To spot a counterfeit bill. experts are first trained to see the true one. When we learn the basics of theology, we can detect false doctrines. So the whole purpose of the long series is to help God’s Son’s church live in truth and avoid falsehoods and walk in love.
It has been a joy and privilege to write this series. Let’s conclude by focusing on how Theology 101 was purposed to help the church and any other reader.
I. Hyper-teachings
A. Definition
Hyper- means excess. Avoid them
B. Imbalanced
I have observed various “hyper” interpretations that are Bible teachers’ pet doctrines:
Hyper-faith, hyper-charismata, hyper-eschatology, hyper-focus on Israel, hyper-prosperity, hyper-grace, hyper-honor culture (allows bullies in leadership), hyper-empathy, hyper-compassion, hyper-sovereignty, hyper-platform performances, hyper-attention (narcissism), and so on,
In other words, these teachers are out of balance. Take off the prefix “hyper” and you get biblical doctrines (except a few, like attention).
C. Example: Hyper-prosperity
Yes, prosperity is good for the business where you work.
18 But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth, and so confirms his covenant, which he swore to your ancestors, as it is today. […] (Deut. 8:18, NIV)
Everyone can get a job or start a business to create wealth. No problem.
However, hyper-prosperity preachers who twist Scriptures to enrich themselves? No. They harangue people to give them money and then buy luxury items like huge houses and jets.
Apostle Paul Traveled on Cargo Ships
D. Paul’s epistles
The locus of these out-of-balanced teachings is usually Paul’s epistles. The teachers twist or distort his teachings. More specific example of hyper-prosperity: they twist Galatians 3 and claim that the blessing of Abraham is his wealth; therefore, they too get to be wealthy. No. Paul’s argument is that the blessing of Abraham is Christ himself, Abraham’s highest and Messianic descendant, and his gospel. Then by extension everyone in Christ is included in being a blessing to the world because they are equipped to preach Christ and his good news.
E. Warning Scriptures
Here is a passage that warns the “hypers” to stay away from distorting Scripture:
15 Bear in mind that our Lord’s patience means salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom that God gave him. 16 He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction. (2 Peter 3:15-16, emphasis added)
The ESV says “twist” instead of “distort.” The outcome is the same. They are heading for destruction. Note also that they twist other Scriptures, so the problem is not just limited to Paul’s epistles.
Here is the warning:
Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly. (James 3:1)
When teachers get up behind the pulpit or turn on their computer and cameras and links to their socials, to teach the church, God leans forward on his throne to listen very carefully. If they are not well studied and moderate, destruction and stricter judgment will ensue, on this earth or at final judgment or both.
II. Doctrinal Progressivism
A. Brief intro.
I will discuss political and social progressivism in another series. For Theology 101, let’s confine the problem to doctrine.
Progressivism Is Bad for the Church
B. True or false doctrine
Any leader who continuously teaches false doctrines and denies true ones, like the full deity of Christ, his Lordship, and the significance of Christ’s substitutionary atoning death on the cross, is not doing the will of the Father. Jesus instituted the New Covenant by symbolizing it with the bread and wine and then ratifying it by dying in the cross. To deny the full import and the absolute necessity of the cross is to deny the whole purpose of the four Gospels.
C. Authority and Inerrancy of Scripture
If any leader denies the full authority and inerrancy of Scripture for life and morals and doctrine—setting aside the debate between inerrancy in all its parts and infallibility in its doctrine and practice—is not doing the will of the Father. Jesus had a very high view of Scripture, saying David spoke by the Holy Spirit (Matt. 22:43). Obedience to Scripture and Jesus’s teaching is not optional. Though he came to fulfill the OT, he also said it’s a bad idea for teachers to tell people to break them. This is especially true of moral law, which has been imported into the New Covenant.
D. Lowering Jesus’s deity
Any leader who says Jesus was just a good teacher and fine moral example and denies his full deity is not doing the will of the Father. The leader is really not understanding what “Lord, Lord” means. He does not understand what it means when Jesus says, “Depart from me” at judgment. This is a declaration of repudiation in Rabbinic usage current back then, but Jesus elevates the severity by placing those words at the final judgment. His being the judge show his full deity.
Here are other verses that explain his full humanity and full deity:
7. Do I Really Know Jesus? Thirty Truths about His Life
E. Downplaying obedience
Any leader not obeying Jesus’s teaching in the Sermon on the Mount and the rest of the Gospel (and depending on God’s power and grace to help him) is bound for a crashing fall. This obedience to Jesus’s teaching includes righteous living and actions. The hyper-grace teachers are revealing themselves to be workers of lawlessness. Yes, God is willing and loving enough to work with our failures (as he does mine daily), but our repentance must bring forth works worthy of repentance (Matt. 3:8; Acts 26:20), sooner rather than later. Any leader who says repentance is not so important is also a worker of lawlessness.
8 Righteousness of the Kingdom
F. Confused leaders
Any leader who says he’s an agnostic and is “searching” and is unable even to utter the words, “Lord, Lord,” yet remains in his pastoral duties, is a worker of lawlessness. He must step down until he gets things sorted out. He cannot lead people, when the NT totally affirms that these issues, like God’s existence, and doing righteousness and sexual restrictions to heterosexual marriage, have already been worked out and settled. If he cannot follow the NT, then he must remove himself until he has developed the conviction which the apostles had. The church belongs to Jesus, not a troubled pastor. And Jesus didn’t doubt God’s existence or teach same-sex “marriage” or have a lackadaisical outlook on righteous living.
G. Rejecting the OT
Discarding the OT is misguided. If you could time-travel back to the time of Jesus and then Paul, they would be aghast to hear that modern Christians are throwing out their Scriptures. Jesus is resurrected now and is Lord of his church, so I believe that he opposes such rejection right now. The OT’s moral law and Messianic prophecies, for example, are still relevant.
What Does the New Covenant Retain from the Old? (The NT for sure keeps moral law)
That list is not exhaustive.
God has never given up on moral law. It existed long before the law of Moses. It was his gift to humanity.
H. Summary
To conclude this part, doctrinal progressivism is infiltrating and destroying the church, little by little. Advocating for those issues and doing them is to practice lawlessness and may deserve the sobering words: “Depart from me, you workers of lawlessness! I never knew you!” (Matt. 7:23).
Wise statement I read on Facebook: Popular Christianity is not biblical, and biblical Christianity is not popular.
God is love ≠ Love is god
Don’t turn love into a god.
You pastors of these progressive churches have a heart to reach out to people and not chase them away. But is this heart confusing you? Have you taken your inoffensive outreach too far?
You don’t preach righteous behavior. You don’t teach the biblical norm for marriage. You don’t explain why abortion is wrong (but forgivable). Ethics and morality are short-changed in your church. Maybe you trust the Spirit sovereignly to lead them out of their sinful behavior. But maybe God set things up so that pastors and teachers should exhort–with actual words and teachings–the people to leave behind their bad behavior. That’s why the Sermon on the Mount and the practical sections of the epistles exist. They should teach and guide us by their spoken and written words.
To conclude, “I am writing this not to shame you but to warn you as my dear children” (1 Cor. 4:14).
III. Going Positive
A. Brief intro.
Let’s not be negative and point out the danger signs. Let’s look for hope in Scripture and the reality of the ascended Christ.
B. Whole counsel of God
The solution is to teach the whole counsel of God (Acts 20:27) and follow Jesus in his balanced ministry of teaching and helping the needy and healing the sick and expelling demons.
C. Teach true doctrine; then maturity happens.
12 to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up 13 until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. 14 Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. 15 Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. 16 From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work. (Eph. 4:14-16)
So in this passage when we teach true doctrine and have order in the church, . and the church will grow up “to the whole measure of Christ.” Then we will not be tossed around by unstable, fluctuating waves of the sea, which are kicked up by every wind of doctrine. The mature church can spot and resist deceitful scheming of people. Finally, Paul circles back around to growing up to maturity. The body, fitted together and healthy, can build itself up with truth and love. We will be strong enough to do good works. To me, this speaks of outreach.
D. Summary
The church is not doomed. We will grow into maturity, but we need more Christians to understand what this means and what the goal is. True doctrine is the means, and the goal is maturity in truth and love in the body of Christ and then good works.
IV. Application
A. Prayer
I pray that everyone on their own platforms, wherever they may be found on social media or behind the pulpit, will come back into balance. But if these teachers refuse or cannot see their own hyper, pet doctrines, then let’s raise up a new generation, who will be balanced. And you the reader can be balanced before a new generation is raised up. Get back into balance by avoiding the hyper-teachings and learning true doctrine..
B. Study hard
It takes a lot of work to understand Scripture and teach it to your Bible study group or maybe even the people on Sunday morning. Practical steps to enable your understanding is the following. (1) Get to know online resources. Bible studies and book summaries can be found. Videos explaining tough issues are available. (2) Buy some resources, like study Bibles and some commentaries. (3) Take your time. Theology and Bible knowledge takes a long time to get yourself ready. (4) Attend a church that teaches good doctrine and also the gifts of the Spirit.
C. Critical thinking
We should no longer listen to hyper-charismatic prophets and teachers, about things like various anointings or vague prophecies. I just heard a hyper-prophet say that a major shift is happening this fall. He was not sure what it is, but it will happen. This prophecy is way too vague. Click out and ignore it. It could be anything, as he defines it. “See! I told you the shift will happen, and it did!” Is this shift major or minor? Who says so? Him? That’s self-interest because he needs to be proven right.
D. Trust in God
God is patient. He will wait for more and more believers to get more and more mature. He will wait for more people to hear the gospel and get saved. In the meantime let’s work hard to learn sound doctrine and spread the gospel.
E. Personal word
It has been a privilege to write this long series, first as polished drafts, found on this website in various categories, and now these near-final and final drafts in Theology 101: The Basics.
I pray that the post will bless you and cause more growth, as they have blessed me and caused me to grow.
All for the glory of God!
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Dr. Jim's Essential Bible Teaching 