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What we need most

When I look at the state of the world and our nation, and hear the contentions of Evangelical world church leaders that much of the church has fallen asleep, then I have great hope.

Sounds strange, but that is the truth of it. However, my hope is not that the nation will suddenly change from corruption, violence, and general indolence, to heaven-on-earth. Nor is my hope that the churches of South Africa will structurally unite and exercise major social transformation initiatives. No, my hope is that God the Father will take mercy on His people, that the Lord Jesus will intercede for us, and that the Holy Spirit will overwhelm the church with … Revival! We need nothing less at this time, and nothing less will do.

Jonathan Goforth was instrumental in the Manchurian revival of 1908 and he is quoted as stating that the three key precursors to revival are (i) prayer, (ii) a return to the authority of the Bible, and (iii) placing Jesus at the centre as Saviour and Lord. In this article I would like to briefly explore what these mean at a practical level.

Jesus told His followers to wait in Jerusalem until they were clothed with power from on high and so they waited and prayed. This seems to be a common preparatory feature in the historic revivals I have studied. God instructs a few to expect revival, and they wait and pray until it comes as promised. During revivals, prayer is usually intense and all inclusive. What starts with a few people praying ends with whole congregations, and even regions, on their knees in intense prayer. My dilemma is whether to attempt to organise people to pray. My natural inclination is to exhort folk and to set up regular prayer meetings. My spiritual intuition says no, step aside so that God can do what only He can do. Perhaps when people start to come to the church building to pray, without being obligated to do so, then is the time to announce that the Holy Spirit has organised a regular prayer meeting.

Concerning a return to the authority of the Bible, that is something I do not need to return to because I believe and teach this concept. However, this may well be a challenge for some reading this article. Topical preaching is powerful in the hands of a master of the scriptures, but dangerous in the hands of anyone less.

When using the topical approach to preaching it is too easy to justify one’s own ideas from selected texts. Expository preaching, on the other hand, gives full honour to the authority of scripture and compels the preacher to deal with what a given portion of scripture says. So, to experience full revival perhaps we need to revive expository preaching.

The Bible is the written Word of God, but Jesus Christ is the Living Word. A core issue for me has always been the centrality of Jesus. Most, if not all, Evangelicals will gladly embrace this and claim it as their central tenet. However the truth of this claim lies in how we apply the concept. Is what Jesus said and did the prime determiner of our doctrine and practice? Do we interpret the Bible and seek to apply it in the light of the revelation of the nature and character of the Godhead as revealed in and through Jesus? One example will have to suffice. In Acts chapter five Luke records the sad and confusing tale of the deaths of Ananias and Sapphira. Almost every commentator I have read claims that God slew the two, and they give a number of reasons. Few ask the question, ‘would Jesus kill His own disciples?’ Later in Acts, Luke records how Paul dealt with a man called Elymas, who he described as ‘a child of the devil and an enemy of everything that is right! (Acts 13:11). His punishment was to be struck blind for a period of time, but the punishment for Ananias was instant execution! Elymas’ sentence was reasonable, appropriate, and redemptive, while the sentence passed on the disciples appears not to be. The couple were children of God while Elymas was a child of the devil. Difficult as it may be to interpret Acts 5, the question that must be asked and answered if we are to honour the Christ-centred principle is, ‘would Jesus do this?’ Another way of asking the question is, ‘is this consistent with the nature and character of God as revealed in and through the Lord Jesus Christ?’

The solution to the woes of the church, and hence our country can, I believe, be addressed only by a genuine and powerful Holy Spirit revival. Revival is an act of God. The sovereign Lord has already spoken to several of His people about His intention to send revival. Our response is to pray and to recommit ourselves to the authority of the Bible and the practical centrality of Jesus in our churches and lives. In this lies our hope for our nation at this time.

What we need most Read More »

Jesus Deficit Disorder

I am currently re-reading the book ‘Jesus Manifesto’ by Len Sweet and Frank Viola subtitled ‘Restoring the Supremacy and Sovereignty of Jesus Christ‘. (http://www.thejesusmanifesto.com) In this book Len coins the phrase ‘Jesus Deficit Disorder’ (JDD), a play on the familiar mental condition labelled Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD).

His contention is that the focus of today’s church flickers from one thing to another but seldom settles on Jesus. Like a child with ADD the body of Christ focuses first on social upliftment, then on politics, then on getting rich, then on biblical knowledge acquisition, and so on … but seldom on Jesus.

Yet Jesus Christ is the creator, sustainer, head, and lord of the church. Without Him the church just isn’t the church. It may be a religious institution, or a philanthropic society, or a bless-me club; but without Jesus at its very centre it cannot be the church.

When a person is diagnosed with ADD they are most frequently prescribed a psychostimulant drug like Ritalin, but I was interested to discover that the same drug is often given in cases of lethargy, depression, and obesity. Perhaps if I were a medical doctor instead of a Ph.D I might be tempted to prescribe a spiritual Ritalin to treat the church’s JDD, lethargy, depression, and obesity. However, before attempting to prescribe I have to ask two questions: Is the church in general suffering from JDD? And if it is, then what is the spiritual equivalent of Ritalin that it can take?

A colleague of mine wrote to Len to enquire what sort of research he had conducted in order to diagnose the church as suffering from JDD. He replied that his observations had come out of ‘a lifetime of learning and living in the Spirit’. Len Sweet travels extensively as a speaker and theology professor and has been exposed to countless churches and Christian leaders over many years and in several nations, and so he is well able to diagnose the church’s current condition. I think his diagnosis is correct, but on what do I base my opinion?

I conducted a little rough and ready ‘research’ of my own. I looked at the list of the top ten articles for pastors published on SermonCentral.com over the past five years. (http://www.sermoncentral.com/articlec.asp?article=top-10-articles-past-10-years&ac=true) I reasoned that what pastors valued most as input must reflect in some way on what they believed was most important to them. The first article listed was ’21 irrefutable laws of communication’, the second was ‘5 things God never said’ and the third was ’20 non-preaching websites for better preaching’. The list continued with not a single mention of Jesus or anything to do with Him.

I read the list to my wife and she responded, with a gentle smile, that pastors like me were focused on leadership and preaching related matters and that the list didn’t represent the real focus areas of Christians in general. So, I Googled ‘bestselling Christian books in 2010’ and found that the name of Jesus features in only one book title, and that was 365 day devotional! (http://michaelhyatt.com/the-100-bestselling-christian-books-of-2010.html). After reading through the list I can understand why Sweet and Viola write of ‘ best-seller Christianity, which has become self-centeredness wrapped up as “spirituality,”’

So, from the evidence of my rough-and-ready research it looks like the church may well be suffering from JDD. But what can the body of Christ take to treat this malady? Perhaps the Bible is the Ritalin the church needs for recovery. No I don’t think it is. In general, the church still honours the Bible and often makes it the focus of attention.

However, it is all too easy to read the scriptures without seeing that they consistently point to Jesus.

The Pharisees of New Testament times had this problem because Jesus had to say to them, “You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life” (John 5:39-40). Not much has changed since then. Sweet and Viola write; ‘The written Word is a map that leads us to the living Word. Or as Jesus Himself put it, “The Scriptures point to Me! ”Every part of the sacred text breathes the same oxygen—Christ. So the Bible is not the destination; it’s a compass that points to Jesus— heaven’s Lodestar’.

No, there is no spiritual Ritalin for the JDD of today’s church. More Bible study isn’t it and nor is a revamped social upliftment program ‘it’, or a larger worship band, or a power-preacher in a white suite!

The only remedy for JDD is for the church to reform itself around the centrality of Jesus.

Sweet and Viola put it this way; ‘Only a recovery of the greatness, supremacy, sovereignty, brilliance, and “allness” of Christ will lead us to restoration and even revival. The wonder of Jesus as “all in all” is the only hope for igniting the flame of a new reformation and resuscitating a church that’s presently on life support.’

Jesus Deficit Disorder Read More »

God is in control?

Leave a Comment / Articles, Published Articles / Christopher Peppler

It’s a Friday early-morning prayer meeting and one of the regulars is recounting to God the many problems in our troubled world.

The prayer moves from the terrorist attacks in Nigeria, to the endemic problem of abortion on demand, and then concludes with prayer for the two teenage girls who were burnt alive as part of a satanic ritual. At the end of this sorry litany the dear person ends with, “But you are in control of everything O Lord, so all is well. Amen.” What, I wonder did he mean when he claimed that God was in control? Did he mean that God had wilfully decided to blow up a whole bunch of innocent Nigerians, slaughter a couple of million unborn babies, and kill one girl after days of agony while simply maiming the other for life?! Or did he mean that God had specifically decided to allow these particular things to happen, which in my view is tantamount to the same thing?

So, what do we mean then when we say ‘God is in control’?

Usually we sanitise questions like this by immersing them in complex theological argument. We call it predeterminism, or sovereignty of God, or something like that and then plunge the troublesome issue into a huge pool of theological dogma. Don’t get me wrong, I believe that theology is important. However, we are created to live in relationship with God, not merely to study Him and his ways. Theology is meant to affect the way we live out our lives in relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. So I am asking the question about divine control from a practical and pastoral perspective.

Over the years I have been with several grieving parents after their child has died, often suddenly and brutally. I don’t say to them “Well God must have had a very good reason for this. Just trust him and I am sure that in time you will see the good that comes from this.” Why should they trust a God who has just caused their beautiful daughter to crash her car into a tree and die?” She had just turned 18 and had only obtained her driver’s license that very week. Where is the good that is so immense and pressing that God would bring about such a tragedy?

At times like this I would rather assure the parents of God’s love and concern and the promise that He is with them, holding their hands and weeping with them, through this terrible time.

Yes I know the theology around all this – the so called immutability of God, His sovereign predetermination of all things, and so on. Frankly, I don’t think that this is good theology at all but I am not going to argue this in this article. Rather, I want to ask the question of how we understand statements like ‘God is in control’ from the perspective of a relationship with Jesus Christ.

Is the triune God as revealed in and through the Lord Jesus Christ the author of evil? Is it perhaps that we just don’t understand the nature of true goodness and that what appears to us as evil is really divine goodness that we cannot comprehend? This is essentially what we express when we ask ourselves and others to trust that God is in control of situations that result in international or personal tragedy. Whether it’s the Jewish Holocaust of the Second World War, the more recent Twin Tower disaster, or the rape, murder and dismemberment of a ten year old child, the issue is the same – if God caused it then it must be good… or else God is a monster!

I have never understood the argument that what we all clearly perceive as evil is in fact goodness in disguise. God has revealed to us in the scriptures what constitutes good and evil. He expects us to be able to discern the difference between the two and embrace good while shunning evil. Is God a two-faced trickster then? Does He practice the opposite of what He preaches? My answer is a resounding “No!”

I believe that our theology must influence what we say and how we live, and that what we say and do reflects what we truly believe.

The ultimate theological reflection should be on what Jesus Christ reveals to us of the nature and character of God. I believe that a theology that flows from this will be sound both in theory and in practice. And in the light of this it is easier to see that the competing theological systems of our day ultimately stand or fall on how they present the nature and character of God. The God revealed in Christ Jesus is good and truthful and He is not the author of specific evil, no matter what philosophical sleight of hand we attempt to employ to call evil good or to claim that God is directly in control of all things while absolving him from evil acts.

God is in control? Read More »

The essential nature of man

Leave a Comment / Articles, Published Articles / Christopher Peppler

There is a well-known saying attributed to St. Augustine; ‘In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; in all things, charity’.

In the context of Christian theology this usually means that we should not argue about or divide over the non-essential doctrines of the Faith. Most scholars agree with this but the problem is that relatively minor doctrines have profound implications. Take for instance the doctrine of the essential nature of man.

Many modern theological thinkers reject the view that a person is anything other than a unity (monism) because they can find no scientific evidence for a spirit/soul. They claim that the idea that humans have more than one constituent part is the product of ancient Greek philosophy. They believe that the theology of the Old Testament supports their view and they also argue that any attempt to describe humans as other than a unity leads to an unbiblollical depreciation of the body.

This understanding of the human being has some serious implications. For instance, in terms of this view, when a person dies then they simply cease to exist. Either life ends at the grave or is suspended in some sort of ‘soul sleep’ until the great resurrection at the end of time. It is hard to differentiate, in terms of monism, just how a human differs from an animal, and it requires us to perform mental gymnastics with several biblical texts. For instance Jesus told the thief on that cross that “today you will be with me in paradise.” (Lk 23:43) and Paul wrote that he would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord (2 Cor 5:8)

There are two other current views on this doctrine. The most common among reformed and conservative evangelical theologians is Dichotomism. This view has dominated academic thinking on this subject since the Counsel of Constantinople in AD 381. The idea here is that the human being is composed of two basic parts, a material and an immaterial. The non-material part is interchangeably called spirit or soul, or in more modern thinking, mind. If there is a distinction, they say, it is that the word ‘spirit’ describes the human capacity to relate to God while ‘soul’ describes the capacity to relate to self and others. The main biblical basis for this view is the fact that the words spirit and soul are used interchangeably in many places in the Bible (Gen 35:18; Eccl 12:7; Heb 12:23; Rev 6:9 and so on).

One of the most troubling implications of this very commonly held view is that it makes little if any distinction between mind and spirit.

It views our immaterial part as one reality variously described as mind, soul, spirit, heart, and so on. As a result of this the Christian experience is defined largely in terms of mental processes. We commit ourselves to God, we change our thinking, and we align our wills. There is no real place in this thinking for a metaphysical spiritual ‘rebirth’ despite the fact that Jesus taught that we need to be born again from above (Jn 3:7). Christianity becomes more a matter of learning and willing rather than a supernatural relationship with Christ Jesus. To me this is a very serious problem in the church today. The focus on relating to God through knowledge and will rather than spirit to spirit was Adam’s downfall and it is still a huge problem.

There is a third way of viewing the human makeup which is still popular in Pentecostal and charismatic circles. It is called Trichotomy and it was taught by the early church fathers prior to late 4^th century. Trichotomism is the belief that we are made up of body, soul, and spirit. Whilst humans are functionally unitary beings we do have both physical and immaterial dimensions. The non-physical aspect is in turn made up of a soul and a spirit. Soul describes elements such as mind, emotion, memory, will and so on. Spirit describes that aspect of our being that communicates with God and interfaces with the spiritual realm. The soul is generated by the brain but when the body dies it continues to live on in association with the spirit. This continued existence is either apart from God or in relationship with Him. When a person is born again their spirit comes alive to God; if they are not born again the spirit continues to be separated from the life of God.

I believe that the trichotomous view is the better doctrine because it is supported by texts such as 1 Thess 5:23 and because it makes sense of the biblical contention that we are made in God’s image, in His triune likeness.

God is three yet one and we too are three yet one. It is not without its problems yet I believe that the doctrinal side-effects associated with the other two theories are far more problematic and negatively impactful.

So, relatively minor doctrines are still important for they have profound implications. It is true that we should not divide over them but we certainly should debate them and consider them very carefully.

The essential nature of man Read More »

Sound Doctrine

Leave a Comment / Articles, Published Articles / Christopher Peppler

Paul warned that the time would come when people would no longer welcome sound doctrine (2 Timothy 4:3) and most Bible-believing Christians suspect that time has indeed come. The problem though is ‘what constitutes sound doctrine?’

To the Fundamentalist, sound doctrine must include such things as the inerrancy of scripture, a literal six day creation, and so on. A Liberal Christian might argue that sound doctrine is whatever conforms to the law of love. A Calvinist would build a five-point definition around God’s sovereign predeterminism. So what then constitutes sound doctrine?

In First Timothy Paul warned about false teachers of the law and contrasted their legalistic injunctions with, ‘sound doctrine that conforms to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, which he entrusted to me’ (1 Timothy 1:10-11). This statement comes at the end of a passage condemning teachers who promote ‘false doctrine’. We can therefore get some idea of what sound doctrine is by comparing it to what it isn’t. Paul criticises false teachers for devoting themselves to myths and meaningless talk and in verse 7 he describes them as wanting to be ‘teachers of the law’. So, sound doctrine is neither man-made myths nor religious Law, but is something else entirely.

In his statement in verse 11 Paul gives us a rough definition of what he meant by the term ‘sound doctrine’;

it is that which conforms to the glorious gospel that God entrusted to him.

So, in order to determine further what constitutes sound doctrine, we need to explore what Paul understood by this ‘glorious gospel of the blessed God’.

In Romans 1:1-4 Paul writes that he has been ‘set apart for the gospel of God…the Gospel regarding his Son… Jesus Christ our Lord’, and in verse 9 he writes about ‘preaching the gospel of his Son’. So the glorious gospel is centred on Jesus. In Colossians 1:21-23 Paul makes it even more explicit by writing; ‘Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behaviour. But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation — if you continue in your faith, established and firm, not moved from the hope held out in the gospel. This is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, have become a servant’.

So, sound doctrine is that which has its basis in Christ Jesus – in His reconciling act of redemption and in obedience to what He taught.

In the 5^th verse of Romans Chapter 1 Paul writes of his commission ‘to call people from among all the Gentiles to the obedience that comes from faith’. So, sound doctrine includes a call to obedience to Jesus Christ. It is neither myth nor law, but rather the good news of salvation in Christ Jesus and obedience to His instruction.

It strikes me that much of what various groups promote as sound doctrine is more like the false doctrine Paul had in mind. Teaching the dogma of a particular theological persuasion does not in itself constitute sound doctrine. Calling the loyal to obedience to a church hierarchy or to a system of legalistic behavioural patterns does not constitute sound doctrine.

I think that we are living in times where many people no longer teach or receive sound doctrine. It is all too easy to see this in non-Christian religions, cult systems and so on. However, the lack of sound doctrine in the church itself is a bigger, if less obvious, problem. Sections of the church teach easy-believerism masquerading as Grace, others teach name-it-and-claim-it prosperity, and yet others teach complex theological systems and philosophies. Some sections of the church major on moralistic modes of behaviour while others teach that anything goes so long as it is ‘loving’. I think Paul had this sort of thing in mind when he wrote; ‘For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear (2 Timothy 4:3-4).

To restore sound doctrine to the church is to return to a focus on the Lord Jesus Christ; who He is, what He achieved for us, what He taught and practiced, and what He expects of us.

Sound Doctrine Read More »

Published Articles

What we need most

When I look at the state of the world and our nation, and hear the contentions of Evangelical world church leaders that much of the church has fallen asleep, then I have great hope.

Jesus Deficit Disorder

God is in control?

It’s a Friday early-morning prayer meeting and one of the regulars is recounting to God the many problems in our troubled world.

The essential nature of man

There is a well-known saying attributed to St. Augustine; ‘In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; in all things, charity’.

Sound Doctrine

Paul warned that the time would come when people would no longer welcome sound doctrine (2 Timothy 4:3) and most Bible-believing Christians suspect that time has indeed come. The problem though is ‘what constitutes sound doctrine?’

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