The Believer’s Certainty that the Scriptures Are the Final Authority for Belief and Behavior (Part 3)

By Mike Harding | October 16, 2019

The Scriptures Correct by Exposing Aberrant Behavior

“Correction” (ἐπανόρθωσιν, 2 Tim 3:16c) is used in the sense of “setting something right,” most likely with reference to conduct as it was sometimes used in extra biblical literature.1 God’s Word has the authority to regulate personal and public conduct.

Attitudes and behavior among “Christian” young people toward things once considered wrong and sinful are gradually changing. There has been a noticeable shift in attitudes toward smoking, drinking alcoholic beverages, objectionable Hollywood movies, questionable entertainment, rock-music, modern dancing, gambling, romantic physical involvement outside of marriage, androgyny,2 and public immodesty. Richard Quebedeaux, a self-professed new-evangelical, admits in The Worldly Evangelicals, “Evangelicals are making more and more compromises with the larger culture.” He adds that “Evangelicals have become harder and harder to distinguish from other people” pointing out that Christian “business people, professionals, and celebrities have found it necessary (and pleasant) to travel the cocktail-party circuit in Beverly Hills.” Finally, he mentions with approval, “Evangelicals have often discovered the pleasure of alcohol and tobacco while studying and traveling in Europe.”3

What has contributed to this decline? I suggest that a lack of commitment to the ethical message in the Scriptures carries much of the responsibility.4 The absence of doctrinal, authoritative preaching on sin and the complete depravity of fallen humanity has hastened the moral decline in both Western culture and individual Christians. In 1991 a survey of non-Christians and professing born-again Christians revealed a striking ignorance regarding the biblical understanding of sin. The respondents were asked whether or not they agreed with the following affirmation, “People are basically good.” As one would expect, 83% of the non-believers agreed with that statement. Shockingly, 77% of the “believers” agreed with it — people may sin, but perhaps they are not sinners after all!5

A “dysfunctional” view of sin has also revamped preaching and evangelistic strategy. Words like “sin,” “guilt,” and “wickedness” are being replaced with euphemisms such as “mistake,” “estrangement,” “maladjustment,” “indiscretion,” or “imprudence.” “Sin,” in today’s religious world, is no longer against God, but against oneself. Selfishness, rather than being the essence of all sin, has become the goal of redemption. Ministers appeal to self-interest in their preaching because they know that self is what really motivates people. Human-need now beckons the unfulfilled to receive “wholeness” at the foot of the cross. How, one may ask, can anyone actually repent in such an environment? The regression is from the biblical position which says, “I’m not O.K., you’re not O.K.,” to the popular notion of the seventies, “I’m O.K., you’re O.K.,” culminating in the current self-esteem craze, “I’m O.K., I’m O.K.” — a kind of schizophrenic Pelagianism.6 Consequently, sin has not been a popular subject for Christian authors or pastors. A virtual paucity on the subject exists today.

Preaching that ignores repentance of sin in the Gospel or “dumbs down” the volitional aspect of saving faith will supplant the Gospel. As a result, the basic constituency of the church will be unregenerate, culminating in a deterioration of the quality of church life and Christian service to mere externalism (eccentric emphasis on rules) or libertinism (e.g., “Christian” rock concerts, night clubs, sensual dancing, abandonment of dress and music standards, etc.). The Evangelical and Fundamental landscapes are strewn with the wreckage of churches and church members who have succumbed to a diluted and inevitably, a deleted message.

At some point faithful ministers of the Gospel must recognize the need for speaking out against sin and proclaiming the absolute necessity for the miraculous work of regenerating grace in every believer. Man will never bow his knee to Jesus Christ apart from a work of saving grace that transforms the human heart (Matt 13:8, 23; John 3:1–16; 1 John 5:1). If people are invited to accept Jesus Christ just to have their needs met, it will be difficult, if not impossible, to expect something more of them later. Fidelity to a particular text type or translation does not erase infidelity regarding the Gospel message.

Mike Harding is the pastor of First Baptist Church of Troy, Troy, Michigan.

 

Previously in this series:

  1. “ἐπανόρθωσιν” is only used once in the NT (BAGD, p. 282). [↩]
  2. “Androgyny” means the removal of male and female characteristics, roles, or dress. [↩]
  3. Richard Quebedeaux, The Worldly Evangelicals (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1978), pp. 12, 14, 118. [↩]
  4. God’s judicial wrath is similar to the “wrath” of the court when it pronounces sentence on a condemned criminal. Out of the infinite perfections of God’s being, He is able to both love and exercise judicial wrath on the condemned sinner at the same time (John 3:16–17). [↩]
  5. Barna, What Americans Believe, pp. 89–91. [↩]
  6. Pelagianism, a heresy that began early in Church history, denies the depravity and moral inability of the human will. [↩]
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