None of us, if we are honest, does not experience the critique of the Bible. We are chastened for our greed, our lust, our pride, our envy. If we are sensitive, we ought to feel the prick of our consciences as we consider what the Bible has to say about gossip and injustice, about the way we treat others, about legalism and license. The reason, then, that sexuality has become a litmus test for what “camp” you are in has little to do with political leanings, but rather this question of authority.

What is the Bible to you? A collection of helpful stories? A book of ancient wisdom? Do you think it contains God’s word to us?
If that alone is what the Bible is, it is a book worth reading. But it still places us a position of sifting the Bible for what is useful to us and placing us in the position of determining what is true.
There has never been a generation, never a time or place, where Christians haven’t had to come to grips with whether they will bow the knee to the prevailing norms or whether they will trust and serve God alone. And how do we know what God wants? His Word to us. When push comes to shove, when the Bible calls me to believe something or act a certain way, will I believe? Will I obey?
None of us, if we are honest, does not experience the critique of the Bible. We are chastened for our greed, our lust, our pride, our envy. If we are sensitive, we ought to feel the prick of our consciences as we consider what the Bible has to say about gossip and injustice, about the way we treat others, about legalism and license. The reason, then, that sexuality has become a litmus test for what “camp” you are in has little to do with political leanings, but rather this question of authority.
For a project in seminary I met with elders from two different churches: one a prominent mainline church, and the other an evangelical church, and asked them a set of questions. Most significant among the differences in their answers were their responses on what the Bible was. For the elders at the mainline church, they consistently spoke of the Bible with terms like “inspirational” or “beautiful” or “enriching.” All good words to describe the Bible and all true.
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The latest evidence regarding the Church of England came out on January 18th. Its bishops concluded a six-year process known as Living in Love and Faith, which sought to assess the church’s doctrine and practice regarding matters of human sexuality. They announced their refusal even to consider formally recognizing same-sex relationships as marriages next month. That’s the good news. However, they signaled two additional actions they will take. They said they would and have since issued an apology to persons in the LGBTQ community for when the church has “rejected and excluded them.” Moreover, they “will offer the fullest possible pastoral provision without changing the Church’s doctrine of Holy Matrimony for same-sex couples.” The plan to do so involves publishing “a range of draft prayers, known as Prayers of Love and Faith, which could be used voluntarily in churches for couples who have marked a significant stage of their relationship such as a civil marriage or civil partnership.”

“Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture!” So God declares in the opening verse of Jeremiah 23. In the 2019 Book of Common Prayer, the daily office gives this text as the Old Testament lesson for the evening of January 24. The chapter goes on to give a thorough rebuke of that day’s prophets and priests—those tasked with the spiritual care of God’s people. Though directly aimed at the Israelites, this passage of Scripture encapsulates well the contemporary state of the Church of England (as well the Scottish and American episcopal churches, among others).
The latest evidence regarding the Church of England came out on January 18th. Its bishops concluded a six-year process known as Living in Love and Faith, which sought to assess the church’s doctrine and practice regarding matters of human sexuality. They announced their refusal even to consider formally recognizing same-sex relationships as marriages next month. That’s the good news. However, they signaled two additional actions they will take. They said they would and have since issued an apology to persons in the LGBTQ community for when the church has “rejected and excluded them.” Moreover, they “will offer the fullest possible pastoral provision without changing the Church’s doctrine of Holy Matrimony for same-sex couples.” The plan to do so involves publishing “a range of draft prayers, known as Prayers of Love and Faith, which could be used voluntarily in churches for couples who have marked a significant stage of their relationship such as a civil marriage or civil partnership.”
In other words, the bishops announced the surrender of Biblical orthodoxy on matters of human sexuality. Their words amount to a near-total capitulation on every principle and practice in the debate except the technical definition of marriage and the accompanying church liturgy for it. But make no mistake, those exceptions will fall, too. For any principled, doctrinal ground on which these hold-outs stand has been torn from under them (Stephen Cottrell, Archbishop of York, assured Progressives that “This is not the end of that journey but we have reached a milestone and I hope that these prayers of love and faith can provide a way for us all to celebrate and affirm same-sex relationships.”)
The fact that this betrayal of orthodoxy comes from the bishops, the shepherds of Christ’s church in England, establishes their parallel with the men who failed God’s flock in ancient Israel. But the links do not end there, abounding throughout the rest of the text as well.
First, the book of Jeremiah diagnoses the central problem for Israel’s shepherds back then as a rejection of God’s Word. Speaking of the prophets, God asks, “For who among them has stood in the council of the Lord to see and to hear his word, or who has paid attention to his word and listened?” (23:18). The issue today, as then, is not merely one of knowledge but of obedience. Listening in this verse means more than hearing, which the preceding term “paying attention” would cover. To listen means to do in reaction to, to submit to Scriptural authority. Foley Beach, Archbishop of the Anglican Church in North America and Chair of the GAFCON Primates Council, rightly declared of the English bishops that, “Their actions…reject the authority of Scripture.” In that rejection, these actions clearly, brazenly violate the Church of England’s own foundation principles, encapsulated in the Thirty-Nine Articles’ declaration (Article 20) that, “it is not lawful for the Church to ordain any thing that is contrary to God’s Word written.” Nor may the church confuse and confound by trying to “expound one place of Scripture, that it be repugnant to another.” Yet both routes we see taken by the Church of England on this issue. In fact, they do the second in service of the first, giving unfaithful interpretations of the Bible in order to go against its requirements.
In so doing, these bishops continue to replace Scriptural authority (and church historical practice as well) with the new orthodoxy of the sexual revolution and other pieties of the contemporary Left. Yet this approach gets the relationship between society and the Bible backwards.  The Word of God does not conform to the trends of any society, whether its cultural mores, political agendas, or social fashions. Instead, in Jeremiah we read, “Is not my word like fire, declares the Lord, and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces?” (23:29). Fire cleanses and a hammer, in its breaking, also re-forms. Through the illumination of the Spirit, God’s Word cleanses our hearts of sinful dispositions and helps to mold us into the image of Christ.
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The Apostle Paul rightly warned that “knowledge puffs up, but love builds up” (1 Cor.8:1). Paul anticipates that you can understand much and not have it be real and powerful over your heart. Knowledge by itself can be a danger and a deception.

Jonathan Edwards’ short essay on Undiscerned Spiritual Pride[1] is something that should be read by all pastors or Christians in leadership positions. In that work Edwards writes,
The first and the worst cause of errors, that prevail in [our day], is spiritual pride. This is the main door by which the devil comes into the hearts of those who are zealous for the advancement of religion.[2]
There are few issues harder to talk about and more insidious than spiritual pride. How do you recommend an article on spiritual pride to someone without being accused of spiritual pride? How do you write an article on spiritual pride without being subject to spiritual pride? Even talking about it is a danger. But it must be talked about.
There is one specific kind of undiscerned spiritual pride that I think is not often discussed and is especially hard to recognize—the danger of doctrinal righteousness. Sadly, I think it’s a particularly prevalent danger among Reformed, theologically-minded Christians. It’s a danger I have fallen into at times. By doctrinal righteousness, I mean trusting in your doctrinal correctness as your righteousness, as opposed to trusting Christ as your righteousness. The difference can be very subtle, and, of course, will be marked by humility or pride.
Knowing About God vs. Knowing God
In the face of an anti-intellectual and a-theological, shallow evangelicalism, Reformed Christianity has been rightly concerned about the importance of theology. The Bible is a theological book. To know God requires us to know about God. Our relationship to him requires doctrine.
But it’s also possible to trust in your knowledge about him more than trusting in him personally. You can have a theoretical knowledge of something and not an experiential knowledge of something. Some people know a lot but it does not lead to faith, hope, and love. To paraphrase a Tim Keller saying, “There’s a difference between having the truth, and the truth having you. There’s a difference between trusting your grasp on him, rather than trusting his grasp on you.” (The Apostle Paul often emphasizes this nuance – “But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God…” – Gal.4:9).
When you ‘have’ the truth, you own it; you have mastery over it. When the truth ‘has’ you, you are under it, humbled by it, shaped by it; it masters you. One is based on pride; the other leads to humility. Some people can implicitly treat their theology as something grasped on the basis of their own strength and intellect, rather than a personal knowledge of God received by grace through faith that is humbling and shaping them.
Discerning Doctrinal Righteousness
Edwards makes the point that spiritual pride can be hard to discern and easily hidden because it can look like righteousness and concern for truth. It looks right, until it doesn’t. He says,
Spiritual pride in its own nature is so secret, that it is not so well discerned by immediate intuition on the thing itself, as by the effects and fruits of it…Spiritual pride disposes to speak of other persons’ sins…Spiritual pride is very apt to suspect others; whereas an humble saint is most jealous of himself, he is so suspicious of nothing in the world as he is of his own heart.[3]
Doctrinal righteousness is much the same. It is more accurately discerned in its fruit: by someone’s manner of communication, by their response to criticism or correction. The idol of doctrinal righteousness is especially exposed in an angry and hostile defensiveness whenever it is questioned. This is because it has become a matter of identity and personal righteousness. To echo Edwards, here are some possible evidences of a doctrinally righteous person:
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