THE INTELLECTUAL PURSUIT OF GOD

 

Lately, say in the past decade or so, many in mainline Protestantism have succumbed to compromise.  It’s been rather sad and discouraging to watch churches fall in line with the culture.  It used to be the church shaped the culture, but now, it’s the culture shaping the church.  Churches are putting the focus on entertainment and not on spiritual growth.  They’re feeding the flesh and not the spirit.

It seems these days that promoting sound biblical teaching and preaching equates to being unloving.  In James 1:3 we are told to “contend earnestly for the faith.”  The Greek word for contend is “epagonizomai”.  “Epi” means “to focus on”, and “agon” means “a contest, competition”.  So, according to Strong’s Concordance, the meaning is “to contend with skill and commitment in opposing whatever is not of faith.”  In other words, we’re to fight for the truth and not let anything that goes against Scripture to creep in and take hold.

Imagine a long-distance runner or a heavy weight boxing champ.  Each one trains and prepares for an event.  The runner for a marathon, and the boxer for several rounds in the ring.  Obviously, their goal is to win their respective event, but the only way to do that is to consistently TRAIN.  The runner will run every day to make sure they can go the entire distance and the boxer will spar daily to build up his endurance and perfect their technique.  Someone who can’t run a mile surely won’t make it 26 miles and one who hasn’t sparred or trained to know how to properly fight would probably get knocked out in the first round.

The Bible says to “love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your MIND, and with all your strength.”  Back at their inception, many, if not all, of the Ivy League schools like Harvard were founded by religious scholars who believed in the importance of not just general knowledge, but knowledge of Christian Scripture.  At that time, the Bible was a central part of the college curriculum.  The students learned theology and were trained to debate those in secular society whose goal was to refute the Bible and Christianity.  Sadly, now the Ivy League schools are some of the most liberal, anti-Christian places to receive an education, and Christians as a whole are probably some of the most ignorant people.

There’s no intellectual pursuit of God anymore.  Instead of being intellectual, we are “experiential”.  Mention “theology” in a lot of churches these days and you’d hear, “Doctrine divides!!” or “It’s not about religion.  It’s about a relationship!!”  Yes, doctrine divides.  It divides the saved from the unsaved; the true from the false.  As far as relationship goes, how can you say you have a relationship with Christ if you’re not learning about who He is, His nature, and characteristics?

Many just want the experiences they get when they show up for church on Sundays with the loud, hip music, the fog machines, and the stage lighting.  Then they sit there and endure 20-30 minutes of a pastor giving them the finer points of how to have their best life now.  Their “feel good” speeches are to help build us up and improve our self-esteem, not teach us the deeper truths of God.  If pastors preached as they’re supposed to, we’d find out who we really are (wretches) and who God really is (holy and just).  I’m afraid that those men who step behind the pulpit each week are just as ignorant as those who are sitting in their congregation.

The drawback to all this is the creeping in of unbiblical teachings and practices.  Churches are allowing subtle hints of pagan practices and worship to infiltrate them and the congregants see no problem with it.

Unfortunately, with this comes the lack of discernment.  Discernment is the ability to judge well.  In the context of Christianity, it’s being able to tell the true from the false, or as Charles Spurgeon said, “the difference between the right and almost right.”  False teachers are great at sprinkling a little bit of truth in with their heresies to the point that the undiscerning don’t know the difference.

God has revealed in His word what He wants us to know about Him and he expects us to study doctrine and theology so we can grow spiritually, but also to prevent false teachers from coming in and leading the church astray.  We’re all very much discerning when it comes to the people we associate with, so why would we not practice that same discernment when it comes to who we allow to teach in our churches each week?  If we say God’s Word is important, why are we not willing to defend it from those who will twist it and take it out of context?

It seems more people are just willing to let them get away with their heresies than to be thought “unloving” for calling them out for their bad theology.  Christ will hold us accountable for what we do with His Word.  It’s there for us to learn about Him, to grow and mature, AND to call out those whose goals are to twist and mangle Scripture for the purpose of spreading their false teachings.