Polemics - Discernment - Polemics: How is it done?
Randy Peterman · Jul 12, 2015
Defense of the Faith, No. 27
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/492659152749

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Well, this morning, I'm actually very excited to teach this lesson. I got to teach this lesson a decade ago, or whenever we did this class the first time. Last week, my dad did an intro to polemics. And this morning, we're going to talk about practical polemic interactions. How do we do this? Because it's one thing I found when you have A definition of what something is. So did does anybody have a working definition of polemics for us? If not, I've got one. But I thought I'd ask anyone to remember what polemics is. Polemics is the written or verbally stated argument against a position because you're dissenting against a position.

That's a very generic and broad statement. Within our context, it's when we interface with people in Christendom as a whole who have ignored biblical text and embraced some other non-biblical idea. So with apologetics, we're defending the faith against the skeptic and the atheist, and with polemics, we're defending biblical Christianity against either cults that are still identified as Christian, such as Mormons or Jehovah's Witnesses, or other denominations where they have really strongly veered away from biblical exposition. The first thing that we have here is how is it done? So we want to talk about what the Bible says. That's fundamentally what we're doing when we're doing polemics. We're saying, what does the scripture say?

Because who wants to have Randy Peterman be the authority of all that is true? I can guarantee you that not even my wife wants that, and she loves me dearly. I don't qualify as the source of authority. That would be terrible. But, as we mentioned last week, there are traditions within Christendom that have been embraced by various groups that have nothing to do with Scripture. And we as believers, fundamentally, we want to start with, what does the Bible say?

When I interacted with a Jehovah's Witness earlier this year, it was a cold, snowy day. I was waiting at the bus stop, and he saw me as he drove by. And he said, sweet, I have a captive audience. And I had just missed my bus. So I had like 25 minutes sitting there, dead meat, right?

And so I started to talk to him about the scripture. I didn't talk to him about what I thought. I didn't talk to him about what he thought. I said, what does the scripture say? And I wasn't going to let him veer the conversation off to opinions or thoughts that were external to Scripture, it's, what does the Scripture say?

That's where we have to go. So it's important that Scripture is the authority and that the Spirit is the one doing the leading. The Spirit might move in a believer's heart and mind without our direct involvement as agents, so to speak. It is possible that someone has a theological error, and the Holy Spirit will just come alongside and correct that, and it won't involve us. But it is possible that we as believers may be involved.

I know I have had on several occasions the opportunity to have email exchanges with people that were long and lengthy, and they went a really long time, and I kept harping on this crazy grace idea, and they thought I was nuts for it. and then we stopped emailing because tempers flared apparently and then the person was reading the scriptures like it was a year later and they got through Ephesians and the Holy Spirit exposed the quality of grace through the scripture. It wasn't me. It wasn't anything I did. I was obnoxiously annoying, apparently.

But the truth of the scriptures and the work of the Holy Spirit came together to teach. And so sometimes polemics is something that the Holy Spirit does without us. That corrective voice through the scriptures. But because the scripture is the authority and the Holy Spirit is the authority, we don't have to worry about being awesome ourselves.

Which is good, because we're not, right? So next, I've got a list here, and this is certainly incomplete, but I've got a list of things to watch out for. Some of these might sound familiar from the apologetics class, because sometimes there are similar problems. We're not going to go actually into logical fallacies in this, but what we want to take away from this is an understanding of things to watch out for, because it's very easy when you're discussing something where there's disagreement to get off track and There's no fruit in that.

So, the first sentence I have here under know your view and other views is polemics should not be a debate. Why should polemics not be a debate? What's a debate? Has anybody been to a debate before? I got a few head nods. He's got a question. Oh, okay, you've got a question. What is polemics again? Okay, polemics is the written or verbal dissent against some position. Okay, that's the definition in the dictionary. The way we're applying that in our class is that we would write or speak against heretical theology or errant theology.

Is it a defense or an attack? Well, it might be a defense and it might be an attack. If you know the position and someone else has approached you, like the Jehovah's Witness that approached me, it's going to be a defensive maneuver. But if I were to approach someone who is a Jehovah's Witness, unbeknownst to me, but I'm prepared to preach the gospel to somebody, and they turn around and they want to proverbially swashbuckle, then it might be that I'm coming. But it's opposition is basically, yeah. But in our case, it's opposition against bad theology.

But coming back around to the question why it's not a debate, is a debate is often about levying the merit of one idea over another. But we're not interested in merit of ideas, are we? What are we interested in? What's the one thing we care about? truth. So it's not a debate. If you see people engaging and you can start to tell by their approach that they just want to debate, my personal suggestion to you would be to say, you know what, we're not getting anywhere with this.

Why don't you pray and think about this, assuming you're talking to someone who is a believer but has been distracted by false teachers, or Just kind of redirect the conversation somewhere else, because if you're going to spin your wheels, and I used to really love to argue. My parents told me I should have grown up to be an attorney. And I didn't care if I was right, I cared if I could make you wrong. And that is obviously a bad position, but when people get argumentative and they're not listening, that's debate, and you may want to step aside from that.

The next sentence here that I think is really important, it's two or more distinct and clear views that need to be understood and evaluated with what is distinct and clear in Scripture. So if it's possible that you have two errors, and when you go to Scripture, you see that it's two errors. Okay, you submit yourself to the Scripture and you go, wow, I had an errant view and the other person had an errant view. But with the Scripture being the authority. But it's important to understand what the view is.

How many of you have ever, and I'm sure this never happens at Holly Hills, you've been in an argument maybe with a spouse or a good friend and you have argued and argued for a while and you come to find out 45 minutes in that you didn't even understand what the other person was saying. No one? No one? I got a few smiles at least. You're laughing at me because you know I did it.

But you need to distinctly understand the other position when you engage somebody on this. That's important because what happens if you don't understand the position? What are you arguing towards? You may not be using the right vocabulary or defining the right words to make sure that you're arguing towards the truth.

How many of you have ever heard a Jehovah's Witness or a Mormon come up and say, oh, we're Christians too? And yet then they want to compel you to go to their church. Well, if we're both Christians, you should just walk away. But they don't. They're not concerned about you actually being a Christian. They want you to believe in the Prophet Joseph Smith and Brigham Young and the Angel Moroni and the gold plates. Stan? And the saddest thing is they want you to go to their books.

Yeah, and actually the next sentence here I think actually is very relevant to that. It is important to note that obscure text in scripture should usually not be the major proof text for a view. And I put that in there because it's often that there will be strong division over one verse. How many of you have heard of the baptism of the dead? It's actually in 2nd Corinthians. Paul writes it and, wait, 2nd Corinthians or 1st Corinthians? Somebody help me. Nobody remembers 1 Corinthians? Apologies on the recording that I don't have that memorized.

The baptism of the dead is mentioned there once, but the Mormons have made an entire doctrine out of it. It doesn't seem to be fitting to theologically say that you are saving someone after they die who didn't believe by being baptized for them. That doesn't fit into any other scripture or Christian theology. But here's this group that's made an entire doctrine on it. So using a small, single verse that doesn't have any corroborating doctrine and theology might be a bit of a weakness there. Okay, so knowing the other view is important, but have this awareness.

The next thing here, and this is a military term, I said don't strafe. How many of you know what strafing is in the military? I have never been in the military. I have a relative and good friends who are in the military. I have gone paintballing and in paintballing there's also strafing. So I do have some personal experience with this. Strafing is the idea that you're moving and you're shooting as fast as you can and then you get out of the way and you hide. That's generally the pattern of strafing.

So why would that be bad in an interaction with somebody that you're trying to convince of what the Bible says? If Pat and I just strongly disagree on some doctrine, and I don't know what that would be, but we'll pretend that that doesn't matter for this illustration, and I come up to Pat and I've got 20 really good arguments against his position, and I just hit him one after the other, and then say, I gotta go. Did I change his mind? I might have brought confusion. He may not have been able to even interact with me enough to understand those 20 arguments. And so that kind of strategy is probably not a good one.

I used to do that all the time. We had a Mormon stake center that was right across the street from our house. And I memorized all the arguments against Mormonism. And then I'd meet a Mormon kid, poor souls, these kids would come up and they didn't even know it was coming.

And I'd just blast them away with these 20 arguments and then just, bell rang, time to go to the next class. wasn't a discussion. We didn't get anywhere. It was just hammering them real fast and then going. That's probably not a good strategy. The next one here is really important to me because I've also done this one. And that is know the root issue. How many of you have had an argument with somebody, I know, let's pick an easy one. How many of you have argued with somebody on a political level about some issue that's hot in the news.

Anyone? No one? Nobody? Everybody's smiling, but nobody wants to own up to it. But what you'll often do is you'll have these political arguments, they'll be up in the ether, so to speak, up in the middle level of whatever that topic might be, and not get down to the root issue of whatever the problem is.

I found that I, and I'm not suggesting that we should all go around having political arguments, but I found that when I run into somebody that I disagree with politically, by taking the argument down to the fact that there's real people really involved who need real help, their Republican-Democrat argument disappears and instead we actually start talking about the heart of the matter. And the same thing goes with scripture. When we talk about middle doctrines and high-level ideas that are based on two or three layers of other theological concepts, We can spin our wheels.

It's been a really long time not actually hitting the root of the issue So as believers when we when we come into things We need to make sure we're not dealing with symptoms The illustration that I've gotten here is a real-life illustration I have corn allergies and I went into the doctor one time and I said I've got this rash all over my my body and What do you think I should do?

And they said, well, we've got this really high power rash cream that's guaranteed to take away the rash. And you'll just have to put it on your body your whole life. And so I decided that that may be not the solution I wanted. So I had to figure out what it is that was causing me to have the rash. And the answer is corn. I won't go into too much more detail other than to say that I was having a lot of corn. So ingesting and putting corn products on my body was a really bad idea. I just didn't know it until we figured out that was the problem. But we had to hit the root issue. Otherwise, I was just going to be dealing with symptoms instead of getting down to the root of it.

It doesn't matter. who is more right between one group and another if they're strapped to labels and they're strapped to all of these higher-level arguments. The next one that's on here is don't get distracted. It's easy to go chasing rabbit trails in discussions. I love rabbit trails. They're my favorite. I can chase a rabbit trail for hours and days and I'll probably follow a few more rabbit trails off of those and I'll be off in the woods lost and we've made no progress on the root issue that I should have been focusing on.

The example that's here is actually talking about Calvinism. How many of you have heard of five-point Calvinism? Tulip five-point Calvinism? There's three, four, five, and I like to call them seven-point Calvinists. The MacArthur group has figured out how to add more rules into Calvinism.

But the root issue is this. Is Calvinism a scripturally commanded set of doctrines? this label of Calvinism, is it scripturally commanded? No. Are there doctrines that we can see in scripture that might be inside of what we call Calvinism? Yeah, there are some things in there that are true, but what we get is people who are latched onto this label. and they want to argue in the defense of that label and some tenets of it instead of focusing on the scripture.

It's the wrong focus and you can get rabbit-trailed off on it. There are weeks of my life I will never get back from discussing this topic with people. It would have been fruitful to have exposited God's Word and studied it and gone over it and established a deeper relationship with these believers through the scriptures rather than arguing and debating back and forth and chasing after whether it should be three, four, five, or seven points. I don't know what the letters are after tulip with the seven pointers, but the five pointers have tulip, so if you hear that, that's what that is. But don't get distracted, don't follow those rabbit trails, because those are not going to bear fruit. The next one is differences in definition. And this one is really, really important.

How many of you have heard of ETC, Evangelicals and Catholics Together, or ECT? ETC is et cetera. Evangelicals and Catholics Together was a group from some time back that that signed a joint doctrinal statement between Protestants and Catholics, trying to bring unity together, we're going to bridge this gap of Catholicism versus Protestantism. We're just going to sign the same doctrinal statement, and if we all can sign it, Everything will be better, right?

This ecumenical movement. But the problem is that everybody could sign what they came up with, but nobody was defining the words the same way. So your consequence of that is that everybody signed it, but nobody meant the same thing. There was no agreement. It was superficial.

Stan? Kind of like negotiating with Iran. Yeah. Well, and that's one of the issues in dealing with some groups of Islam is that they hold to the idea that we can lie to the non-Muslim population and it's okay because they don't defend Allah, so they're liars themselves. So because of their presupposition, there will not be agreement, there will not be fruit in those situations. Different definitions get you in trouble every time. The next one on here is rhetoric.

I went to a eschatological debate. Again, there's that word, debate, again. So it was probably a mistake in the first place. But we got extra credit points in class if we went to the debate in seminary. And I needed the extra credit. So we went to the debate. And the guy who was mid-trib had a phenomenal PowerPoint presentation and was a really good speaker.

And he used rhetoric very well. He didn't exposit the text like I think we would do here at Holly Hills and be careful to derive the conclusions that we do, but he could sell his position very well. And rhetoric is one of those things that's really compelling. Most of marketing today is based on using the right rhetoric and the right lingo to get you to stop thinking about the problem and just buy the product, right?

How many of you have seen those commercials where someone can't handle really basic home ec skills? Like, I can't figure out how to flip this pancake. I wish I had this pancake flip-o 2000 thing. And you're like, really? This is not the hardest problem in life. Practice a few minutes. But marketing is this, we're going to pitch it and sell it in some way that you're like, wow, that does look really cool. I didn't know I needed a pancake flip-o 2000. rhetoric and spiel can be distracting.

The next one that's on here is actually quite related to the differences in definition. But this is a made-up word that my buddies that I used to work with, Dave and Trent, both believers, circummunication. And circummunication is the idea that you just keep going round and round because you You haven't defined the words properly, and you haven't understood the problem properly, so you keep coming around to the same thing, and you're making no progress. And the idea is that you spend all this time, you think you're communicating, you think you're stating the idea, but if you don't understand the problem, if you don't understand the person's position, you're just going to go in circles, around and around and around. Circummunication is something that I have found myself caught up in on a few occasions.

Never on purpose, but when you find out that that's what's happened, it's really irritating because you're like, man, we could have saved so much time. We could have actually resolved this or put it away and been in agreement with so much time. Not on this list, but two things that I just want to quickly point out because I think it would be useful is beware of buts. How many times have you been in a discussion with someone and you make your statement, it's a logical statement, and the person says, yes, but, the yeah, buts. They come out and they're yeah, butting, and usually when you hear the yeah, buts, listen very carefully, because there's a lot of people that will yeah, but their way back to where they were and they didn't hear what you said. Yeah, but is usually a good indicator that you haven't been heard.

So watch out for that. And the other thing is beware of the difference between law and principle. We've spent a lot of time at Holly Hills talking about that over the years, because what's the law do for our actions? Does the law give us a concrete, solid thing that we must do every time? Like when you're playing a game, If the rules change all the time, it's really confusing. We actually have a game that does that.

It's called Star Flux. If you play Monopoly, you're going to go pass Go unless you have to go to jail. And then you do not pass Go. You do not collect $200. But there's rigid rules. But a principle may be more broad, and a principle may not have an application in every certain circumstance. And when you discuss things with people, listen for the principle versus law type statements. You always have to. If you hear those absolute words, that's a really good clue that they're not talking about a principle when you may be.

The principle of grace is much more complicated than the idea of legalistic grace. Because legalistic grace says, grace is for when I sin. That's it. But the way Paul describes grace, the way that grace is described in the scriptures as a principle, is broader than that. It motivates us. It gives us liberty.

Well, that doesn't fit into their definition. And you need to make sure that when you're talking about something, that not only do you have the same definition, but you have the same working context for something. All right, so those are a list of things to be aware of as we talk about approaching polemics as something that may happen in our lives. The next section that we've got here are biblical examples of polemics.

And I love Paul because Paul is a very logical thinker and a logical writer and his flow often matches a good sequence of arguments. But we're not going to start with Paul, but we'll get to Paul. We're going to start with Mark. So let's look at Christ, because he also was logical.

And where did Christ always go when he was refuting the legalists and the Sadducees and Pharisees? Where did he go? The Scriptures. Every time. And it was awesome. I'm certain that the Sadducees and the Pharisees found it very irritating, because there was no way to refute it, because it wasn't Christ's authority. It was Christ's authority. He is the Word of God. He is God, but he spoke so that they couldn't argue. Mark 12, 18-27.

Some Sadducees who say that there is no resurrection came to Jesus and began questioning him, saying, Moses wrote for us that if a man's brother dies and leaves behind a wife and leaves no child, his brother should marry the wife and raise up children to his brother.

There were seven brothers, and the first took a wife and died, leaving no children. The second one married her and died, leaving behind no children, and the third likewise. And so all seven left no children. Last of all, the woman died also. I'm always glad that they put that little detail there. She's going to die eventually, right? And in the resurrection, when they rise again, which one's wife will she be? For all seven had married her. Jesus said to them, is this not the reason you are mistaken, that you do not understand the scriptures or the power of God? Bam! He hits them right where it is.

You don't understand the scriptures. We're not going to mess around. This isn't about what Christ said. He's not just a rabbi. This is what the scriptures say. Verse 25, for when they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. They are not angels. We don't die and become angels. But he's saying they're like the angels. They don't marry.

But regarding the fact that the dead rise again, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the passage about the burning bush, how God spoke to him saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? He is not the God of the dead, but of the living. You are greatly mistaken."

So Christ goes to the scriptures. Now the Sadducees believed that only the first five books, the writings of Moses, were the scripture. They didn't count for doctrine any of the other books that came after that. But where does Christ go? He goes to the first five books, the Torah.

He goes right there, and so not only does he answer them from where they think the holy scriptures are for doctrine, but then he hits at the root issue. He goes, listen, you're asking this highfalutin thing that's up here, let's go to the problem, which is right here. Here's where your problem is. You don't believe that we're eternal spirits and eternal beings. You believe that we're temporary. The Sadducees didn't actually believe in the afterlife.

Christ nailed them on that one. This is what God said. And they had no argument for that. But it was the scripture that was the authority. Christ was rather intimate with it, right? He was led by the Spirit to say the words the Father commanded him to say. But he went to the Scripture. When Satan tempts Christ, where does he go?

The Scriptures. Every time. And because they reflect the very character of God and the will of God and the intent of God, they can be used with authority. And because he cared as God, as the Son of God, so deeply about those Truths being maintained and carried through he went right there. Here's the scriptures. I know these and I know that you know these Let's talk about this right at the root of the problem Okay, the next the next one here is Paul Okay, so Christ goes to the authority of scriptures.

Let's let's go and turn to Galatians chapter 1 verse 1 and 2 and So Paul writes, Paul, an apostle, not sent from men nor through the agency of man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead, and all the brethren who are with me to the churches of Galatia. So where does Paul's authority go to? Does he claim his own authority even though he is an apostle? He doesn't stop with just Paul an apostle. If you've studied the book of Galatians, and I think a lot of the folks in this room have, Galatians is very much about countering the error of false Gospels, right?

So what does he do right away? He actually hits on key doctrines of the Gospel within the first several words of the book. This being sent by Jesus, who was sent by God, And Jesus was the one who was raised from the dead. Critical, key element of the Gospel. He starts by nailing that.

But it's the authority of God and the authority of Christ. Not just the authority of Paul. Was Paul interested in himself and building himself up and being the super-apostle? Paul doesn't want to be the super-apostle. He wants people to hear the Gospel and he wants them to respond to it. He wants the Church to grow and be established and respond to the Spirit. So the authority there is again this idea that the scriptures are what matter.

And to further emphasize that, if we turn to verses 8 through 10, we see, But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be accursed. We have said before, so I say again now, if any man is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you received, he is to be accursed. For am I now seeking the favor of men or of God, or am I striving to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a bondservant of Christ." Again, God has already established His gospel, and He is the authority, and I am serving Him. Paul's not important. God is important. Christ is important. The Gospel is important.

But his refutation is not just of his own authority, right? Paul doesn't just respond and say, you gotta listen to me, because I'm an apostle. If we go down the street, let's see, which direction are we here? I think if we go down this street here and hit Yale, there's an apostolic succession church. where they believe that their pastor actually has the same apostolic authority as Peter or Paul, and so he can speak with that kind of authority. So how do you counter that kind of authority? With the Scriptures. But even that, the Catholic Church holds that the Pope can speak as new scripture, new commandments, and new statements.

So we have to lean heavily on this to defend why that's not a probable scenario. But that's a rabbit trail. I did it. So we see here that the authority that's there is important. The different gospel was critically flawed and would not lead to salvation. Paul specifically states that it doesn't matter who the source of the false gospel is, it should be rejected. So we have this idea here that it's very, very important that we have the right authority, and it's a stable authority, and it's the Scriptures. And anything that comes from outside of that, we need to reject.

Alright, so how did we get here? How did we get to this point where Christendom is just totally split up? And you've got Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses and Seventh-day Adventists running around saying they're Christians, but they really don't look at the Scriptures the same way we do. How did we get to this point?

When we take a look at Genesis 6, we begin to see that the flesh and carnality had caused people to walk away. And what does Genesis 6 describe the world doing, or the whole book of Judges? People did what? what was right in their own eyes. Isn't that the worst? When we look at the world around us, we're surrounded by people all the time who did what was right in their own eyes. And so we talk about moral relativism, which we'll get into at a different point in time. Moral relativism is this idea that you just do what's right in your own eyes.

It didn't do well for the nation of Israel. It didn't do well for mankind. It certainly has not done good things for Christianity in splitting us up. So new groups and movements have started because of politics. Obviously politics is a work of the Holy Spirit.

It's part of Galatians 5, right? That we would... No? No one agrees with me that politics is part of the fruit of the Spirit? Okay, so politics is definitely not of the fruit of the spirit, and it's not something that we're going to see, you know, oh, hey, the spirit is leading to great division. Isn't that awesome?

No, that's what he might divide us in the sense of that this is error over here, and we're going to split you away from the error. But But his first work is unity, right? We read Ephesians chapter 4. There's one church and one body and one spirit, and there should be unity there. So politics, geography. Geography is an interesting thing.

How many of you know where the Seventh-day Adventists and the Jehovah's Witnesses came from? What state in the United States? The Jehovah's Witnesses and Seventh-day Adventists came from. Roy's guessing Illinois. It's not Illinois, but it's close. It's Michigan, Southern Michigan. But geographically, there seemed to have been an openness to spiritual, Christian-y sort of ideas, but without good, solid teaching for people to have discernment. And so both of those groups actually came from one broke off of the other, but they started geographically in a place where there was just not good teaching. I'm not saying that mountains cause heretical theology, but I am saying that the Great Lakes do. Just kidding.

Personalities. How many of you have heard of Joel Osteen? Joel Osteen is a personality. He is a person that people have decided to follow. And the guy, I think, has got some error, and one of the things he teaches is that we shouldn't eat bacon, which I think is heretical on many levels. Eat bacon. Christians should know better than to eat bacon. Jesus died so that we could eat pork. Come on, not only so we could eat pork, but he died and we could eat pork as a consequence of that.

Sometimes things will come up where there will be social differences. How many of you have ever been downtown and seen the Mennonites that come through? They ride in on the Amtrak train because trains were invented before history or technological history stopped, right? So they could get on the Amtrak train and come out here to Denver and they can walk around downtown. But they themselves, you know, wear simple clothes and it's all handmade and they live that lifestyle.

And this social difference has nothing to do with doctrine. It has nothing to do with the gospel or anything that's written in scripture. It was just like this weird social difference. Like, I want 1642 values or some arbitrary year. Why? Who knows? But it's not a doctrinal division that we can derive anything in scripture. different bases of authority.

So this is an interesting one, like the Sadducees versus the Pharisees. The Pharisees believed in all of the written Old Testament, and the Sadducees only believed in the first five books. How many of you have ever heard of hyper-dispensationalism? Hyper-dispensationalism says that we only read Pauline books for doctrine for Christianity. because the church wasn't started until Paul reached out to the Gentiles.

So I don't think we can defend that position from various impacts, but it's a totally different base of authority than if we say, well, all of Scripture, like Paul wrote to Timothy, all of Scripture is useful. Not all that applies to us, but we still need to learn it and study and know it, right? Different methods of interpretation.

That's definitely an important one. How many of you have taken the hermeneutics class or the Bible interpretation class that we have as a Sunday school class? If you haven't, it's available online. You can go listen to it on our website. Frankly, the most valuable class I took in seminary was the hermeneutics class because it talked about how to approach the scriptures consistently and carefully, and be able to walk away saying, I know what this says. I know what Paul meant, I know what he intended, and I can understand how this would be applied. All the way start to finish.

But if we have different approaches to interpretation, there's going to be some serious division. Reformed theology, like the Presbyterians would hold, is different from dispensational theology, which is what we hold at Holly Hills. And they interpret very differently. They're two veins. And they kind of agree on how we get to the gospel. But after that, it gets pretty split up.

The last one on this list is failed attempts at reform of organizations. How many of you know Lutheranism? You know, you pass a Lutheran church and you go, ah, Martin Luther. The 95 Theses, right? That's important. Gutenberg door. Well, Martin Luther wanted to reform Catholicism from within.

But the Catholics thought, we don't have ETC yet, or Evangelical Catholics, or ECT yet. And so the Catholics rejected Luther, and he had to run for his life. But he said, well, I still believe mostly Catholic things, so I'm going to just tweak this grace idea that I've read in the scriptures. And now a new group was born. So there was reform that was attempted, but it failed. And then this little short paragraph right here I think is worth just reading straight out.

The apostles taught that there is positionally only one mediator, one church, and one faith. Earthly groups, movements, and organizations don't change that position, but they can be in sharp conflict with it. You'll hear people who will reject one of those things. They'll say that Christ wasn't really the Son of God, like the Jehovah's Witnesses.

Or they'll say that there is one church, as long as it's their church. That's a big problem. And one faith, as long as it's their faith. So they define those things very specifically. It's a definition difference. So let's take a look at 1 Corinthians 1, 10-13.

He says, Now I beseech you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing. And he doesn't stop there, but I want to emphasize that for a second. It's important that we all speak the same thing. Does that mean we're brainwashed? That's not what he's talking about. But that our doctrine is understood and applied the same way. And that there be no divisions among you. but that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.

Whose mind is it that we're joined together in? Is it the elders' mind? Is it Vern and Mike and Roger's minds? Whose mind is it? The mind of Christ. We have the mind of Christ. That's a powerful thing. It's not the authority of the elders, it's the authority of Christ. It's not the authority of the apostles, it's the authority of Christ. And we have that mind. We have that authority that is in us.

For it has been declared to me of you, my brothers, by them which are of the house of Chloe, that there are contentions among you. Now this I say, that every one of you said, I am of Paul, and I am of Apollos, and I of Cephas, and I of Christ. Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? If Christ is the main focus, then those divisions we should see as something that the Spirit wants to work out. The Spirit wants those divisions gone.

Those divisions can happen in Holly Hills. It's possible for church splits. I've been in several now. I'm sadly 37 and a half and I've been through enough church splits to never want to go through one ever, ever, ever again because there's a lot of hearts and a lot of people that get seriously wounded. And some people stop going to church. Why go to church where there's so much division? So we don't want those things at Holly Hills, and we don't want those things anywhere.

There's a list of cross-references here worth checking out. Colossians 3.14 is one we'll take a look at a little later on here if I don't run us out of time. But the unity of the body is who's doing in this. It's Christ doing. It's the work of the Spirit. Now, I want to point out 1 Corinthians 11, 18, and 19 because this is really, really important for us to understand.

For first of all, when you come together in the church, I hear that there be divisions among you, and I partly believe it. For there must be also heresies among you, that they which are approved may be manifest among you." Now, that is not teaching that in every church there should be some heresy mixed around all the time so that we can know who God's elect are. That's not what he's saying. But he's saying in this case, in this church, that there's division, and he's not surprised by it, because when it's there, God will show out who has responsibly addressed the Scriptures and responsibly listened to the Word of the Lord.

And furthermore, as we talk about the history of division in the church, this next section here is death upon division. There's been groups inside of Christendom who have killed in the name of Christ. And I think we can just, and I won't go into this list on page five, but I think we can pretty safely say that that is not the biblical response, that we go kill for Jesus, okay?

Let's not take away from this that this is a good idea. But these groups did, because of political and religious ideals, come together and kill other people that didn't agree with them doctrinally. That's the kind of division we most certainly, certainly don't need, right?

That's terrible. But it is a thing. Sweet, five more minutes. OK. But instead of that, let's take a look at Colossians 3, verses 12 through 14, which for some people in the room, actually, they just recently heard this on Tuesday. Because we went over it at Bible study. But I promise it's not because I'm trying to cut corners. Colossians 3, verses 12 through 14.

So as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another and forgiving each other whoever has a complaint against anyone, just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you. Beyond all these things, put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity. So when we're in the church and we're talking to other people who are believers, I'm not talking about people who are part of cults, but people that you know are believers but have veered off, they've swerved away from careful biblical exposition, Paul's recommendation, and this isn't mine, again, it's not my authority, it's the authority of scripture, Paul's recommendation is that we remember, first of all, that we're chosen of God, and so is the other person. So don't punch them, right? Because they're chosen. That they're also holy. We might be seeing that their doctrine is holy too, but we're going to fix that, right? The Holy Spirit is going to fix that. And that they're beloved.

Who wants to listen to the angry, not loving person? Not me, right? But if you come to me in a loving way, you've got my ear. Even if it is, hey Randy, you're being a pain in the hiney, right? Randy, your theology needs some work over here. But not just there, then we're putting on a heart of compassion. We're clothing ourselves with this idea of compassion, of kindness, of humility, gentleness, and patience. When you're correcting someone's doctrine, gentleness and patience matters a lot.

Because theology is an internal, personalized thing. I don't know if you're aware of that or thought of that before. But if it's a personal and internalized thing, just like politics often is, you're not going to disentangle that and remove that. The shrapnel of pulling out some kind of theological thing quickly could cut a lot of things and leave some scars.

So, patience and gentleness. Not pansiness, not being flimsy and not addressing things clearly and honestly. We're not talking about that. We're talking about gentleness and patience. Let's talk about this. Are we in circummunication loops again? Let's be patient. Ask questions. How are you defining that word? How can I understand how you understand that so we can see how it contrasts with what the word says? bearing with one another and forgiving one another. That one may be slightly less relevant to the polemic scenario.

But verse 14, and this is really critical here, beyond all these things, put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity. And the Greek word there for beyond is the idea of over or covering. So, covering all these things. If you can find a crack in Paul's suggestion of behavior, aha, I can get away with this thing because Paul didn't list it. No, he's saying if there's a crack, let's fill it with the proverbial bondo of love. We're going to fill those cracks with the all-encompassing love. And hopefully in that scenario, we will be effective in communicating doctrinal correction.

Not just in our own circle of influence, but as the Lord might give us interactions with various believers and or other people who aren't believers in the world out there, in the world of Christendom, the broader scope of Christianity as the secular world describes it.

Any other thoughts, questions, things you wish I said, things you wish I hadn't said? There's probably some of those. Somewhat related, last week there was a scripture that said, we're discussing the rapture, Christ will raise the dead on the last day, and your dad said, well there's different resurrections, and the Old Testament faithful, be resurrected, have a different resurrection. So the question comes up when I'm thinking of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are living.

I don't know if you have an answer for that. Sure, well that's maybe not so polemically oriented but the answer to that as I understand is that when we believe through faith, we're saved, right? Even in the Old Testament, we're not saved to Christianity. They weren't saved to Christianity, but they were saved, right? But death is separation from this body, but not separation from the Lord. So they're still alive. They're with Him, but they're not in the eternal state yet. They're not in their final state. They're not in their final state. That's as I understand it.

The hardest part of that doctrine is the fact that we experience life chronologically, in the time-space continuum, and God is above and outside all of that, creating and sustaining it. So, for us, we think, oh man, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are like taken an eternal spiritual nap for thousands of years, waiting for that time, whereas in God's ability to handle time, it might be like that tube at the bank, and they get right to the end a lot faster. They're not taking naps. But it's one of those things where a lot of doctrine in theology presents a chronological ideal, that then when we take on the outer scope of God's being God, it gets interesting.

So when a believer dies today, his spirit is still alive. Still alive with Christ, with God, but not eternally joined in the final state. We should close with prayer. There's people waiting. I'm getting the evil eye. Just kidding. No one ever gives me the evil eye. All right.

Heavenly Father, we come before you and we thank you for the truth of your word. We thank you that you've given us ways to approach division that are biblical and loving and gracious and kind and compassionate. Lord, we just ask that you would give us wisdom and that we walk by the Spirit so that when these opportunities show up, We are not afraid or anxious or angry, but are loving and reflect you. We thank you and praise you in Jesus' name. Amen.