Polemics, Second Introduction: How is it done?

This is the second introduction to polemics. I usually actually say polemics. It's the tomato-tomato thing, so if you hear me say polemics, you can translate that into polemics. Now that I've said that, I'll probably just say polemics the rest of the class, and it will be useless for me to have said that. Everybody does have a handout this morning? Take mine out of the binder. I don't need to walk around with the big bulky thing. Real quickly, there's a... That's reverb on the microphone, sorry about that.

Is everybody familiar with ecumenicalism? If I say ecumenicalism, just for those who may possibly not know and listening on the recording, ecumenicalism is the idea of unity ignoring differences. It's a false unity, I would say. Tolerance would be another word. Okay, we're going to tolerate things. What's the difference between tolerance and love? Can anybody give me a brief distinction there? Okay. I wouldn't quite have defined it that way, and that's okay. Those are true statements. Political correctness. The thing I would say is that Scripture says, and when I say love I mean this in a biblical context, Scripture says that love covers a multitude of sins.

What does tolerance do? Tolerance basically ignores or allows the sins, but usually to a point. That's the problem, is that we want tolerance, we want tolerance, but if you sin hard enough or long enough or aggressively enough, Eventually you're going to find the end of tolerance. It's going to be the Chinese water drop torture where it keeps dropping the drop on your forehead and eventually you go crazy from it. If somebody keeps screwing up long enough, you're going to reach the end of tolerance. So ecumenicalism is often based on the idea of tolerance of screw-ups. and sometimes they'll talk about love, but the truth of the matter is that unity should come from agreement, not disagreement.

So I want to start out discussing that. Now, let's take a quick look at Galatians 5, 19-26. That's not on your handout, so you'll need to look that up in your Bible. I like to do that every once in a while to see if we can trick anybody to find Galatians or something. I'm going to go ahead and start reading because we're going to read 19-26, if you'll follow me there.

Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these, of which I forewarn you. just as I have forewarned you that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control, and against such things there is no law. Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit. Let us not become boastful, challenging one another, envying one another.

You see two contrasting ideas. One, if you're walking in the flesh, is going to involve arguing. Obviously there's a long list of things that are not going to tie into polemics here. I don't think that sorcery fits into polemics most of the time, or drunkenness necessarily. But there's things like jealousy, outbursts of angers, disputes and dissensions in factions.

The first question that we have on the handout there is, how is polemics done? Does anybody have experience doing polemics or discussing theology with the purpose of unity with other believers or people who are part of Christendom, but not necessarily Christians, or even outside of Christianity for that matter? where you discuss the doctrines and teachings of the Bible with somebody?

Okay, so you'll discuss doctrine. Okay, is it things like the creation account? That's definitely an area where there's lots of opportunities for discussing Now, the thing here is, what I wanted to point out is that the flesh is going to generate things like outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, and factions. If when you're discussing doctrine with somebody and your emotional reaction is going to involve any of those things, then there is a decent chance, although not a 100% chance, that you may be walking in the flesh. I have done that so many times. That's the first warning. Watch out for the flesh, because it's not going to be a fruitful, Holy Spirit-involved discussion if we're walking in the flesh.

Polemics needs to be focused on the Bible. If you're going to be debating things that are doctrinal, you need to go to the source. If you find yourself having a completely philosophical discussion about something, and it's outside of Scripture, and there's lots of Scripture about it, then it should be focused on what the Scripture says. I have had lots of philosophical discussions with believers and non-believers over things, and we never once opened our Bibles. So if you're going to talk about spiritual things and it's rooted in Scripture, make sure that you have a Bible present, a really good memory of what the scripture says.

Don't make it a debate. I used the word debate earlier, moments ago. Don't make it a debate. Debates often involve arguing two sides, not always for truth, but for dominance. We don't want to be distracted by arguments. We want to know and seek the truth. That's the purpose.

I've actually been to various debates, and the fruit of those debates was minimal at best. You came in having an idea, an opinion. You listened to the various sides. Most of the time, they all said the same argument that you knew they were going to say, and you walk out the same, because of the debate.

Often, and this is, again, I want to be careful with... Well, let me say this. The context that I'm most concerned with addressing here is one-on-one with somebody in a personal context. Debates are not fruitless, but it's easy to have endless debates if you're not addressing things, and we'll go over things to watch out for. If you listen to a debate, often you will find that many of the things that are on this list happen during a debate. And these are signs of a bad debate, okay? So let's go over this list of things to watch out for.

Before that, though, I want to point out that we need to make sure that when we are discussing somebody that we recognize the direction of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Just because you can disagree with somebody and be verbal about it doesn't mean you should.

You need to pick your battles, so to speak. know the person. If you don't know the person and they engage you in something that feels like a theological conflict, try to evaluate their character as much as you can, because some people just like a good fight. My mom and dad used to tell me when I was growing up, Randy, you would make a great attorney, you just love to argue. The truth of the matter is I did love to argue, but that was the flesh, and so the Lord has been working that through me in my sanctification, or working that out of me.

Another thing on the positive side of things, instead of things to watch out for, is that because of the fruit of the Holy Spirit, your discussion with a person who's disagreeing with you should be patient, loving, gracious. It should be all of the things that the fruit of the Spirit is in your life.

The classic example for my failure that stands out in my mind, I went to a retreat for the seminary in Texas and I sat down at a table with a guy and there were three guys actually and they were telling me that rock and roll absolutely every time was from the devil and there was no such thing as Christian rock and I happened to have previously worked at a Christian bookstore selling Christian rock and I knew the lyrics were quality and I said, the lyrics are my concern, not so much the music. the guy, and I went back and forth, and he kept quoting a passage out of Hebrews way out of context, and I would say, you're quoting that out of context, and he would quote it to me again, and I'd say, no, you're quoting it out of context, and we'd go back and forth, and eventually I slammed my Bible down, this is classic flesh right here, okay, this is what not to do, and I said, this is C-R-A-P, in a very loud voice, and everybody in the room stopped and looked at me, and it was like, hmm, I kind of blew that one. So that's an example of what not to do. I wasn't being gracious. I wasn't walking in the Spirit. I may have been justified in my position, but I wasn't being a believer that was abiding.

So let's look at a list of things to watch out for. These are things that are really common for us to either want to do, or you'll see other people do it, And if you're listening or watching other people in a debate, these are things to watch out for, even though, like I said, we don't want a debate. First thing is to know your view and the other views.

Have you ever been in a discussion with somebody where they have totally misrepresented what you believe? Somebody will say, oh, those dumb Christians, they... and they'll make some statement and you'll go, oh my gosh, that's not true at all. I didn't get any reaction from that. Apparently nobody's ever had that happen to them. Actually, the thing is that that happens to me all the time. I'll read in the newspaper, those are classic places where they'll say, fundamentalist Christians, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, oh my gosh, you've just painted everybody this way and it's not true.

So I've got here the second sentence on here is, two or more distinct and clear views need to be understood and evaluated. If you don't know your view clearly, it's probably not a good idea to really go charging into a discussion. And if you don't know their view clearly, ask questions. That's the number one thing I've had to learn after having all of my mistakes, is ask questions. into some of the reasons why that is further on. Another thing to watch out for in this is to watch out for the use of obscure scriptures.

For example, the Mormons believe in the baptism of the dead, or some of them do. There is a reference in 2 Corinthians where that gets brought up really briefly. Paul mentions something about it, but it's not clear. Having a debate over that one verse with obscurity is probably not going to lead to a fruit. There are other things that are more important to address before that, like can you be saved through faith in Christ alone, and things like that that you want to address before you deal with baptism. My husband's not speaking up, but he always starts out with asking a question. He loves to talk to JWs and Mormons.

And he always asks them what Paul's gospel is. Yeah, that's good. What's Paul's gospel? They never know. Yeah, that's a good question to start out with, especially when you're dealing with Mormons or Jehovah's Witnesses or cults, and even people in... Ask, what is Paul's gospel? What is the gospel? Specifically, you're giving them a... What does Paul write the gospel to be in the Bible?

The source is not Gene versus them. It's the Bible says what. That's one of the things that you want to talk about. I said that written here in this first paragraph. It's got to be about the Bible. If it's not in the Bible, you're in trouble. Now the second thing to watch out for, and this is something that I classically fell into in high school. I had several Mormon friends and I would just try to bomb them. I've got their headline, Don't Strafe.

Does everybody know what strafing is? In the military, if you've got a machine gun, you will sweep the gun and the bullets go flying all the way across. Hopefully, you're either hidden or moving so that they can't strafe you, but the idea is that because the bullets are going broadly, even if the target's moving, you've got a higher chance of hitting them. Also, sometimes they'll do what's called strafing with with airplanes where they'll drop bombs in a row, and sometimes you've seen video footage of that.

The idea is that you shouldn't have 20 arguments that you just drop on somebody, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, because that doesn't give them a chance to actually honestly answer your first question, and before they've answered your first question, you've nailed them with the second question. and the third question, and the 20th question, and the number of questions could be quite lengthy, but because you're not actually honestly dealing with the issue, it's going to possibly either end the discussion because they're going to be fed up with you and move on, or it's going to lead to confusion because you're just all over the place and you can't have an intellectually consistent and honest discussion. Sometimes in a debate you'll see that where if they have an open forum time, somebody will go back and forth. Often a debate structure will be, you have five minutes, and then they have five minutes, and you have five minutes, and they have five minutes, which forces people to be able to listen all the way through what's being said, and then answer all the way through, hopefully, what's been said. But in dialogues, it's very easy for us to start just spraying all the questions.

I have my 20 reasons why evolution is false, and here they are, and the person then suddenly You didn't answer this question. You didn't answer this question. Well, I didn't have a chance to. I haven't gotten there yet, because I've got 20 to deal with. So don't strafe. Don't just drop 20 bombs.

Another one, and this one is probably the most critical, I could have put this first here, is know the root issue. I have spent hours and hours, if not days of my life, in discussion with people, talking about the middle of the argument. Dealing with the symptom and not the root issue.

To give you a medical illustration in my own personal life, I'm allergic to corn. In fact, I'm not just allergic to corn, I'm intolerant to corn. My body thinks it's a poison. Now, when I eat corn, it dries my skin out and it makes me incredibly tired. If I went to the doctor and I said, I have really dry skin and I'm really tired, the doctor could say, ah, you have symptoms, and give me cream for the eczema, that's the dry skin, and tell me to drink more coffee or give me some kind of chemical substance that would up my energy level temporarily. That may deal with the fact that I ate the corn on a symptom level, but it doesn't tell me, if I didn't know I was allergic to corn, that I need to not be eating corn. That's the problem, is that I ate corn, not that I have dry skin and I'm tired.

So when you have a discussion with somebody, it's very easy to start in the middle. It's easy to For example, I've heard lots of times, and this is the example I've got here at the bottom of the paragraph, heard different denominations, people representing different denominations, arguing back and forth over whose denomination has the best doctrine and whose denomination is better. In Texas, there's the classic Southern Baptist versus pretty much everybody else argument, and I've run into that multiple times.

The truth of the matter is that We need to ask, should there be denominations? And the answer to that is no. So arguing in the middle of the argument over whose denomination is best really ignores the fact that Scripture, Paul specifically says, and we'll look at this passage a little later on, we need to not be of Paul or Apollos or Peter or Christ. We need to be of Christ only. Sorry, not of. We need to be of Christ.

So know the root issue. Know when you get into a discussion with somebody, if it's even worth starting there. Sometimes people will bait you into a middle argument because they know that that middle argument is actually false, and then they can undermine you. If you've got somebody who's tricky, they'll use that, so be careful. Make sure that your discussion is about something that should be discussed. Another classic technique is don't get distracted, or another thing to watch out is don't get distracted.

It's easy to follow rabbit trails, especially if you've strafed already, and you've gone 20 different directions at once, it's easy to follow off onto a rabbit trail and never actually address the issue. For example, Calvinism, you could spend hours and hours discussing the five points of Calvinism. I've met people who are 3, 4, 5, and 7 point Calvinists. Traditionally there's but some of the five point Calvinists have figured out that they can add two more to the equation by introducing other forms of rules. The problem is that by chasing the first five points or whatever it is that they may have, you unfortunately kind of have fallen victim of missing the root issue and you followed a rabbit trail. The question is, should there be a system of Calvinism or a system of Arminianism in the first place?

Does Paul use those terms? No. Do those terms discuss certain doctrines? Yes. But should we be distracted by five or seven points or three points or four points, or should we be more concerned about what's Paul's gospel? Don't get distracted by a rabbit trail. That's similar to know the root issue. This next one here is differences in definition. That's really, really critical.

Has anybody or everybody heard of the Evangelicals and Catholics Together, or ECT? That was a group of Protestants and Catholics got together and they signed a document saying, we agree on these things, but their definitions of those things that they agreed on were radically different in some areas. And so they could all sign the document and they could say, believe that Jesus is the Son of God?

Yes. Okay. We're saved by faith alone? Yes. But the Catholics' faith, or what they had faith in for the Catholics, was radically different than what the Protestants had their faith in. Is your faith in the saving work and atonement of Christ alone on the cross? Or is your faith in the Catholic system? Well, it's faith alone, but what are you having faith in?

So make sure your definitions are agreed upon in the beginning. Don't get fooled into a long discussion where the real problem is your definitions. The next one I've got on here, and stop me if you've got questions or comments. I'm sorry, I've just been kind of going through here. I've been strafing you with all the things to watch out for.

Yeah, it's really good to start out As you come into a conversation, I always like to know somebody before I'm willing to get into a discussion with them as best as I can. You may find yourself where you're stuck in an airline seat next to the next guy and you strike up a conversation and you don't get to know them ahead of time. But often in my own life I've found that I do get to know people and I get to know who they are. And that makes it much more comfortable for me to get to know their definitions.

But it's good when you're starting out, as soon as you notice a distinct difference, to ask. The worst case scenario is you discover that you actually are defining that word the same. They're just applying it differently. But the thing is that asking those questions with somebody, instead of making assumptions, is probably going to lead to a lot more resolution of things, rather than just I've got this and you've got that, and we're just going to run through it.

Definitions of things can be brought into question. We talked last semester or a couple quarters ago about postmodernism, and we talked about how they redefine things dynamically. I can't really know your definition of something, and you can't know my definition of something. That's part of the modern culture to a certain degree. It's being taught in the colleges more now. So John gets to look forward to some freaky stuff, and Davis as well, and Marianne. Everybody. We all get some freaky stuff somewhere.

But the thing is that by having different definitions or not thinking that you can have the same definition, you're going to lead to problems. Don't even go into the conversation if they don't think they can understand you. You're going to waste your time if you jump in without them really genuinely understanding the definition. Or you not understanding theirs.

So, yeah, definitely it's worth asking questions. Yes? You know, that makes such an excellent point. I have found in my life, certain people that I even do know well, I will make assumptions about what they believe. And once I finally realize that, I was able to say, okay, I know they don't believe like I do because of certain things that they've said, but I don't really know what they do believe. And so that stops me from being so argumentative with them. Because if I don't know what they believe, how can I argue? Yes, that's basically what it is. You can't disagree with somebody if you don't know what they believe. You may disagree with them, yes, but you won't know what your disagreements are really about.

The next thing I've got on here is rhetoric. This is one of the things that I saw in a debate in Texas. I went to a debate over eschatology. And this one particular fellow had the most impressive sales pitch for his mid-trib position. It was really impressive. He had charts. He was quoting Bible verses left and right. He was waving his hands. He was moving around the stage. It was really impressive as far as rhetoric and presentation was concerned. He was twisting things out of context. He was misrepresenting the other views and all of those things. So when you see someone speaking in what looks like eloquent or sophisticated language, don't be fooled by the vocabulary necessarily. Check them. Make sure what they're saying is accurate.

And for us, as believers, hopefully holding a position that's accurate in the situation, make sure that you're respectful in your communication of the other person. You can whip out charts and graphs showing end times things, but if the person's not familiar with end times things, bulldozing them with charts and graphs is probably not going to bear fruit again. The end is hopefully unity because you've looked at scripture. So if you find that they're either being overwhelmed or have disconnected, it's probably better to stop and figure out where you left them in the dust or if it's just time to stop. So watch out for rhetoric and presentation. The televangelists are classically known for being able to do that very well and extracting large sums of money from people who can't figure out that it's just rhetoric. So be careful of that.

The last thing I've got on my list here, I have a word that one of my co-workers introduced me to. It's not real. You won't find it in Webster's. It's circummunication. And it's the idea of circular communication where you will argue about the same things over and over, going back and forth, using the same arguments over and over, and you don't resolve anything. You don't get anywhere.

This is something I have run into in email exchanges quite frequently. Because with email we tend to be terse or not communicate the same way we would with emotion and dynamic, so the other person misunderstands what we're trying to say. The classic example in my most recent experience with this is I was talking to somebody who kept saying, I want to be holy. I want to live a holy life. And I kept using the word sanctification. And we would go back and forth and round and round, and we'd have another round of emails where I'm like, she didn't get it, and she would say, well, you don't get it. You're saying I don't need to be holy. I'm saying, no. The issue of sanctification is progressive holiness.

Positionally, I'm holy. Progressively, as I grow in my relationship with the Lord, He is going to set aside in my life various areas, taking today to deal with this issue, or this week to deal with this issue, or maybe months to deal with this issue in my life. Positionally, I'm holy. Sanctification is the process of the Lord making our lives holy.

But we kept using different words, and going around and around and around and around, and it drove me nuts, and I finally had to stop and go, what is wrong here? Why am I not getting anywhere with this person? Well, it's because I was using different terminology, not defining the terms, and not stopping to ask if I was communicating clearly well enough so that we could stop the cycle and really get down to business. So those are all things to watch out for in your own... Yes, Marilyn? I tend to avoid debates or discussions because I have such a slow reaction time. It's like something really bothers me and it's like 24 hours before I realize what it even is.

See, that's prudent. I think that's a prudent thing for every person to evaluate. Is this something that I'm equipped to do? And one of the things that's, I think, important, you know, these are general principles for people who the Lord has called to apply them.

The body works differently. Some people are evangelists, some people are teachers, some people are hands, so to speak, and they're going to be helpers. Some people are geared different ways. one person I get into discussion with is really hot on street evangelism and really everybody should go out and be evangelist and I'm like, I'm not called to be an evangelist. That's not where the Lord has called me.

However, I hope to equip other believers, hopefully y'all count for that, as being equipped so that when you are in the workplace discussing something or somebody throws a bomb your direction with, you know, Christians are dumb, or whatever statement they want to make, you can react to it intelligently and biblically, and that will have an effect through relationship and evangelism. But you may not be out on the street corners, you know, standing up on your soapbox and waving things or doing whatever it is that you do, because you're not called to that. Okay? So, yeah, I mean, it's okay. That's one thing that I hope everybody can walk away from when they go into the other side in the heavenlies, the Lord's going to say, good job, my faithful servant.

Ephesians 2.10, He's got good works planned for you, even if it's not getting into a discussion with somebody.

It may be the person that brings that food to the person who's hungry that has done the good work, and it may not be the person that... because you're not called to be standing on the street corner, you're not called to be out there arguing with people. In fact, I found that I really liked to argue, and the Lord uses me the least when I'm argumentative." And so he's like, no, no, your attitude is wrong. So instead, when I share the gospel about grace, about the work of Christ, so that we can have a relationship with God, it's much more effective than picking a fight. So yeah, I definitely would agree with the statement that if you don't feel like arguing is a good thing, it's probably the Holy Spirit not using you in that area, and that's great. Amen. Jack, did you want to say something? Well, you know, I believe in this regard that to just get into an argument about theological matters is, if it's not for a point of edification, you just won't talk about the West at all. Yeah.

And I find, too, that If you get into a discussion like this, if the Holy Spirit has prepared somebody's heart for that, they can come to you, and instead of loading them down so much with information, they can point to me and say, well, when you think about this or when you think about that, put your opinion of this. Many times it's strictly of the world, and it's always 100% wrong. to portray a little of my mythical truth about some subject and it might open the door but I just feel that if the Lord has brought somebody to you that has a hungry heart about something And the thing is that some people feel compelled and called to street evangelism, and they'll tell you the stories of the people the Lord has called into relationship with Him through that experience. through that ministry, and that's fine, but for the average person, that's probably not where we're called. If they're taking credit for something, they have nothing to do with it. Correct. If the Holy Spirit hasn't prepared a heart for these truths, you just want to go talk to the wind out of that wall over there.

Yeah, and I agree 100%. The problem can often be in our modern culture now, specifically, Okay, we talked and mentioned the Mormons and the Jehovah's Witnesses. Those are classic examples of many, many, at least in America, and they've really done a good job of getting out into other countries, many people get exposed to the guy dressed up in the three-piece suit with his partner or friend or family, knocking on your door, ready to hand you some documentation that legitimizes their ministry or whatever it is, and most Americans just shut down. Oh, it's that thing again. It's door-to-door religion, and I don't want it. And they go throw it in their garbage can, and they're done. Art?

I heard, just within the day or so, that the Roman Catholic Church is either first or second in growth, and the Mormon Church is the other, either first or second, I don't know. But it's interesting, particularly when it comes to the Mormons, if we were as a... and if it's true that the Mormons are growing either first or second in the world, we should maybe pay attention to their evangelism. I kind of respect their...

In the effectiveness, or the perceived effectiveness of it, you mean? They're attempting to evangelize, and we don't do that. If we, if Christians, evangelized with the same rigor as the Mormons are doing, why, Christianity, I shouldn't even say Christianity, If we preach the gospel to individuals as much as the Mormons do, with the results that the Mormons are getting, I think we would get the same results. Okay, I'm going to disagree with you respectfully in the sense that the Mormons have, and for those of you listening on the recording, our suggestion is that if Christians were to evangelize as vigorously as the Mormons do, then Christianity would grow in numbers as well. My thought on that is this. Statistics on church growth in numbers of people are, first of all, highly suspect. So that's the first thing.

But the second thing is that if you are preaching a works-based salvation, people are going to respond to it because it's fleshly, it's worldly. and they're more likely to react to it in a positive way. Oh, I can get my way into heaven. I will earn my way into heaven through doing these programs, and I'll go to my missions trip when I'm out of high school, and then I will come back, and I will marry my wife, and we will have 300 spirit babies, because that's what Mormons want to have, as many spirit babies as they can in physical form, and the whole nine yards. You're going to appeal to people with that, whereas the grace side of the gospel is much more offensive on first contact for most people. And they need to see it lived out in your life, which is why I'm a big fan of one-on-one evangelism through relationship.

Now, the truth of the matter is that if the Lord has prepared somebody's heart for salvation, it doesn't matter who comes up to them. if they're preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and it's their time, they're going to be a believer, whether it's standing on the street corner, or you just happen to pass them in the hallway, or you've known them for their whole life, or you just met them at work a couple of years ago. Zacchaeus in the Sycamore Tree. So basically, all of these things are things where, when you're dealing with polemics, not just evangelism, but when you're dealing with variety in it's important to identify communication breakdowns, basically, is what it is. Know your stuff so that if they don't know theirs, you can graciously watch out for the pitfalls and guide the conversation to an edifying place.

If I had to sum all that up into a small chunk of time, as it is, I've got to try to do an overly brief overview of theological decay. The biblical examples of polemics, I've got here two of them. One of them is Christ with the Sadducees in Mark 12, 18-27. I recommend you read that and look over that at home because I'm running out of time. I'm going to just kind of briefly tell the story. Christ corrects the Sadducees.

The Sadducees, first of all, only got their doctrine from the first five books of the Old Testament. So, the law, the Torah, that's where they got their doctrine from. If you showed them something in Isaiah, they'd look at you and say, ha ha, that's Isaiah, it doesn't count. So, when Christ comes to them and one of the Sadducees says, well, we don't believe in the resurrection, what do you have to say about this, teacher?

Christ says, well, let's go back and look at Genesis. I'm sorry, Exodus, where God says to Moses that he is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in present tense. He says they've got to be resurrected because they're not dead, they're still alive. And the Sadducee can't refute that because it's scripture. Not only is it scripture, but it's scripture that is in the context of what he's going to understand. He goes back to one of the first five books.

So when you're dealing with discussion with somebody, hitting them with something that is outside of their context, outside of what they know, is probably going to be a bad plan if you have another choice. Simply because... Now, there are opportunities to tell somebody something that they don't know that will help win the argument, but if they're going to... For example, if you answer everybody that you come in contact with out of Romans, but they're dealing with something that's not in Romans, you're not going to be equipped, and it's not going to be necessarily in the context of what you're looking for, because as good a book as Romans is, it doesn't deal with everything.

There are 66 books in Scripture. It's good to have a general idea about most of them, if not all of them. A second example of polemics in Scripture would be Paul's letter of correction to the church in Galatia. The whole book is sometimes referred to as a polemic letter because it addresses error in their theology.

But when Paul starts out the book, the first thing he does is he lays out the authority of God and the authority of Scripture and the representation of the body where he's coming from. He doesn't go in and guns blazing and start shooting until he first clarifies the authority that he has been given in scripture and then he goes in and he takes them point by point.

The third paragraph under that section on page 3 in Galatians 1 through 10 Paul states clearly that the believers in Galatia knew the gospel he had presented to them so they were aware of truth but they had been distracted by false teaching and he says listen even if you have been given another gospel from what appears to be an angel. If it's not this gospel, it's not the real thing. And so Paul then goes on to address things and move forward with the idea. But Paul knows their position, and he knows his position, and he goes in and he corrects things graciously but firmly. Galatians is definitely a tough letter to read and think, this guy was rather aggressive, but the truth of the matter is they were dealing with loss If they preached the false gospel to other people in Galatia, and those people bought into it and moved on, they would go to hell, because they didn't hear the gospel, unless the Lord brought somebody else corrective into their lives. So Paul was very serious about the gospel.

Okay, I'm sorry, I'm kind of zipping through all this, because I'm running out of time. The second part of this lesson is how did we get here, and it's an overly brief overview of theological decay. If you read Genesis 6, it's right where God is describing, through Moses, as he's writing down Genesis, God is describing the absolute decay of the culture. It says that Noah was the only righteous man.

That's not saying a lot for the people that were living on earth at that time, but one of the concepts there is that they did whatever they wanted. and they thought what they wanted in their theology was whatever they wanted. Yay for me and what I want. Oh boy, oh boy. This idea is not new.

As soon as Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden and procreated, there were more than two people that thought that way, and you've got Cain and Abel, and you've got the whole line of people that come out, and the flesh leads to sin, which leads to decay and variety in theology. The Holy Spirit does not bring variety of theology, but the flesh does.

So, when we look at some of these brief things here, know that that's the root of things. New groups and movements start because of, and if you'll go to the top of page four, there's a brief list. Now, some of you, if you took the church history class, this is mostly from one of the church history classes, because it basically described literally this topic. So it was, I didn't want to reinvent the wheel, especially since it was really actually good material. So you may have already had this, but I want to give you a heads up that it wasn't just me.

Division comes from politics, geography, personalities, social differences, different bases of authority, different methods of interpretation and failed attempts to reform or at reform of an organization. You can look throughout history and obviously politics is an easy one.

If you've ever had a discussion over anything political, it's intense sometimes. People get pretty worked up. That's a classic situation where people will argue the middle of an argument instead of the root of the argument. People want to argue how do we deal with the symptom when the root of the problem is that we all sin. and nobody ever wants to go there in politics because that gets a little too personal.

Geography is obviously something that you can look at the Middle East and you can see geography has become a big issue. Is the land Israel's or is it Palestine's? Well, God says it's Israel's, so the Israelis say it's ours. The Palestinians say no, no, no. Allah does not want you to have that land. And so, yeah, it's religiously rooted in certain degrees, but geography has definitely been the topic of much division.

Personalities. I think that's almost... There's lots and lots and lots of examples of personalities leading to division. I'm trying to pick a personality here. Luther is a classic example of division in Christendom. He left the Roman Catholic Church for... well, they excommunicated him. He didn't want to leave the Roman Catholic Church. In fact, he also qualifies under failed attempts at reform of organizations. But he was a personality that people gathered around quickly. People gathered around the Pope, or they gathered around Luther, or Zwingli, or Calvin, or various other people, and they gathered around them, And it was, I'm a Calvinist, I follow Calvin. No, don't be of Paul or Apollos, be of Christ.

Bases of authority. The Roman Catholic Church has tradition and, secondarily, Scripture. The basis of authority is definitely a dividing line there. So when you come in contact with a Roman Catholic person and you're discussing things with them, You're going to say, but Scripture says, but Scripture says, and they're going to say, I don't care, the Pope says, the Pope says, and you may not get anywhere because you have to deal with that rude issue of authority. Who's got the authority?

Different methods of interpretation. Now this one is really important for believers to understand. Get tapes if you can. I believe that you can order them from the hermeneutics class if you have not taken the Bible interpretation or hermeneutics class, if you weren't attending it, or you haven't listened to them, I highly recommend getting that from the library, the church tape library, because interpretation and understanding how someone is interpreting things, and you clearly knowing how to interpret the Bible consistently, can alleviate huge arguments. you'll say, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute, you're not interpreting that consistently. And then you can take them through the steps of why that interpretation is incorrect. The Roman Catholic Church interprets scripture through its own grid, because they have to fit it in with the papal revelations that have happened.

And so when you go to discuss something, the authority is different and their interpretation is different. Sometimes they'll interpret something some way because they've been told to interpret it that way, even though it's logically inconsistent. So be aware when you're dealing with variations in interpretation, or even if you're dealing with somebody who is Presbyterian and you're not Presbyterian, obviously. Well, if you attend here regularly and you follow and agree with the doctrinal statement, you're not Presbyterian. Knowing those things is critical. Looking at the interpretational differences. Oh, well you hold to this interpretation of the Old Testament, and I really don't think that the church is an extension of Israel. Well, you interpret what Israel and who Israel is differently.

Let's take a look at 1 Corinthians 1, 10-13 here, and then we'll We'll move on, or we'll close in prayer. Paul writes, Now I beseech you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment. For it has been declared to me of you, my brothers, by them which are of the house of Chloe, that there are contentions among you. Now this I say, that every one of you said, I am of Paul, and I of Apollos. and I have Cephas, and I have Christ. Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? And were you baptized in the name of Paul?

In short, the unity that should be there is in Christ. And there's lots of other scripture references. There's also Galatians, Ephesians, Colossians, 1 Timothy, and Jude. I highly recommend you go home and read those, but each one of those is going to say the same thing, basically, and that's that unity is in Christ. It's not in denominations. The unity is not in ecumenicalism. We're just going to ignore the differences. Let's all hold hands and sing Kumbaya and Jesus loves me and we'll be okay. That's not going to do anybody any good.

Promise Keepers, born basically here in the Denver area, or was it Boulder or something? Anyways, the Promise Keeper organization is all about everybody ignoring their differences. But I went to a Promise Keepers conference, way back sometime in the early nineties, I think it was, and we sang a lot of happy songs. Some of them were actually really good songs.

And we learned about how we should all love Jesus. Nice. But we didn't get into any of the meat of where the doctrinal differences were, which would have brought true unity. Yes, we're unified in Christ, But the whole Bible is representation of God. How we interpret that Bible should be unified because it's Christ working in us. I've got to stop because time's out and I'm also getting a little hoarse. I should have grabbed a cup of water.

The last chunk on here was basically church history. breaking down severely and various examples of people dying or being tortured because their theology differed. Obviously, we're familiar with the Crusades and the Inquisitions if you're familiar with world history. But unity, as we discuss polemics and move forward, upcoming weeks and months we're going to be going over particular errors of various denominations or religious groups, so that you will be armed with things to know about them. And, of course, it'll be tip of the iceberg for each group, because we've got lots of different screwy groups out there. And you may never run into some of them, and you may be bombarded by others. But we're going to go over some of those things.

But keep in mind, as you're learning those things, these ideas so that if you do come in contact with somebody and they do confront you, or you confront them at some point in time, that there's true edification going on. Or you as a believer are not misrepresenting Christ, like I have done so well sometimes. And misrepresenting, I mean.

But the truth of the matter is that as I abide and the Holy Spirit brings opportunities, constantly finding times to plant seeds, even if it's not in a debate, not in a discussion. It's just the proclamation of the grace of God. The Gospel is grace. The Gospel is grace. You don't have to do the works. You don't have to do the works. And that sums up so many divisions right there in the various groups that we're going to be going over. The Gospel is going to be one of the core fundamental things where you're going to see misinterpretation and twisting. But as you come in contact with other believers, as you're doing the polemic work, it's the grace of Christ that should shine through you as you do that.