By Pastor Tedd Mathis
An acquaintance recently posted the following on Facebook:
It is not your job to convert people to your way of thinking. It is your job to speak your truth so that others may find theirs.
To which I replied: “Seems to me, you’re trying to convert me.”
Do you see it? The post is evangelistic. The author is attempting to convert readers to his way of thinking. The author assumes what he believes others should believe. His truth – that every person has his own truth — should be believed by everyone else.
Fuel Injected Chocolate Chip Cookies
As I write this essay, I assume the words I write convey meaning – and that what I mean to say can be understood by you, the reader. If I write, “The sky is blue,” I don’t expect any English reading/speaking reader to understand that statement is about fuel injected chocolate chip cookies. Yes, that last phrase is supposed to be nonsensical; that is my point.
Words not only have meaning, but we inevitably treat them as having the capacity to be accurate. If I use the word “snake” I assume you will not interpret that word to be referring to cut flowers. Words assume meaning, Meaning assumes accuracy. Accuracy assumes truth. Truth assumes authority.
Today, we live in a civilization in which words are used authoritatively to teach others there is no authoritative truth. Behind this is a belief system known as philosophical pluralism, also known as relativism. Back in 2009 DA Carson wrote: “One cannot fail to observe a crushing irony: the gospel of relativistic tolerance is perhaps the most “evangelistic” movement in Western culture at the moment, demanding assent and brooking no rivals…
“The impact of philosophical pluralism on Western culture is incalculable. It touches virtually every discipline—history, art, literature, anthropology, education, philosophy, psychology, the social sciences, even, increasingly, the “hard” sciences—but it has already achieved popularity in the public square, even when its existence is not recognized.” *
Try out the following recipe for fuel-injected cookies:
Fritz: Everything is relative.
Christian: Is that true?
Fritz: Absolutely.
Christian: So, it is absolutely true everything is relative. By what authority do you make that claim?
Fritz: That’s what is true for me.
Christian: Well, I believe there is absolute truth.
Fritz: But that is your truth. I do not believe there is absolute truth.
Christian: Is that true – that there is no absolute truth?
Fritz: Absolutely.
An Adjustable Gospel for Consumers
Jesus and His apostles made absolute truth claims – about God, about right and wrong, about Jesus, about humans. For example, Jesus said, “I am the way the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father but by me” (John 14:6). His Apostle, Peter, stated, “There is salvation in no one else…” (Acts 4:12). “There is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (I Timothy 2:5) wrote the Apostle Paul. “There is none righteous, not even one… All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:9, 23). The Bible makes explicitly clear there is One way of salvation – one Gospel (see Galatians 1:6-10).
Living in a civilization that operates as though there is no final absolute has done a number on the proclamation of the Gospel. Sadly, a good amount of what passes for Christianity offers an adjustable message for consumers. If individuals determine their own truth, then the Gospel is what they believe it to be – and the church must accommodate the market in which no one is wrong because no one is right. For many the only heresy is the claim there is such a thing as heresy.
Carson: “(T)he pressures from philosophical pluralism tend to squash any strong opinion that makes exclusive truth claims—all, that is, except the dogmatic opinion that all dogmatic opinions are to be ruled out, the dogmatic opinion that we must dismiss any assertion that some opinions are false.”
Yet the message of the Bible is unbudgingly dogmatic. It places all humanity in one category – sinners under the just condemnation of God (Romans 1:18-32; 5:12). And it places the sinless man Christ Jesus as the only hope for any descendant of Adam. Paul wrote “God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent, because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead” (Acts 17:30-31).
To those who adjust the Gospel of Christ, the Bible unmistakably damns them: 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! As 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! (Galatians 1:8-9)
In season and out of season
The Apostle Paul spoke of days in which many will hold to a form of religion, but they deny its power (II Tim. 3:5). Many will demand a neutered Gospel, and many will provide it (II Tim 4:3-4). The message of Christ will be tamed. Seeking the man’s approval, many in the name of Christ has done so…
Praise the Lord, there are many pastors and churches who do not tame the Gospel. Each week we pray for pastors and churches and missionaries around our globe who faithfully hold forth the truth that will not change. May their tribe increase.
The God who is Truth has a sure word for me as a pastor, and for us as a church:
I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by His appearing and His kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction.
– II Timothy 4:1-2
*D.A. Carson, The Gagging of God: Christianity Confronts Pluralism, 2009