“What Is an Evangelical” David Martyn Lloyd-Jones (Only $6.00)
The Evangelical church has been taking a beating. We have experienced wave after wave to the point where once a joke is starting to ring louder in establishing some sort of an Evangelical Pope. We have seen so much garbage flood the church like popcorn and starbucks during service, changing nasty secular music and replacing the words with Jesus or God and calling it worship. We have seen every kind of sermon series from transformers to pants on the ground (silly song from american idol) from pastors who look like they raided their 14 year old son’s wardrobe. Evangelical churches have brought in every kind of pagan ritual from yoga to breath prayers. The seeker sensitive movement has blown the door wide open by introducing and validating pragmatism in the church- putting man’s ideas above God’s, turning churches into corporations with PR stunts in order to grow a church by bringing in more goats enticing them with free ipods, cars etc… which makes room for “sexy Jesus” , ultimate fighting for Jesus, pole dancing for Jesus.
Sound expository preaching have been replaced with topical sermons being more about moral attitudes than scripture:- Give more to the poor, Go to Africa, Help your community…do, do, do…Now where have I heard that before? Oh yeah! That is legalism, a more liberalized form but legalism none the less.
The Evangelical church lost it’s way when Christians thought that worldly practices could work with scripture but all it did was bring the world into the church. The church is far from being cohesive as everything is tolerated in the name of the 11TH COMMANDMENT-THOU SHALT NOT JUDGE!!..You don’t believe Jesus is God?..no problem…You don’t believe Jesus didn’t literally rise from the dead?..Come on in…You don’t see homosexaulity as a sin in the bible so why not practicing gay clergy?..We don’t either…You believe in ecumenism?..we do too, You are ok with twisting scripture to fit your own agenda or experiences?..We can work with that
You have so called “Evangelicals” from biologos telling people that Genesis cannot be read literally and in doing so allow people to think that science trumps scripture. Just an onslaught as everyday is a new battle for true Evangelicals who know what an evangelical is and believes. Many people call themselves Evangelical and have no clue just what that means but this book will tell you.
An excellent book that all Evangelicals and professing evangelicals should read. God Bless!
strict adherence, or the principle of strict adherence, to law or prescription, especially to the letter rather than the spirit.
Theology .
a. the doctrine that salvation is gained through good works.
b. the judging of conduct in terms of adherence to precise laws.**
If all these things, i.e. give to the poor, help your community, are intended as works toward salvation, then yes it is legalism. But having a church of community of believers strive to help in some social way is actually what Christ wants us to do. See Matthew 25:31-46 and James 2.
There is a place for expository preaching, but there is also a place for these other topical subjects as well. But any and all preaching ought to be designed to motivate people to serve God in love.
There are so many true things here. Sometimes it is embarrassing how embarrassed the church can be of actually being Christians - you know, those medieval, dark ages people who actually believe in a God who shed his blood for our sins. Don’t talk about blood, or sin, or hell. It was NEVER about trying to get everybody to like you so I don’t know why so many see that is so important today. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not advocating being an idiot, or being really obnoxious and then claim that you’re being persecuted for Jesus. But just hold fast to the Word, for heaven’s sake!
However, I do take issue with a few of your statements here:
"changing nasty secular music and replacing the words with Jesus or God and calling it worship."
I’m not sure exactly what you are saying here, but I hope you are not implying that there is only one kind of good worship music and that other forms in recent history (such as rock n roll, etc) are “worldly”. Worship music is, quite simply, psalms, hymns and spiritual songs put to music of ANY kind (or no music at all). When the organ was introduced to church music it was generally seen as a vile, worldly thing. A great many rejected the use of the organ in their church services. Such was the thinking several hundred years ago. Today, many of the old denominations still look at any music outside the organ as a bad thing. I was a worship leader at a conservative Methodist Church many years ago and you would not believe the wars that were waged by the older folks over their organ as it began to accumulate more and more dust. There will always be a generation that will cling to the older forms of music as the times change, but the important part is that we worship the Lord with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. God does not plug his ears when a group of young people are worshiping with all their hearts using hip hop music. He hears the music of the worshiping heart.
"Sound expository preaching have been replaced with topical sermons being more about moral attitudes than scripture:- Give more to the poor, Go to Africa, Help your community…do, do, do…Now where have I heard that before? Oh yeah! That is legalism, a more liberalized form but legalism none the less."
Why would you set the Word of God AGAINST the doing of good to our neighbor? This utterly perplexes me. So often the conservative churches have thrown the baby out with the bathwater. Since liberals are so concerned with a social gospel they come to the conclusion that social work is BAD! Give me a scripture that preaches against the helping of the needy and poor.
I can’t believe I just looked up a scripture to prove that we are supposed to help those who are needy. It’s fairly obvious. Yes we need expository preaching but it is not “either/or” it is “both/and”.
"You have so called “Evangelicals” from biologos telling people that Genesis cannot be read literally and in doing so allow people to think that science trumps scripture."
Gleason Archer, probably the most conservative and staunch Biblical defender that there ever was, who also was the go-to guy for biblical and ancient languages (I think he knew over 20+ languages at his death), was an old-earth creationist. He admonished that scripture wasn’t supposed to be read only literally. He said that scripture is supposed to be read according to the writer’s intent. A parable is not intended to be read literally. A command is not intended to be read figuratively. etc. etc. A major part of the art of biblical interpretation is determining the author’s intent, which is not as easy as one would always hope.
Seems like the church lost it’s way when it lost sight of love.
There may be a lot of encouragement to give more to the church and it’s projects, but on FB all I hear from Christians is their harsh attitude toward people on welfare, illegal immigrants, and all the reasons why we should stop giving to people abroad and help our own first.
I’m afraid, even with all the coffee, popcorn , etc. it hasn’t been enough to wash the bad aftertaste of what evangelical still means to many people- a lack of love, grace, and real justice.
