You Can't Handle The Truth

[Redeemed]

So what is truth?

Here is a simple definition I found from what the Bible teaches: truth is that which is consistent with the mind, will, character, glory, and being of God. Even more to the point: truth is the self-expression of God. That is the biblical meaning of truth, and it is the definition I'm holding on to and because the definition of truth flows from God, truth is theological. So I'm getting on my theological hat and digging into this.

The truth that flows from God is the way things really are. Reality is what it is because God declared it so and made it so. Therefore God is the author, source, and final judge of all truth. When Jesus said "and you will know the truth and the truth will set you free" he didn't mean you're free to make up your own reality, he meant that you are free to live in his love. The Bible tells us that we are to be doers of the word not hearers only. Jesus also said "if you love me you will keep my commandments",

These “commands” encompass all of Jesus’ words and teachings, which, in truth, are God the Father’s words:
“Jesus replied, ‘Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. Anyone who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me’” John 14:23-24

Jesus also said that the written Word of God is truth. It does not merely contain nuggets of truth; it is pure, unchangeable, and inviolable truth that (according to Jesus) “cannot be broken” (John 10:35). Praying to His heavenly Father on behalf of His disciples, He said this: “Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth” (John 17:17). And on top of that, the Word of God is eternal truth “which lives and abides forever” (1 Peter 1:23).

To suppress this truth is to dishonor God, displace His glory, and incur His wrath and that's exactly where the Emergent Church takes us.

 

[Redeemed]

The Emergent Church would like us to believe that we’re here not to determine absolute truth, but we’re in a quest for a “reasonable faith.” Reasonable according to whom, and whether what is reasonable for me will be reasonable for anyone else, they don’t say. And whether that same faith will be reasonable for me in the future is not make clear either. To the Emergent Church is all about the journey and not the destination.

The first problem I see with the Emergent Church is this view of journey and how I believe that it undermines the knowability of God. All good theologians understand God's knowability along with his immensity. We know that this side of eternity were not going to know everything about God. God is infinite and our knowledge of him is finite. If anyone ever tells you they have God all figured out don't buy a bridge from of them.

But emergent leaders are allowing the immensity of God to swallow up His knowability. In good postmodern fashion, they are questioning whether we can have any real, accurate knowledge about God in the first place.

I’m sure that emerging Christians know things about God, but their idea of knowledge is so provisional and lacking so much confidence (because the only other kind of knowledge in their minds is cold, linear, and infallible) that it’s hard to imagine actually and accurately knowing God. And yet the Bible says on Ps. 19:1-6:

1 The heavens are telling the glory of God; the firmament proclaims his handiwork.
2 Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night declares knowledge.
3 There is no speech, nor are there words; their voice is not heard;
4 yet their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them he has set a tent for the sun,
5 which comes forth like a bridegroom leaving his chamber, and like a strong man runs its course with joy.
6 Its rising is from the end of the heavens, and its circuit to the end of them; and there is nothing hid from its heat. Ps. 19:1-6

And in Romans 1:18-32:

18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.

21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.

24 Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25 They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.

26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. 27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.

28 Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. 29 They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31 they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. 32 Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.​

The emergent agnosticism about truly knowing and understanding anything about God seems to be blowing smoke. It seems to honor God’s immensity, but it actually undercuts His sovereign power. Postmoderns harbor such distrust for language and disbelieve about God’s ability to communicate truth to human minds when that's clearly what the Bible teaches.

Jesus said, “But the helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you.”

The Spirit sometimes teaches us personally, but at other times, He uses books or Christian Bible teachers. I don’t know how many times the Lord has awakened me at night and started teaching from passages I had pondered the day before. I prefer to attend day school, but if the teacher wants to enroll me in night school, I am willing to learn. I keep a small lamp on my nightstand, right next to a pen and pad of paper, and I write down what I have learned; if I don’t write it down, it will be forgotten by morning!

Prayer is an essential Spirit-led ministry in the Christian life, for prayer and study go together: “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him” (James 1:5).

 

[DrDavidT]

I liked what you said and feel that the emerging church is bringing another gospel than the one Jesus and the disciples brought

 

[Redeemed]

I liked what you said and feel that the emerging church is bringing another gospel than the one Jesus and the disciples brought

No doubt! The popular view is that there are many different ways to God, that the gospel changes with the changing years. But that's hiding the truth.

But The Paul would not would not buy into that. He insists In the book of Galatians that there is only one gospel and that this gospel does not change. Any teaching that claims to be ‘another gospel’ is ‘not another’ ‘You are turning to a different gospel—not that there is another gospel.’ In other words, there are certainly different gospels being preached, but this is what they are—different. There is not another, a second; there is only one. The message of the false teachers is not an alternative gospel; It's a perverted gospel.

 

[shnarkle]

So what is truth?

Here is a simple definition I found from what the Bible teaches: truth is that which is consistent with the mind, will, character, glory, and being of God. Even more to the point: truth is the self-expression of God. That is the biblical meaning of truth, and it is the definition I'm holding on to and because the definition of truth flows from God, truth is theological. So I'm getting on my theological hat and digging into this.

The truth that flows from God is the way things really are. Reality is what it is because God declared it so and made it so. Therefore God is the author, source, and final judge of all truth. When Jesus said "and you will know the truth and the truth will set you free" he didn't mean you're free to make up your own reality, he meant that you are free to live in his love. The Bible tells us that we are to be doers of the word not hearers only. Jesus also said "if you love me you will keep my commandments",

These “commands” encompass all of Jesus’ words and teachings, which, in truth, are God the Father’s words:
“Jesus replied, ‘Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. Anyone who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me’” John 14:23-24

Jesus also said that the written Word of God is truth. It does not merely contain nuggets of truth; it is pure, unchangeable, and inviolable truth that (according to Jesus) “cannot be broken” (John 10:35). Praying to His heavenly Father on behalf of His disciples, He said this: “Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth” (John 17:17). And on top of that, the Word of God is eternal truth “which lives and abides forever” (1 Peter 1:23).

To suppress this truth is to dishonor God, displace His glory, and incur His wrath and that's exactly where the Emergent Church takes us.

I don't know anything about the emergent church other than what you've posted so far. When you claim that they are more interested in the journey than the destination, I don't really see any problem with that because unless you are on the journey, you will never reach the destination. The journey is essentially "the Way", and one miss step from the way could be disastrous.

Atheists have adopted the same language, and essentially pointed out that theology is what we have to say about God. What we know about these words. See how they spotlight the fact that God doesn't even have to exist for them to talk about him?

They're point is well founded because the Logos doesn't exist without the Pneuma. The Spirit is what animates the Logos. Christ doesn't present a theology. He presents a theophany; a Christophany. His words are alive. Jesus didn't come to teach theology. He didn't come to enlighten our minds. He came to save us from death through sin.

Paul corrects himself when he says, "we know God, or RATHER are known by him...etc." God and his ways are unsearchable, and "beyond all understanding". Whatever you could possibly know, isn't God. They are just words about a term that can have no referent in this created objective world.

 

[Redeemed]

I don't know anything about the emergent church other than what you've posted so far. When you claim that they are more interested in the journey than the destination, I don't really see any problem with that because unless you are on the journey, you will never reach the destination. The journey is essentially "the Way", and one miss step from the way could be disastrous.

Atheists have adopted the same language, and essentially pointed out that theology is what we have to say about God. What we know about these words. See how they spotlight the fact that God doesn't even have to exist for them to talk about him?

They're point is well founded because the Logos doesn't exist without the Pneuma. The Spirit is what animates the Logos. Christ doesn't present a theology. He presents a theophany; a Christophany. His words are alive. Jesus didn't come to teach theology. He didn't come to enlighten our minds. He came to save us from death through sin.

Paul corrects himself when he says, "we know God, or RATHER are known by him...etc." God and his ways are unsearchable, and "beyond all understanding". Whatever you could possibly know, isn't God. They are just words about a term that can have no referent in this created objective world.

It sounds like you have it all figured out. Watch out for any missteps and enjoy your journey along the way.