http://rss.desiringgod.org/link/10732/16097060/what-is-our-hope-laid-up-in-heaven
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What Does It Mean to Serve God?
Audio Transcript
Welcome back to the podcast today. We have a trio of interesting emails to work through in the next three weeks, Pastor John, as I look ahead on the calendar of questions on the table. What does it mean to serve God? That’s today. Next week: As we serve God, what do we give him? Are we giving him anything that he doesn’t already have? Does he need us? That’s APJ 1957. And then a week after that: What does it mean to be spiritual? Spirituality is a squishy concept in the world today, and we’re going to work toward a definition in APJ 1960. It’s an interesting trio of topics, all at the foundations of what it means to be a successful Christian living out the Christian life.
So, today: What does it mean to serve God? The question is from a listener named Amy. “Pastor John, hello. I was discussing the phrase ‘serve the Lord’ with a fellow believer the other day, and I was wondering if you could clarify something for us. All over Scripture, we are told to ‘serve the Lord.’ In Psalm 100:2, it says to ‘serve the Lord with gladness.’ Deuteronomy 10:12 says, ‘Serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.’ Joshua says, ‘As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord’ (Joshua 24:15). And Paul in Romans 12:11 also tells us to ‘serve the Lord.’ But then, in Mark 10:45, Jesus says, ‘The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve.’ Christians throw around the phrase ‘serve the Lord’ so often, but I’m not sure I know what that phrase means. Can you clarify this for me?”
I think this is one of the most important questions a Christian can ask about living the Christian life in a way that glorifies God and does good to other people. It gets at the utterly crucial issue of a right way of serving God that honors him and blesses people, and a wrong way of serving God that dishonors him and doesn’t help people. This is not a marginal issue. We’re talking about what it means to be a Christian moment by moment in real life.
Let’s make it crystal clear that Amy is right that the Bible teaches almost everywhere that human beings are to serve God, and when the Son of God comes into the world, we are to serve him. In the Old Testament, Joshua says, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord” (Joshua 24:15). And then Paul celebrates the Thessalonian converts because “you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God” (1 Thessalonians 1:9).
Over and over again, Paul calls himself and he calls Christians “servants” — literally, “slaves” — of Christ and of God (Romans 1:1; Ephesians 6:6). Peter does the same in 1 Peter 2:16 and 2 Peter 1:1. It is unmistakable. One biblical way of speaking rightly about the relationship to God that we have is to call ourselves servants or slaves of God and of Christ. That’s right. She’s drawing attention to that, and she should.
Warning Lights
Now, as soon as we say that, we must ask really pointedly what’s involved in serving God and what’s not involved in serving God. If we start serving God as though we could earn wages from him, or as though we could meet his needs, or as though we could put him in our debt and make him our beneficiary, red biblical lights start flashing very brightly. For example, in John 15:15, Jesus says to his disciples, “No longer do I call you servants [or slaves], for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.” And yet in John 15:14, the preceding verse, he says, “You are my friends if you do what I command you.” Whoa. What kind of a friend is that?
So, the meaning of “slave” or “servant” is qualified. And the meaning of “friend” is qualified. We can’t just assume that what we mean by servant or friend is what Jesus means by servant or friend. We have to listen.
Or here’s another bright, flashing red light: “[God is not] served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything” (Acts 17:25). So yes, serve him, but not that way — not as though he needed your service.
“Serve God, but not by presuming to meet his need. He owns everything. He doesn’t need your supply.”
Or here’s another red flashing light. God says, “If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world and its fullness are mine. . . . [You] call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me” (Psalm 50:12, 15). That was one of Spurgeon’s favorite verses. He called it Robinson Crusoe’s text, because that’s what he quotes in the book. Yes, serve God, but not by presuming to meet his need. He owns everything. He doesn’t need your supply. We call on him in need, not the other way around.
Here’s another red flashing light. Amy quoted it. “The Son of Man came not to be served” — that’s a pretty clear warning — “but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45). He saves us; we don’t save him. He meets our need; we don’t meet his need.
Here’s one more flashing red light of warning about serving God in any old way that we think might be right. In Romans 4:4–5 — you can’t get much more basic than this — Paul describes how the Christian life begins. Are we justified and put right with God by working for God — earning a wage — or by trusting him to work for us in our utter helplessness? Here’s the quote: “To the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness.” We did not get right with God in the beginning of our Christian life by serving him for a wage of salvation. He worked for us, he served us, not us him. He did the humanly impossible on the cross.
So, with all those red warning lights flashing in our face, we better not serve God that way — as though we could earn wages, as though we could meet his needs, as though we could put him in our debt or make him our beneficiary.
Here’s what we need to ask. Well, how should we serve him? You keep telling us all the bad ways. What is right service?
Every Step a Gift of Grace
Maybe the deepest and clearest answer is 1 Peter 4:11. This got prayed over me every time I preached at Bethlehem. For years and years, this was our go-to verse just before walking upstairs to preach: “Whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies — in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever.”
So, every effort expended in the service of God is a God-given effort. That may be the most important sentence. Let me say it again: Every effort expended in the service of God, the right service of God, is a God-given effort. That’s what must absolutely sink into our souls. Otherwise, we will always think of ourselves as bringing to God things that he doesn’t have, as though we could meet his needs, when he doesn’t have any. He’s not served as though he needed anything.
The conception of service that dishonors God and will not help people — because it points them away from God’s all-supplying grace toward our own supposed self-produced moral efforts — is serving without relying upon him to serve us in our serving. All God-pleasing service is done in the moment-by-moment reliance upon God’s service-enabling power. Or to say it another way, the only service of God that pleases God is done through the glad acceptance of his undeserved service toward us and in us. We see this in 1 Corinthians 15:10: “By the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked” — you could say, “I served” — “harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.”
“All God-pleasing service is done in the moment-by-moment reliance upon God’s service-enabling power.”
So yes, we work; yes, we serve. We have a master; we obey. But every baby step we take in obedience to our Master is a gift of grace from him to us. Therefore, we should never think of our service to God as a way to repay him in gratitude for his goodness to us, because every step we take in that so-called payback is another gift from him, and it takes us deeper into debt to grace, which is a glorious place to be forever and ever and ever. We will never not be debtors to God’s grace. For all eternity, with every act of glad obedience, we will go deeper and happier into debt to the praise of the glory of his grace.
Life Under the Waterfall
Here’s one last picture of this peculiar kind of service to God. Jesus said, “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money” (Matthew 6:24). So, the question is, How do you serve money? That would be a clue. Serving money doesn’t mean doing things to meet money’s need. You serve money by calculating all your plans, your efforts, to benefit from what money promises you. You calculate your whole life to benefit from what money promises you. Your life revolves around trying to put yourself in the position of the greatest benefit from money.
That’s also what it means to serve God. You serve God by calculating all your plans and all your efforts to benefit from all that God promises to be for you. Your life revolves around trying to put yourself under the waterfall of God’s greatest blessing, positioning yourself for the greatest benefit God has to give — namely, himself.
So, I conclude, yes, God enlists us into his service, which means he calls us to have a part in accomplishing his purposes, not meeting his needs. And he accomplishes his purposes precisely by supplying the grace to do our work, because the giver gets the glory; the servant gets the joy. That’s God’s purpose for his world: his glory and the joy of his people in him.
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Lovers of Good: Eyes of Hope in a World Gone Bad
An overseer, as God’s steward, must be . . . a lover of good. (Titus 1:7–8)
In times when the love of many grows cold, we will do well to pause over an overlooked Christian virtue that warms against the chill.
Not only is such a trait designed by Christ to be increasingly true of all Christians; it is required to serve in the church’s lead office.
To be clear, what Christ requires of his pastor-elders (1 Timothy 3:1–8; Titus 1:5–9) is not simply for qualification to enter the office. Rather, these virtues are the ongoing, daily graces needed to serve well in the office. Yet these too are the qualities Christ means to grant in growing measure to his whole church. Pastor-elders are examples to the flock (1 Peter 5:3). They not only labor at teaching and governing, to feed and lead the church, but they model, as a team, the Christian maturity toward which we hope all Christians will progress.
So, in days that seem embattled and divisive, it might be freshly helpful, if not convicting, to remember that Christians, with their pastors leading the way, are not to be known for circling wagons and battening down hatches. Rather, we are to be wide- and warm-hearted, maturely magnanimous, “lovers of good” (Greek philagothos), as Titus 1:8 obliges church leaders. That is the opposite of how Paul characterizes the last days in 2 Timothy 3:3: “not loving good” (aphilagathos).
What, then, might lead to, mark, and accompany such “lovers of good,” that we might discern whether we ourselves, and our leaders, embody what Christ designs?
1. Believe in good.
First, let it not go unsaid that those who love the good believe in good. In distressed days, such pastors and Christians still believe in good. They know their God — who is Goodness himself and the source and standard of all good — made this world and called it good. Good came first and is deeper than evil. And we know, in Christ, that whatever devastations evil has wrought, one day the sin and death which so pervade and pain us will be no more (Revelation 21:4), while good endures forever, as the one who is Good dwells with his people (Revelation 21:3).
“Lovers of good believe that true good is older, deeper, and will outlive the bad.”
Lovers of good believe that true good is older, deeper, and will outlive the bad. And even outside the church, in the darkest of places, still the light of good flashes for those with eyes to see. They believe it. And so too they look for it.
2. Look for good.
Those Christians who genuinely believe in good become the kind of people who are hopeful for good. Knowing Christ and his promises, they know that good is to come — it’s only a matter of time. They cannot long entertain cynicism, or stand to become Chicken Littles nervous that the sky is falling. Rather, they consider the present moment, with all its uncertainty, turbulence, and change, to be a great time to speak the gospel, press for conversion, plant churches, and pour fresh energy into global mission.
Philippians 4:8, addressed to the whole church, well captures what good pastor-elders model for their congregations in relation to their surrounding unbelieving society:
Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.
Far from being a call to remove ourselves from the world and bunker down to think Christian thoughts in isolation, Paul’s charge is to engage the world, looking for the good, as argued by commentators Moisés Silva (Philippians, 196–98) and Gordon Fee (Philippians, 413–21).
Paul selects the verb consider (logizomai, to count or compute; rather than, as we might assume, phroneo, to set one’s mind). So also he chooses six adjectives and two nouns that are more typical of the first-century pagan society than the church. Along with his “if anything” double proviso, this comprises an exhortation, writes Fee,
designed to place them back into their world, even as they remain “over against” that world in so many ways. . . . Paul is telling them not so much to “think high thoughts” as to “take into account” the good they have long known from their own past, as long as it is conformable to Christ. (414–15)
Pastor-elders, as “lovers of good” (Titus 1:8), are to be men like this, who see the world with realistic yet hopeful eyes and can spot and point out the good, even as they warn of and reject sin and deception. But such leaders will not be content with looking for the good. Quite naturally (and supernaturally), their belief in the good, and hope for the good, will lead to their commending the good, and their own doing of good.
3. Do good.
Lovers of good are eager to “do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith” (Galatians 6:10). Christians in general, and pastor-elders in particular, are to be the kind of people, according to commentator Robert Yarbrough, who are “zealous to see that what is good flourish in and out of the church,” noting “a connection between this pastoral quality and the ‘good works’ enjoined on Titus and the congregations elsewhere in the letter” (Letters to Timothy and Titus, 486–87). This is a conspicuous thrust in Paul’s short letter to Titus:
In contrast to false teachers who are “unfit for any good work” (1:16), Titus is to “be a model of good works” (2:7) and so lead the church to be “a people . . . who are zealous for good works” (2:14).
Expressly in relation to their unbelieving society, Christians are “to be ready for every good work, to speak evil of no one, to avoid quarreling, to be gentle, and to show perfect courtesy toward all people” (3:1–2). It’s a charge that many of us today can scarcely rehearse too often.
And if that weren’t striking enough, Paul lays it on even thicker still: pastors will insist on the glories of the gospel (3:4–7) “so that those who have believed in God may be careful to devote themselves to good works” (3:8).
Finally, note that Paul himself does not commend faithfulness without any concern for fruitfulness. Rather, he says, “let our people learn to devote themselves to good works, so as to help cases of urgent need, and not be unfruitful” (3:14).Pastors — and increasingly their churches with them — are to be doers of good, not mere self-proclaimed lovers, deceiving themselves. Genuinely loving the good leads them to dream up ideas, take fresh initiatives, and do good that benefits all, especially those of like faith.
Love good.
Lest we conclude with the wrong emphasis, however, we return to the particular verbal concept Paul commends in Titus 1:8: love. A certain kind of heart is the heart of this requisite. As John Piper writes about “lover of good” as a pastoral qualification,
He should love to see good done and love to be involved in doing good. This is more than doing good. This is a bent and love to see it done. A kind of expansive person.
As much as we clarify that actually rising to do good, not armchair quarterbacking, will be the observable effect, the requirement is a condition of the inner man: he loves good. He believes in it, looks for it with a tangible hopefulness, commends it, and does it because he loves it — both good things and good people, in the church and beyond.
“The goal for every Christian, and a requirement for every pastor, is that he be a lover of good.”
Such lovers of good are not irritable or resentful; they do not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoice with the truth. In their very person, they are, and are becoming, the kind of people who embody the distinctively Christian love that bears all things, hopes all things, believes all things, endures all things (1 Corinthians 13:5–7). They demonstrate the wide hearts and capacious, expansive souls that, in time, become bracing evidence of a sinner’s supernatural encounter with God himself in Christ.
Love the Good First
In times that shrink some hearts, remember that hatred is not the heart of Christian ethics. We are first lovers of good, on God’s terms, and then, as a function of such love, are we righteously haters of evil. As Scott Swain observes,
The opposite of an error is not the truth. It’s the opposite error. Passionate resentment of falsehood is unlikely to make one the next Athanasius “contra mundum.” It’s more likely to make one the next Apollinaris or Eutyches (famous heretics).
There is a place for righteous anger in the Christian life. But it has to follow the right “order of operations.” Love of what is good breeds an appropriate abhorrence of what is evil. Hate, by itself, breeds no virtues, intellectual or otherwise.
And so we hear the apostle afresh in our day. The goal for every Christian — and a requirement for every pastor — is that he be a lover of good.
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Triage in the Trenches: When Do Second-Tier Issues Divide?
As Christians face the fragmenting of some churches, denominations, and movements, many have turned to the concept of “theological triage” to help navigate the turbulent waters of doctrinal disagreement.
In a recent article, Scott Hubbard ably distills theological triage, drawing the basic category from Al Mohler and then using Gavin Ortlund’s book to distinguish four ranks or tiers of doctrinal difference:
First-rank doctrines are essential to the gospel itself.
Second-rank doctrines are urgent for the health and practice of the church such that they frequently cause Christians to separate at the level of local church, denomination, and/or ministry.
Third-rank doctrines are important to Christian theology but not enough to justify separation or division among Christians.
Fourth-rank doctrines are unimportant to our gospel witness and ministry collaboration. (Finding the Right Hills to Die On, 19)Finally, Hubbard draws on Rhyne Putnam for three tests to aid in our discernment process:
The hermeneutical test: the clearer the Bible teaches a doctrine, the more likely it belongs on a higher tier.
The gospel test: the more central a doctrine is to the gospel, the more likely it belongs on a higher tier.
The praxis test: the more a doctrine affects the practice of a church, the more likely it belongs on a higher tier.This basic framework is helpful. Still, it frequently leaves us with a puzzle concerning the second-tier issues. In most contemporary uses of theological triage, differences over baptism and differences over manhood and womanhood are both regarded as second-tier issues. In actual practice, however, there seems to be a substantive difference between these two issues. Organizations and conferences like The Gospel Coalition and Together For the Gospel treat these two issues differently. In both cases, baptismal differences are not regarded as barriers to participation, whereas differences over manhood and womanhood are. What might account for this difference (and others like it)?
Theoretical Triage: Thinking About the Body
I believe that further refinement of theological triage can clarify why we would treat certain second-tier disagreements differently than others. (Note: this refinement focuses on the theoretical side of triage. In application to any particular situation, there will be critical concrete and practical considerations in play as well.)
The language of triage is drawn from the field of emergency medicine. In keeping with this imagery, we can consider how we assess the life, health, and practice of the physical body, as an analogy for assessing the life, health, and practice of the body of Christ. (In principle, this same analogy could be used to assess the doctrinal health of an individual as well; for simplicity’s sake, we’ll focus on the church as a body.)
In doctrinal terms, certain doctrines (first tier) are essential for the life of the church. If you deny such a doctrine, you lack life; you’re outside the Christian faith. Other doctrines (second tier) are essential for the health of the church. If you deny such a doctrine, it doesn’t mean you’re spiritually dead, but instead that you’re spiritually sick. Finally, some doctrines (third tier) are essential for the practice of the church. These are matters which don’t directly bear on life or health but do relate closely to how we order and structure our churches, and thus there is need for significant alignment on these matters among members of a given church.
First Tier: Are You Alive?
Thinking in terms of bodily life, health, and practice enables us to identify why certain doctrines are “of first importance” (1 Corinthians 15:3). Paul uses that phrase to refer to the gospel by which we are being saved, if we hold fast to it. He refers specifically to Christ’s death for sin, as well as the historicity of his burial, resurrection, and subsequent appearances. To falter on such gospel truths is to “believe in vain.”
Thus, first-tier issues are matters of gospel significance. Manifest errors on or denials of such fundamental doctrines places one outside the Christian faith. We often summarize the basic gospel in terms of either God-Sin-Christ-Faith or Creation-Fall-Redemption-New Creation. Both of these reveal the foundational doctrines to be embraced and confessed in order to be Christian. The doctrine of the Trinity, the deity and humanity of Christ, his work on the cross and in the resurrection, and salvation by grace through faith are generally regarded as first-tier issues. To deny such doctrines is to fall short of the Christian faith completely.
However, often overlooked in our discussions of gospel issues are fundamental errors on the nature of creation, humanity, and sin. Such issues of anthropology (what C.S. Lewis referred to as the Tao, or the moral order of the universe recognized by all people) could also fall into the first-tier category. Paul explicitly says this when he mentions that “Christ died for our sins” as a matter of first importance. Similarly, the Bible points in this direction whenever it makes clear and manifest violations of the moral law grounds for excommunication from the church and exclusion from the kingdom (1 Corinthians 5–6; Galatians 5:22–23). These moral issues are not merely a matter of special revelation, but are universally known and binding through general revelation in creation and conscience.
But not only do such immoral practices place one outside the kingdom, but affirming and leading others to practice such things makes one a false teacher. Fundamental errors on the goodness of creation and the nature of marriage are treated as demonic teaching and departures from the faith (1 Timothy 4:1–5). The Bible condemns both those who accumulate such teachers to suit their own passions, as well as the teachers themselves (2 Timothy 4:3–4; 2 Timothy 3:6–9). Such people are disqualified from the faith and wander away into myths. And Paul’s condemnation of human sinfulness in Romans 1 not only pronounces judgment on those who practice what ought not to be done, but also those who “give approval to those who practice them” (Romans 1:32).
This means, in addition to the Trinity, Christology, and soteriology, fundamental errors about God’s good design in creation, about the basic nature of humanity, and about the identification of sin and violations of God’s moral law ought to be regarded as first-tier issues. Put more simply, some denials of natural revelation place one outside the kingdom.
Second Tier: Are You Healthy?
Moving down a tier, other doctrines are essential for the body’s health. In fact, the Bible frequently speaks of “sound doctrine,” that is, healthy doctrine. And this is where the use of the body metaphor further refines our framework. Health is not simply an on-off switch; rather health is a spectrum and allows for a range of injuries, illnesses, and diseases. In particular, it allows us to distinguish second-tier errors by relative seriousness, by internal spread, and by transmissibility.
First, consider the relative seriousness of certain errors. Some doctrinal errors are the equivalent of a broken pinkie finger; the body is not fully healthy, but the injury is relatively minor. On the other hand, a broken femur or spine is potentially life-threatening.
Second, consider also diseases and illnesses that spread throughout the body and cause one’s health to deteriorate over time. Some errors, like the broken finger, are relatively isolated; it has little bearing on the rest of the body. Other errors, like cancer, spread throughout the body and are life-threatening.
Third, consider the transmissibility of the illness. Neither broken bones nor cancer is contagious. But colds, flu, and other diseases are. As Paul says, some teaching spreads like gangrene throughout the corporate body (2 Timothy 2:17). Or, to shift to one of our Lord’s metaphors, some teaching is like leaven which spreads throughout the whole loaf (Matthew 16:6–12; cf. 1 Corinthians 5:6–8; Galatians 5:9).
We can bring these three features together in a variety of ways. Some errors are like the common cold; they may be contagious, but they are minor. Others are like Ebola: highly contagious and deadly. Thus, it’s not enough to simply identify a doctrine as second-order; we must also triage the seriousness of the error, its growth and tendency to foster further error, and its potential to spread to others.
Frequently the deadly doctrines identified in the first-tier have milder counterparts at the second-tier. Thus, certain modifications to the doctrine of the Trinity, while not in themselves fatal, nevertheless have a tendency to erode the doctrine over time and produce bodily illness. The same would be true for certain imprecisions and errors in Christology. And while full-blown Pelagianism is fundamentally in contradiction to salvation by grace through faith, various forms of semi-Pelagianism make the body ill. In contrast to outright doctrinal denial, we might think of this as doctrinal erosion.
“The inspiration, authority, and inerrancy of the Scriptures functions as an immune system that helps the body fight off infection.”
Additionally, we should consider how certain errors compromise the immune system. Initially the error might not have much direct effect on the body’s health. However, by weakening the immune system, such error turns minor colds into deadly illnesses. Denial of the Bible’s authority and trustworthiness is the most obvious candidate for compromising the immune system. As Paul notes in 1 Corinthians 15, all of the fundamental gospel truths are “according to the Scriptures.” Thus, the inspiration, authority, and inerrancy of the Scriptures act as guard-rails for other doctrines; Scripture functions as an immune system that helps the body to fight off infection.
Third Tier: What’s Your Diet?
Finally, certain doctrinal issues require agreement for practical purposes. Differences on such questions may not be straightforward matters of life or health, but simply matters of practice: for the community to function well, we will need practical alignment on these issues. We might think of these issues as differences in diet or workout regimen. Healthy people may differ on such questions and still be healthy. Many issues of church structure, liturgy, and ministry philosophy would fall into this category. As matters of wisdom and prudence, faithful Christians will differ, and even have distinct and separate churches or denominations, without regarding each other as dead or even sick.
Taking Our Vitals
With this refinement in hand, we can now return to the puzzle with which we began. If baptismal differences and differences on manhood and womanhood are both “second-tier,” are we warranted in treating them differently? The category of bodily health helps us to see why we not only may do so, but ought to do so.
Baptismal differences do matter. As a practical matter, a church will either baptize infants or not. And the differences do have some bearing on how we view the visible church. Nevertheless, such differences, in principle, can be isolated from the fundamental doctrines of the faith. Many paedobaptists and credobaptists frequently find themselves in near total agreement on the substance of the fundamental doctrines of the faith. Thus, it is no surprise that, armed with such substantial agreement, such paedobaptists and credobaptists have found themselves “together for the gospel.”
Differences over manhood and womanhood, however, are a different matter. Such differences are directly related to the doctrine of creation, the doctrine of man, and the doctrine of sin. Thus, errors on this doctrine have a greater seriousness.
Additionally, such anthropological error tends to grow over time, especially in the midst of a culture that is fundamentally confused about what it means to be human and hostile to God’s design in creation. Like gangrene, contemporary egalitarianism grows and spreads and leads to greater and more deadly error. The frequent move from egalitarianism to the affirmation and celebration of homosexuality is not so much a slippery slope, but simply what cancer does when left untreated. Tao-erosion frequently leads to Tao-denial.
“Errors on the Bible’s teaching on manhood and womanhood often compromise the body’s immune system.”
Finally, errors on this doctrine are frequently based on interpretive moves that functionally mute certain passages of Scripture and thereby gut the Bible of its authority. Thus, errors on the Bible’s teaching on manhood and womanhood often compromise the body’s immune system. Rather than being the standard by which our beliefs and practices are measured and corrected, the Bible becomes a wax nose that is twisted and put in service to our own passions and desires.
More To Be Said
There are many more issues to consider when engaging in theological triage. I have attempted one refinement to the theoretical framework by which we triage. In actual practice, many other considerations come into play: How pervasive is the error in your church? How influential are those promoting it? Are you dealing with false teachers or confused sheep? What are the particular pressures in your local context?
All of these questions (and more) need to be considered by a team of sober-minded elders as they seek to shepherd their particular flock. Nevertheless, finding clarity on the rationale for first-tier issues, while recognizing the spectrum of health within second-tier issues, will give us a better tool with which to perform the crucial task of teaching, correcting, rebuking, and training in righteousness.