Another year has started! A time of considering and praying about what lies ahead – plans, priorities, budgets. But as Christians we don’t just think and plan, we seek God’s counsel and approval (don’t we)… but how do we expect Him to respond? Psalm 25 gives some importance guidance in ‘hearing God’’. It’s a big subject and I will limit myself to what the first 15 verses of this Psalm teach. Based on Psalm 25:1-15, this sermon by Dr. Christopher Peppler covers how God speaks to us and how we should listen!
Can something that gives us life and health also cause us harm? Sadly, yes.
Take water for example. H2O is necessary to sustain life but too much of it, too fast, can cause hyponatremia, or ‘water intoxication’, a very unpleasant condition that can be fatal. A similar condition, but of the spirit, can result from too much ‘grace’.
Grace is to the spirit what water is to the body. It is God’s grace that gives us spiritual life, and it is His grace that preserves that life for eternity. We are all familiar with the catchy definitions of grace like, ‘God’s riches at Christ’s expense’ and ‘unmerited favour’, but any way we define it, it comes down to one thing – grace is God reaching out in love and mercy to the undeserving. Now how could we have too much of that?
Not too long ago a new, yet old, doctrine became popular in parts of the church, and it did not take long for its critics to give it a name, ‘hyper-grace’. On the face of it, hyper-grace seems to be an overdose of grace, but it’s a little more complicated than that.
The foundational teachings of hyper-grace are, more or less, as follows:
When we are saved by faith in Christ Jesus, we become one with Him, and as a result become blameless and ‘perfect’ in the Father’s eyes.
Jesus paid for all sins when He died on the cross, and ‘all’ means past, present and future sins. Confession of sin is therefore inappropriate and an offence to God who has already dealt with all our sins. Because of this, the Holy Spirit will never convict us of sin.
Because He sees only Jesus in us, God the Father cannot ever be angry with us and will not punish us or even hold us accountable for any ‘sinful’ behaviour. How can He if He has already forgiven us and even wiped our present and future transgressions from His memory?
The Christian life should be effortless because God does it all and we just receive grace upon grace.
To believe all this, and at the same time confess that the Bible is inspired and authoritative, requires considerable mental gymnastics.
Paul’s writings are complex and sometimes convoluted and therefore provide wiggle-room for those who want to slip through the cracks and ‘spin’ the scriptural message in favour of their teachings. However, Jesus’ teachings are in many ways clearer and so the Gospels are seldom referenced by hyper-grace teachers. And as for the Old Testament, well that’s just ‘law my brother’. Paul, of course, teaches extensively on sin, confession, repentance, and restitution. However, the hyper-grace guys write all that off as applying only to some mythical gnostic influence in the early church which doesn’t apply to us nowadays. Sigh!
I don’t think we can have too much biblical grace, but a myopic focus on a redefined grace can do us great harm. It’s not too much water than can kill us, it’s what too much water does to vital chemicals in our brains that causes us such great harm. Too much water flushes out salt and sodium from our system and this can cause a weird drunkenness of mind leading to coma and even death.
Just consider what gets flushed out if we imbibe the hyper-grace I have described:
We would have to ignore the biblical teachings on conviction, repentance, confession, and restitution. We would select which texts to believe and which texts to discard as irrelevant.
We would reject the conviction of the Holy Spirit as a false voice to rebuke rather than obey.
We would ‘rest’ in our salvation with little or no attempt to work in partnership with the Holy Spirit in becoming more like Jesus in this lifetime.
A sin committed would become an ‘oops, thank heaven I am already forgiven’ rather than a cause of repentance and confession.
Making things right with those we have sinned against would seem pointless in the light of our great relief that God does not even remember the offence, so why should I?
God’s grace towards us is wonderful and indispensable, but our focus must not be on grace, either biblical or hyper, but upon Jesus! The Lord Jesus, God the Son, came from the Father ‘full of grace and truth’ (John 1:14) and ‘grace and truth came through Jesus Christ’ (verse 17). We cannot separate grace from truth for they are the two sides of the divine coin of salvation. And the truth is clear enough in Jesus’ teachings and in Paul’s writings that grace is just not what the hyper-grace teachers claim it to be.
If you want to read a comprehensive, yet kindly, critique of the hyper-grace message then I recommend ‘Hyper-grace: exposing the dangers of the modern grace message’ by Dr Michael Brown.
Hyper-grace is a feel good message and at first sip, it is rather invigorating, but when we drink it in we can get very sick. I would rather drink the living water that Jesus himself provides for I can never overindulge in this no matter how much I drink of it.
‘He (Jesus) said to me: “It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To him who is thirsty I will give to drink without cost from the spring of the water of life” (Revelation 21:6-7)…
“If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.” (John 7:37-38)
In today’s world, most people associate ‘supernatural’ with ghosts, séances, and Harry Potter. To say that Christianity is a supernatural relationship sounds both confusing and heretical. But it is!
The meaning of the word ‘supernatural’ is ‘relating to an order of existence beyond the visible observable universe’ The Bible is full of accounts of supernatural events. Jesus ministered supernaturally, and the re-birth of the spirit is a profoundly supernatural phenomenon. The word ‘metaphysical’ is more or less a synonym for supernatural and is defined as ‘relating to the transcendent or to a reality beyond what is perceptible to the senses’ Yet, here again, it is usually connected in Christian circles with cult systems or Word of Faith extremes. Yet, Christianity is metaphysical. We cannot see God, who is Spirit, yet we have a relationship with the triune Godhead in and through Jesus Christ.
We cannot test or measure the manifestations of healing and miracles yet we experience them and gladly accept them… or do we?
Some Christian folk reject outright anything, spiritual gifts included, that appear to be supernatural. Words of Knowledge are to them simply intellectually informed teachings, Words of Wisdom are wise utterances, Prophecy is preaching, and so on. Such people are commonly termed cessationists in theological circles; they believed that the ‘Gifts of the Spirit’ have ceased. I have read as much as I choose to about the justifications for holding such a belief, but I find them wanting. Although theologians of this persuasion often claim that their theology is based on a sound exposition of scripture, nothing could be further from the truth. The New Testament is replete with references to the supernatural, and the claim that 1 Corinthians 13:8-10 supports cessationism is, in my opinion at least, just foolish and irresponsible. Actually, the real argument that the supernatural Gifts of the Spirit have ceased is based on a selective reading of history and not on biblical interpretation.
On the other side of the spectrum are those who claim to operate supernaturally as disciples of Jesus, but evidence magical manipulation rather than spiritual ministry. I am referring here to such things as crowd mesmerising, leg-stretching, mantra shouting, gold dust materialising, angel feather falling, religious slight-of-hand. I regard this as a perversion and not a spiritual reality, and as mind-craft, not supernatural ministry. Neither cessationism nor charismania are valid expressions of biblical Christianity.
If these two positions represent the end-points of a horizontal line, then the middle point, pulled up to form a triangle, must be intellectual knowledge-based pseudo-Christianity. In terms of this belief system, re-birth is just a euphemism for commitment of the will, spirituality consists of Bible study and prayer, church is an organisation akin to a school, and evangelism is a call to embrace a way of living and a denominational doctrinal statement. To my way of thinking, this too is a parody of New Testament Christianity. Cessationism, charismania, and intellectual pseudo-belief form a baleful triumvirate in current Christendom.
Jesus modelled a supernatural faith relationship with His Father, the Holy Spirit, and His disciples.
Read through the Gospels and observe how He ministered supernaturally, and how He positioned faith, not as a force to be manipulated, but as a the catalyst of metaphysical relationships. Take note of His profound lecture to the intellectually religious leader Nicodemus. Read on through the book of Acts and note how the early church functioned. Note also how Paul explained the work of the Holy Spirit in and through the church (1 Corinthians 12 & 14).
Surely, Christianity is essentially a supernatural metaphysical faith relationship with the triune God in and through Jesus Christ, and with others in and through the Body of Christ the church.
Giving to the local church is biblical and important, but tithing is a self-serving remnant from a long distant age.
On numerous occasions, I have sat through Sunday services where there have been two sermons; one on tithing and the other on whatever topic the preacher had on his heart. I am not being facetious or sarcastic here, but some churches preach on tithing every Sunday. The exhortations I have heard on this subject usually take one of two forms:
There is the appeal to God’s Law, routinely built around, what I call ‘Malachi’s mallet’; “Will a man rob God? Yet you rob me.” But you ask, ‘How do we rob you?’ “In tithes and offerings. You are under a curse — the whole nation of you — because you are robbing me” (Malachi 3:8-10). Then there is the…
…‘let’s do a good deal with God’ approach, and here the continuation of the Malachi passage works well; “Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the Lord Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it” (Mal 3:10-11). So, great, let’s give 10 and He will give us 100… a good deal indeed!
Does the Bible insist that disciples of the Lord Jesus give a tenth of whatever they earn? Are pastors righteous when they insist that their members tithe to their local church? Should we be financially funding our local church? My answers are No… No… and Yes!
Tithing, which is a word describing a tenth of something, has its origin in the life of Old Testament Israel and was what we today would understand as Income Tax. The tithe paid for Israel’s system of government before the advent of kings and kingdoms. The priests administered religious ritual and the judges administered justice and provided national leadership. All adult citizens paid the tithe to fund the religious and judicial systems (Leviticus 27:30, Numbers 18:26).
Do we find the concept of tithing in the New Testament? No, we do not, but we do find a few references to it. Its first New Testament appearance is when Jesus was declaring dire woes on the Pharisees; “Woe to you Pharisees, because you give God a tenth of your mint, rue and all other kinds of garden herbs, but you neglect justice and the love of God. You should have practiced the latter without leaving the former undone” (Luke 11:42 and also in Matthew 23:23). Advocates of tithing often link this to what Jesus said concerning the Law; “I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:20). Here, Jesus is not only said to be endorsing the tithe, but also claiming that non-tithers will not go to Heaven! But is this honestly what these texts mean? I don’t think they do; in fact I think that this understanding is as back-to-front as ‘ehtit’! The address to the Pharisees consisted of woes, not affirmation. The Matthew 23 passage starts with Jesus telling His followers that they were to obey the Pharisees, despite their hypocrisy, because they were the custodians of the Law of Moses. Before Jesus died to settle the demands of the Law, the Jews were still under the Law and could only be deemed righteous before God if they obeyed all of its requirements. His statement recorded in Matthew 5:20 simply reinforces this truth. However, Jesus put to death the demands of the Law when He died on the cross of Calvary. Paul wrote of how Jesus abolished ‘in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations’ (Ephesians 2:15). He also wrote, in Romans 3:21-22 that ‘now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe’. Jesus was not endorsing the law of tithing for His followers, He was simply pointing out that outside of salvation in Him there was no righteousness for the Jews apart from scrupulous obedience to all of the dictates of the Law of Moses.
In his letter to the church in Corinth, Paul spelled out the gospel-oriented understanding of financial giving (2 Corinthians chapters 8& 9). Giving, and especially giving to the local church, which is the extended family of God, is a privilege and a joy. It pleases God and it makes us happy. It also provides the financial means for the local church to function, serve, teach, care, and reach out into its environment with the Gospel.
Some pastors preach tithing and even demand the tithe because they sincerely believe that it is biblical, but I believe that they are sincerely wrong.
Perhaps others think that they will be financially insecure if they do not constantly exhort their people to tithe. But insecurity comes from not trusting God rather than from concern over people’s adherence to a redundant Old Testament law. I left a very well paid executive job in the banking industry to pastor a tiny church of 17 or so people. I continued to lead that church as it grew and thrived over three decades, and never in all that time did I preach tithing, and never did my family not have the essentials of life. God provided for us adequately and faithfully through the local church. God does that you know!
“Say to them, ‘This is the nation that has not obeyed the Lord its God or responded to correction’. Truth has perished; it has vanished from their lips’” (Jeremiah 7:28)
These are the words of the prophet Jeremiah speaking to the nation of Israel about 2,600 years ago, but they may just as well have been spoken to the nations of the world now.
Tell me honestly; do you know what is true any more when it comes to the news, political utterances, and social media?
I don’t! It disappoints me, but I have to admit that I have become sceptical to the point of cynicism. When it comes to most politicians and most news media, I have moved from ‘not easily convinced’ towards ‘distrustful of human sincerity and integrity’.
The Oxford Dictionaries word of the year for 2016 is ‘post-truth’. They define this composite word as describing ‘circumstances where objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief’. Perhaps I would not have taken this too seriously if I had not been closely following both the Brexit bruhaha and the US elections rumpus. I watched with amazement as internationally recognised news anchors and political commentators displayed the most blatant bias in their reporting. They rephrased items of ‘fact’ and added an obvious spin accompanied by sneers, smirks and dismissive gestures. My amazement turned to outrage, and finally to sadness.
The first of the ‘post’ words that demanded my attention some years ago was the word ‘post-modern’, commonly referring to the last quarter of the twentieth century. Post-modern would at least mean ‘an era after the modern one’, however, we seldom use it in this way. More often, we refer to post-modern as an era of radical reappraisal of modern assumptions about culture, identity, religions, and so on. During this period philosophers, and even some church leaders, sowed the poisonous seed of what would later grow into a post-Christian worldview. For at least the last 20 years there has been a definite shift away from the predominance of Christian beliefs and ethics in politics, economics, and sociology. This erosion has resulted in the loss of the primacy of the Christian worldview in political affairs in favour of secularism and nationalism. The result is what some social commentators have labelled a ‘post-Christian’ worldview.
During the 20th century, some church leaders tried to ‘save’ the Bible from scorn and disuse by attempting to de-supernaturalise it. People, like Bishop Spong, believed that only a scientifically validated faith could survive the times. I remember attending a faculty meeting of the theological department of a public university where some of the professors were arguing that for Christian theology to survive we would need to align it closely with the sciences. Later came the seeker-sensitive substitute for the Gospel, emergent church liberalism on the one hand, and a warmed up version of dominionism going under the label of the New Apostolic Reformation.
From these post-modern seeds grew the weeds of relative truth and individualistic or group norms for belief and righteousness.
It isn’t hard to see how this would grow into what is now termed the post-truth era. If truth is relative to circumstances and subordinate to expediencies then the lines between right and wrong, moral and immoral, true and false, become so feint that they all but disappear.
‘Fake news’ inundates the media and the internet and social media are replete with irrational and often mischievous announcements and ‘revelations’.
The American Intelligence chiefs use uncorroborated information as part of their presidential briefings, newspapers publish it, TV hosts discuss it with panels of so-called experts, and the public believes it… Well not all of us. In addition, this morass of half-truth, untruth and misinformation even extends its swampy reach to the church. Ministers of the Gospel pull people’s legs and claim that they are thus healed (pull the other one), self-serving teachings abound, and truth is relative to a plethora of personal interpretations.
Standing in stark contrast to all this is Jesus, the one who repeatedly said, “I tell you the truth”, and who defined Himself as THE truth. Surely, the only antidote to the post-truth poison of our times is a radical return to the primacy of Jesus, His teachings, His way, and His revelation of the God of Truth. Moreover, if we are to stem the dark tide of post-modern, post-truth untruth, then we need to hold others to account. As ambassadors of the truth, we should challenge our politicians and the news media and politely demand that they back up their claims and rumours with hard evidence and logical deductions. One of the ways we can demonstrate our dissatisfaction is by withdrawing our support. We can stop paying for fallacious news services, we can vote only for truthful politicians and their parties, and we can demand explanations when disinformation comes our way, in whatever forms it comes.
More than this, we need to commit ourselves to speaking and living out the truth and thus BE people of Truth in a post-truth world.
My name is Christopher Peppler and I was born in Cape Town, South Africa in 1947. While working in the financial sector I achieved a number of business qualifications from the Institute of Bankers, Damelin Management School, and The University of the Witwatersrand Business School. After over 20 years as a banker, I followed God’s calling and joined the ministry full time. After becoming a pastor of what is now a quite considerable church, I earned an undergraduate theological qualification from the Baptist Theological College of Southern Africa and post-graduate degrees from two United States institutions. I was also awarded the Doctor of Theology in Systematic Theology from the University of Zululand in 2000.
Four years before that I established the South African Theological Seminary (SATS), which today is represented in over 70 countries and has more than 2 500 active students enrolled with it. I presently play an role supervising Masters and Doctoral students.
I am a passionate champion of the Christocentric or Christ-centred Principle, an approach to biblical interpretation and theological construction that emphasises the centrality of Jesus
I have been happily married to Patricia since the age of 20, have two children, Lance and Karen, a daughter-in-law Tracey, and granddaughters Jessica and Kirsten. I have now retired from both church and seminary leadership and devote my time to writing, discipling, and the classical guitar.
If you would like to read my testimony to Jesus then click HERE.
Do we find the concept of tithing in the New Testament? No, we do not, but we do find a few references to it. Its first New Testament appearance is when Jesus was declaring dire woes on the Pharisees; “Woe to you Pharisees, because you give God a tenth of your mint, rue and all other kinds of garden herbs, but you neglect justice and the love of God. You should have practiced the latter without leaving the former undone” (Luke 11:42 and also in 
