A Different Perspective

The Emergent No blog has jumped in on the critique of my The Idolatry of Truth post. I would have thought that after clarifying some things in the comments, the poster would have taken the time to read the entire thing…

Since the link will no doubt drive traffic this way, I want to correct some of the unfortunate statements in that critique. This post is long, and if you have no interest in the original The Idolatry of Truth post, I recommend skipping over this one. Also, I’m a bit fatigued by being misinterpreted repeatedly, so I’m a little more short and rough in tone than I’d prefer.

The first is not actually a statement, but an observation on the writer’s use of the color red for some of my words. I’m sure she wasn’t equating my words with those of Jesus, so I can assume she’s trying to bold them out. She quotes, “Without putting the principles into practice, I already feel like a better Christ-follower… without doing any actual following.” I just want to note that the statement was a critique on the state of evangelicalism, in which I was raised, where when you learn something in your mind, you feel like you’re a better person. That’s why we find the best preachers, so we can go to a church service and leave feeling like we grew, just because we processed some words in our mind. Real growth does not work that way, it is an illusion. I was not holding up that statement as a good thing, rather the opposite.

She also misinterprets the first comment on the post. E-No friend, he’s on your side. Just using sarcasm. I know you three girls at E-No are not a stranger to it.

Jesus Himself, is Truth. We who are saved are sanctified by the Truth; God’s Word is Truth. While mentioning this claim in passing, the author, Hartung, doesn’t stop long enough to discuss exactly the truths Jesus taught but Jesus did teach them clearly.

I didn’t discuss it because that wasn’t the point of the post. The point was Christians who hold their concept of truth up as idols. Why would I go on about what Jesus taught when it has nothing to do with the post? I affirm what Jesus teaches to be true. I never said anything to the contrary.

God gave us the Bible. Truth IS knowable. We are told what it is and how to live it out. That’s why Jesus’ teaching was so challenging. And its why Paul often spent the first half of his letters in doctrine and then the last half in duty. Truth always has practicle application.

So when did I say truth was not knowable? I didn’t. So far most of what I’ve read from the critics of that post were so bothered by the idea that intellectual truth could be an idol, they failed to interact with the actual content of the post when slamming it. How exactly would someone who has an idol they don’t want to admit to react when confronted with it? Maybe blindly lashing out and not recognizing the truth of the words?

I’m not going to even attempt to go into all the irrelevant proof-texting, but here’s just one example:

This idea that truth is vague, even unknowable or out of reach, sounds very familiar:

Joh 18:37 Then Pilate said to him, “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world–to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.” 38 Pilate said to him, “What is truth?” After he had said this, he went back outside to the Jews and told them, “I find no guilt in him.

So give me one statement that says truth is vague or unknowable that I have made. Quoting Scripture does not make your point better if you’re not making any points at all.

If we don’t use order in how we approach God’s Word, if we don’t have ” expository preaching, doctrinal dogma” as Hartung says, then we don’t have to actually deal with the Scripture–we can go all over the place, inverting, rejecting, twisting Scripture, and redefining words and inventing new ones to suit our rebellion.

Personally, I think the author and the Christian tradition she represents ably shows how you can use order in approaching God’s Word and still end up going all over the place, inverting, rejecting, twisting Scripture, and redefining words and inventing new ones to suit their rebellion. One example would be the awful interpretation of the end of 1 Cor. 13 where it’s made to look as though the gifts of the Spirit cease after the Bible was written. She esteems John MacArthur, who holds that position. A position shown to be ludicrous by countless scholars and nearly anyone who just reads it themselves. They reject the Scripture to not forbid speaking in tongues, they invert and twist it to mean other things to suit their interpretation… well, they don’t invent new words, I guess, so maybe the example falls short.

And… I never said not to use order in approaching the Scriptures. I merely pointed out that some people’s “order” can be an idol.

Expository preaching is the only way to preach: verse by verse, chapter by chapter, precept upon precept. This forces the reader/hearer/preacher to deal with each word in the passage, not skipping over the parts he or she doesn’t like. It keeps the verse in its context, too.

Although I only noted I have an issue with “Systematic theology, expository preaching, doctrinal dogma” being central and not issues with them being part of a Christian’s life, there is finally a critique in this post which actually touches on something valid. I do find expository preaching to be overrated, and I certainly disagree with the contention that it is the only way to preach. Just look at the words she uses, “verse by verse, chapter by chapter, precept upon precept.” Is the Bible organized as a textbook like this? When did “expository” preaching come about? The sermons in the NT can hardly be called expository, though I admit we have few examples. If expository preaching is the only way to preach, we shouldn’t have had preaching for about 1600 years, because today’s version of expository preaching ain’t been around all that long.

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 18th, 2006 at 8:37 pm and is filed under Emerging Church, Faith, Theology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.