We have been in a series called Deconstructing and Reconstructing Faith. Our effort has been to consider some of the common reasons people question their faith and walk away from God, Jesus, the scriptures, or the faith. As I noted in the first lesson, there is not any way for me to address every concern that people have. But I wanted to talk about the things that I am seeing and hearing that are moving people away from God. This lesson is part 2 of Deconstructing Authority. Last week we started on the ground, building a foundation about biblical authority. We noted that it does matter what we do. It does matter how we live our lives and it does matter how we worship. We further observed that good feelings and good motives cannot be the basis by which we determine what God wants us to do. We also noted that silence is not authority either. Just because the scriptures “do not say that we can’t” does not authorize us to act in our lives or in our worship. If you missed that lesson, I hope you will go back and listen to it from the website. In our lesson we are going to continue our discussion about how to find God’s will for our lives. Let’s begin by talking about some of the solutions that have been more recently proposed to help us understand God’s authority for our lives.
Bad Solution: Don’t Talk About Authority
You might find this to be an interesting solution, but it is a frequent solution I have encountered. The solution to determine any action or issue is to not talk about it. I had a friend consider moving to an area of the country. He reached out to the church that he was considering and asked them about some of their teachings. One of his concerns was what the church taught on marriage, divorce, and remarriage. The preacher responded that he did not need to worry about that because they did not teach on that subject.
I heard a preacher proclaim that he has not taught on the subject of authority the whole time he had been preaching there for them. The reason he gave was that these issues had been decided for this church. Friends, I do not see how this is helpful for at least two reasons. First, assuming everyone knows why we do what we do is a bad assumption. Just because the practice and teaching of the church had been decided before does not set it in stone. The members and leaders of the church are constantly changing. Further, we want to explain to those who become followers of Jesus about our reasoning. We want to explain to the younger the reasoning for our practices. Friends, we see in the scriptures that the knowledge of God can be lost in less than a generation. The church in Ephesus had already left its first love when we read about it in the book of Revelation. We read about the generation after Joshua not knowing the Lord. We must teach God and his will and authority, not merely assume it.
Second, this indicates is that we can decide for ourselves what we want to believe and what we want to practice. There is this idea that we can decide for ourselves what we are going to practice. The church is not a democracy where we decide what teachings we will believe and practice. But Jesus never told anyone this. Jesus never said to not worry about talking about the teachings of the scriptures. The apostles spend every letter talking to some extent about how we are to live our lives before God. It is not a good thing to not talk about God’s authority over our lives. It is not helpful to say that I personally would not practice something, but every church has to decide for themselves. We need to be transparent. Does it matter or not? Does it matter what we practice and how we worship or not? It is not up to each church to decide about what day they take the Lord’s Supper or if they have instruments or not. Again, we cannot assume that these things do not matter. As we noted in our last lesson, we saw many people who thought it didn’t matter how they did something before God and were wrong.
Also, it is not enough to just say, “This is what we do.” We need to teach why we do what we do. I think this is also part of the problem that needs discussion. People sat in pews hearing that we have to be baptized or have to take the Lord’s Supper every Sunday or any other number of commands but were not told why. So not talking about God’s will and authority is the worst thing we can do. We need to kindly explain why these things are important. I hope you as parents are regularly doing this for your children. There is not a single thing we do in worship that we do not have a reason for doing. We can articulate that reason for every action we do in our worship. We also must be able to say the same thing in our lives. There is nothing we should be doing in our lives that we do not have a spiritual reason for doing. We cannot forget that God is a holy God and we must live in the way that he tells us to and worship him the way he says.
Bad Solution: Keep Handed Down Traditions
Another way people approach God is to just keep doing what we have always been doing. Traditions become the new authority. Friends, I recently read a preacher write that he does not think that the scriptures are our only authority. He noted that we also have the handed down traditions as our authority. I would like to draw your attention to Galatians 1:6-9.
I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed. (Galatians 1:6-9 ESV)
What did Paul say was the only authority? The only authority was the gospel that the apostles preached, which was written down for us (cf. Ephesians 3:3-5). There is not another authority. Paul did not care if a preacher said or a pope taught it. He does not care if some teaching had been passed down for two thousand years. If it is different than what he proclaimed, then that person who proclaimed the contrary teaching was to be accursed. So what did Paul mean when he spoke about keeping traditions?
So then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by our spoken word or by our letter. (2 Thessalonians 2:15 ESV)
You will notice that every time Paul speaks about holding traditions he is talking about what he and the apostles taught. He is not talking about human traditions. In fact, Paul condemned following human traditions (cf. Colossians 2:8) and so did Jesus (cf. Matthew 15:1-6; Mark 7:3-13). Friends, anyone who claims that their teaching stands side by side with the scriptures is accursed. No human has any authority beyond the scriptures. No teaching has any authority unless it is written in God’s word. It does not matter if church fathers held it for 1700 years. It does not matter if a church has practiced it for 1700 years. Paul said that he did not care if an angel came down and told you to do something. If it was different than the delivered word of God, it was to be rejected and that angel was accursed. Scriptures are our only authority.
Bad Solution: A Christ-Centered Hermeneutic
Another teaching that is gaining traction is that we need to have a Christ-centered way of interpreting the scriptures. Now I understand where this teaching is coming from. In listening to this person, he makes some important points. He says that we need to read the scriptures and ask what does this tell us about God. That is exactly right. We do need to read the scriptures and see what every sentence teaches us about God. He said we need to read the scriptures to see how the gospel is proclaimed in the text and how does it reveal Jesus. This is also exactly right. He said that he need to read the scriptures and learn what does this text tell us about ourselves. We completely agree here also. He also said that we need to read the scriptures and think about how we can embody the life God and how we can become more like Jesus. Yet again this is right! In fact, you might notice that for years in our Bible studies we ask these questions: what did you learn about God, what did you learn about yourself, and what did you learn that you need to change in your life. Let me state here, if the only way you read the Bible is just looking for rules and patterns, then you have not read it correctly and have missed so much of the scriptures. We need to read to the scriptures to see God, see the gospel, see Jesus, and see ourselves.
But then he said that rather than looking for a pattern in Acts and in the epistles, we should look for the pattern in Jesus. Okay, but what does this mean and what does this look like? Finding the pattern in Jesus leaves us with some of the same difficulties. So am I not supposed to have a home like Jesus? Am I to go to a mountain alone to pray like Jesus did? Am I to fast in the wilderness for 40 days like Jesus? Saying that our authority is to pattern our lives after Jesus does not clarify how we do this. Further, how can we possibly say that we want to follow the example of Jesus, but we do not want to follow the example of the apostle Paul? Why would we not want to follow the example of the apostles revealed to us in the scriptures? Why would we not want to follow the example of the first century Christians as revealed to us in the scriptures? Why would we not want to follow the example of the people of faith in the scriptures? Why wouldn’t Abraham be our example of faith? Why wouldn’t Joseph or Job be our example of endurance? Listen to what Paul said about the examples in the scriptures:
Now these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come. (1 Corinthians 10:11 ESV)
For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope. (Romans 15:4 ESV)
Also listen to what Paul said about himself:
Brothers, join in imitating me, and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us. (Philippians 3:17 ESV)
Paul also taught this in 2 Thessalonians 3:7-9. The writer of Hebrews taught that we are to remember our spiritual leaders and imitate their faith (Hebrews 13:7). So it sounds good to say that we need to have a Christ-centered hermeneutic. But we cannot cut out the rest of the scriptures and say that these are not examples for us and instructions for us. The apostles plainly said that we were to read these accounts as examples and for our instruction so that we would have encouragement, endurance, and hope.
Solution: Standard Communication
So how should we read the scriptures and determine God’s will and authority for our lives? I submit to you that the way God speaks to us is the same way that we speak to each other. How do you give instructions to your children? How do you teach your children? How did your parents teach and instruct you? You tell them what to do and how to do it. You can show them what to do and how to do it. You can also imply your expectation to your children. This is just the way we communicate. This is how communication works in your family. This is how communication works at your work. You are told what to do. You are shown what to do. You infer what you are supposed to do based on other words or actions from your superior. As much as we might try to create another method of understanding, this is the way we communicate. There is no other way. This is how we communicate with strangers. Suppose you are at a four way stop. You and another car pull up to the stop signs at the exact same time. The other car flashes its headlights at you. What do you do? You wave your hand and go. Why? Did he tell you to go? No. Did he show you how to go? No. He implied that you are to go with the headlights flashing.
When we come to learning about God’s will and authority, we do the same thing. We look for what God told us to do. We look for what God showed us to do. We look if God is implying for us to do things. Acts 15 is a great example of this process. There is a gathering of Christians in Acts 15 regarding the question of circumcision on Gentiles. What is notable about Acts 15 is that they had miraculous spiritual gifts. Yet this was not the way they determined God’s will. They determined God’s will regarding circumcision by considering what did God say, what did God show, and what did God imply. James says that God commanded Gentile entrance without circumcision in the prophets (cf. Acts 15:13-21). Paul says that God showed that Gentiles could enter the kingdom without circumcision because God worked miracles through him and Barnabas (cf. Acts 15:12-13). Peter says that God implied that Gentiles could enter the kingdom without circumcision because he saw a vision about not calling animals unclean if God made them clean. The Spirit fell on the Gentiles and the implication was clear. Gentiles could enter the kingdom without circumcision (cf. Acts 15:7-11). What we are simply doing when we come to the scriptures is we are asking if God told us what to do, showed us what to do, or implied what we are to do.
Conclusion
Doy Moyer wrote a very important way for us to think about how we look at God and authority. He says to consider the following four options. Do we need God’s authority for all we do? Do we need to have God’s authority for most of what we do? Do we need to have God’s authority for some of what we do? Do we need to have God’s authority for none of what we do? Which is the viable option? We have spent two lessons showing that we need to have God’s authority for all we do in life and all we do in worship.
Further, we agree that we need to think about how we read the scriptures. We need to read all of the scriptures and consider what we learn about God, what we learn about the gospel, how we see Jesus in the scriptures, and what we learn about ourselves. We do need to join Jesus in the gospel story and be like Jesus. But we cannot exclude the fact that God also tells us what do in his word. God shows us what to do through the pages of the scriptures. God also implies many things for us to do in his word. Not only did the apostles themselves say this, they also showed that this is how they determined God’s will. So we follow their instructions and their example, which was revealed to us through the scriptures.
Now here is where I want to end and what I want you to think about today and this week. Are you doing things in your life that God did not authorize? Are you making decisions that do not fit what God has shown, told us, and implied to us? Are you living your life in a way that Jesus told us to live, showed us to live, and implied for us to do? Imagine your day tomorrow and imagine Jesus walking behind you for the day as your shadow. Would your life be approved by Jesus? Would all that we do be defensible to him because we are living our lives by the word of God?
And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. (Colossians 3:17 ESV)