping the predestination declaration the good news is Romans 8:31-38
Believe the Gospel
Receive the Gospel
Confess the Gospel
Abide in the Gospel
Testify to the Gospel
God keep all close and comforted this day
Happy mother’s day! Hope you have a wonderful day!
I prefer
Believe Jesus
Receive Jesus
Confess to Jesus
Abide in Jesus
Testify of Jesus
Attaching gospel or Jesus works for me
RebelpJones
Too many syllables for the meter
Nice imagery
Yet
“As Above, So Below” rings in my head.
Lilith = the lie
Careful there
Pastor Pineapple, gospel, Jesus, Word, God, all aspects, targets of your list of 5 actions, eh? 🙂
That is a very pagan piece of poetry up there at #16.
I heard this story on Ted Radio today. Very powerful and impacting testimony of Dylan Klebold’s (Columbine shooter) mother.
http://www.npr.org/2017/05/12/527939178/sue-klebold-when-your-son-does-the-unthinkable-can-you-forgive-him-and-yourself
MLD
What do you think of the notion that what we don’t do correctly at the Lord’s Table is that we come for repentance when we ought to be exceedingly joyful, praising Him for what He has done, given is life absolution once and for all…? Shouldn’t our hearts be right before we offer the praises of our lips when we show up on Sunday, not just the insurance warning to the sinner so that they do not bring judgement upon themselves?
#27 – your comment to MLD shows some good instincts IMHO 🙂
Thanks em
I wish I thought it up, but it’s just from listening to others. Something I’m trying to do more of 🙂