Polemics - Discernment - Polemics: What is it? / What difference does it make?

One quick item, we've been doing apologetics as defense of the faith here for six months. Just one I thought I'd bring up. There was a book out by Rene Salm, S-A-L-M, and it was titled The Myth of Nazareth. His thesis was that there wasn't any town of Nazareth during the supposed time when Jesus was alive and therefore the idea that there was a town that's where Jesus you know grew up and that that's where Jesus went back to the synagogue there that was all according to the claim of the book a myth and that there was no town as of earlier this year that's been disproven and so I went on the the Amazon website where they do reviews, you know, and I said, you know, based on this, and I gave the link, you know, archaeological discovery, they found a house exactly from Jesus' time and proven to be, you know, in that period of time and possibly even Jesus' own house. So anyway, the myth of Nazareth as a book just, you know, went down in flames.

So, anyway, let's get back to this. We're starting, as of this Sunday, discernment, technically known as polemics, and it's the idea that we, rather than just reading everything and kind of being undiscerning and distinguishing what's true and what's false, rather instead we do look at what's true and what's false. We use the Bible as the determining agent in order to tell us, you know, what's true and what's false and So we will be looking at that over these next six months here and Going through the circles.

And so this is the next thing to Bring up and we'll be bringing this up a number of different times Christendom is three circles now Can you think of the names of different groups that would be thought to be within Christendom? That is, other people would look from the outside and say, wait, that's Christian, or those are Christians, or that's a Christian activity, or something of that sort. Okay, so Mormonism would be one that would be within Christendom. Jehovah's Witnesses would be within Christendom. Are we within Christendom?

Yes. So in other words, you've got a whole huge spectrum. Last estimate, something like 30,000 different Christian sects and denominations and subgroups and that kind of thing. So that's a lot. And events and activities. Do most people think that the Crusades were Christians? Never mind that the soldiers were told that if they fought in this war that they would certainly go to heaven. That somehow that has anything to do with salvation. So that's the outside circle. It includes all sorts of things that you and I would kind of shrug our shoulders or maybe even find abhorrent. So that's the outside circle there. It includes both saving and non-saving Gospels, as well as teachings of every sort in some way connected with Christ, but not necessarily what you'd call Christian. I think a point of distinction to make, I mentioned the Crusades.

If you think about it, with Islam, Muhammad died in 632 AD. Within a hundred years, one century, Islam had fanned out into North Africa, into Europe, and into Asia. Within a hundred years, it was a hundred years to the year, they got to Tours, France, which is just outside of Paris.

Charles Martel, Charles the Hammer, said, Christian Europe good, Muslim Europe bad. He gathered together enough troops to actually reverse the Muslim invasion and push it back, not completely out, but back so that it still held on to places like Serbia and that sort of thing, and then into Spain. The Moors were a Muslim group that still held on to a lot of Spain and had continuing influence. Some of the words in Spanish that begin with AL, Albondigas, that's from the Moors influence.

So you'll have things like that connected to, you know, here's the Muslim religion, the first hundred years, the sword in every direction, right? In Christianity, how many people took up the sword in the name of Christianity in the first century after Christianity began?

Can't think of any, right? So this tells you the fundamental character of each of those religions. The Crusades was something quite apart time-wise, over a thousand years apart, And when you examine it, other than on the surface and some symbolic things, it had very little to do with Christianity.

It was biblical Christianity. Okay, so you have that. Christians, in the next circle in, Christians holding to biblical and therefore saving gospel message, but differing from biblical faith in other matters and in varying degrees. Okay, so what is the gospel? Christ died for your sins, was buried, and rose again. That's the gospel to be believed. 1 Corinthians 15, verses 3 and 4. So that's the content of the gospel. It's the gospel to be believed. Do you need to... let's take an example.

I sat down with one fellow from a Church of Christ background, and he said, I'm not saved. Tell me why you're not saved. He said, well, before I got baptized, they said I had to list all of my sins, and I missed one. And so he said, because I didn't list them all, and before they baptized me, then I'm not really saved. That's an instance of a false gospel. Listing your sins before you get baptized is not believing that Christ died for your sins, was buried and rose again. So that's a false gospel.

What if someone says you need to make a commitment to Christ? Does that save you? A commitment to Christ doesn't save you, right? Or let's say we have to believe, have to have faith that Christ died for your sins, was buried and rose again, and make Him Lord, such that you never backslide. Is that the gospel?

No, it's a false gospel. So there are various things that people will do to tweak the gospel or completely cut the legs out from underneath it by either taking from the core of the gospel or adding to it. Some in Corinth, and this is one of the reasons for chapter 15 of 1 Corinthians, some in Corinth were beginning to doubt the resurrection. They believed it once, but they were kind of backing away from that, therefore they were not able to present the full gospel.

The last one is biblical Christian faith is defined by the 66 books of the Old and New Testament in teaching and practice, both as to salvation and as to all other matters. Some group or a person might have a saving gospel, but err in other ways and respects.

Now that you're a Christian, be sure to keep these Ten Commandments. Now that you're a Christian, you only have to keep nine of the commandments, because that Sabbath thing we don't do anymore, but make sure you tithe. So what happens is you can still have a saving gospel, the person is saved, but they're operating off of a law principle instead of a grace principle. And that's most of Christendom.

So that's what we mean by this inner circle, that you'll have a church or a person within a church body that understands the saving gospel and presents that, but then after that operates off the wrong set of principles, puts people under law. Now what are some groups that operate under principle of law? within Christendom. Seventh-day Advent is very much legal-based, especially focusing on the Sabbath, which is the one of the ten that's not even quoted in the New Testament, but that's what they focus on. A lot of the covenant reform churches, very law-based.

Westminster Confessions. The Catholics are another one. Yeah, if you look at Roman Catholicism, Roman Catholicism not only has the Ten Commandments there in their catechism, they break it up differently, however. In order to have ten, they take the one about idols and they put that, you know, connect that under another one and make coveting into two. So they split that up in order to still end up with ten. It's interesting, the Catholics, the Orthodox, the Jews, and a number of Christian groups all have different breakdowns of the Ten Commandments.

Real interesting. But the bottom line is most of Christendom is law-based. And of course as you mentioned the Catholics, the Catholics are a great number in terms of population. point, you know, in many of these, like with the Catholic Church, not only are they law-based, but it's questionable whether you have a saving gospel taught, right?

Because how do you get saved in Catholicism? Well, first, you have to be baptized, right? You have to be baptized. And so baptism, instead of being a symbol of the salvation that you have, is instead the means. The other part of it is you're saved through the church and not otherwise. Whereas being saved places you in the church as a work of the Holy Spirit is what the Bible says.

Is confirmation part of it? Confirmation is taking them from a place where they can begin taking the sacraments And so, yeah, being confirmed in the church is essentially kind of a right into adulthood. Because you'd be infant baptized and not have the slightest idea of what's going on, right? Confirmation is actually understanding things to some degree and being introduced to the availability of the sacraments.

When you say there's a different breakdown of the Ten Commandments, what do you mean by that? What they do in the different groups, because there's the Jews and the Orthodox, by that I mean Russian, Serbian, Antiochian Orthodox, Greek Orthodox. The Jews, the Orthodox, the Catholics, and the Protestants all have different breakdowns of the same set of Ten Commandments. The difference in the Catholics is because they, if you go to the Catholic gift shops and whatnot, you know, they go in there and you buy candles and little images of Mary and things like that, and so they want to take that idol, you know, prohibition and get that sort of tucked away.

They don't get rid of it, but they join it in with another so that it doesn't stand out. And then they take, in order to still have ten, then they take coveting and split that into two. So what we would look at here is the inner circle then is looking at biblical gospel for salvation and biblical teaching and doctrine. And the truth is we can make that circle pretty small. Because there's an awful lot of the teachings of the various Christian groups, groups within Christendom, that is developed by other means than studying the 66 books of the Bible. bring up the Catholics again, lots of tradition there.

Even like Lutheran and Reformed churches, what they basically did is, what they rejected of the Roman Catholic Church, they separated themselves from and established something new and different. Whatever they didn't reject from the Roman Catholic Church, they continued to embrace.

And so you have infant baptism in those groups. Yes, you do still continue to have infant baptism in the groups. It doesn't have the same significance, but nonetheless, yeah. There was actually, back in the 90s, a very interesting debate series that was held about infant baptism. It was part of it, just different reform groups.

Some were saying, well, we want to hold just scripture, and then some were saying, we need reformation in our church. and big theological names such as R.C. Sproul were defending infant baptism, and the pure argument, the singular argument that they had was this is tradition. Yes, the bottom line is, and this is tradition, is ultimately back to the same Catholic foundation, right? And if I have any tradition that adds to or deviates from scripture, then I've got a problem because I'm having a different authority than scripture itself. The cry was sola scriptura, scripture only, and yet scripture and something else.

So then we have next the context for discernment, the bottom half of page 1. This is the context for discernment that Paul communicated to the believers of the Roman colony of Philippi. So here's Philippians 1, 9-11. And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in real knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve the things that are excellent, in order to be sincere and blameless until the day of Christ. having been filled with the fruit of righteousness which comes through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God." Now, it leads us to a question we're actually going to address a little more in detail later. But some Christians have the idea that love and truth are kind of opposite ends and intention, and that I have to pick one. Is that what this says? that your love may abound still more and more in real knowledge and all discernment."

He says both. As a matter of fact, one of the things that I would say is that truth is essential to loving because those two are connected. I can't have falsehood and love. Those don't work. And I should care, as a Christian, what people believe, because I love them. Because I love them. If they want a lie, and have to accept and embrace a lie, that's a problem. I still would love them, however, this is a difficulty.

So we'll talk about that more in a minute here. The next one down, since the accompanying study of Philippians 1.9-11 from the Philippians series, you can take a look at that. When Paul sent Titus to appoint elders to the island of Crete, his criteria for elders included, here's Titus 1. And we'll do one, five, and the first part is six, and then verse nine. For this reason I left you in Crete that you would set in order what remains and appoint elders in every city as I directed you. Namely, if any man is, and he goes and gives a list of qualifications, character qualifications primarily, but not exclusively.

And then verse nine, holding fast the faithful word, which is in accordance with the teaching, so that he will be able both to exhort in sound doctrine, that word for sound is the word we get our word hygiene from, so it has the idea of healthy doctrine, which also implies that there's such a thing as a sick doctrine, and to refute those who contradict.

So it's establishing what is true and refuting what's false. Establishing what's true and refuting what's false. So that leads us to this question, can we know what's true? Yeah, this indicates that yes you can know. Paul's writing that yes you can know what's true. Some Christians are persuaded, well we have no idea, you know. I know I talked some years ago to a student at Colorado Christian University and one of his professors said if someone says that they know what the Bible means, that's heresy. And no, that's false. That's not a true statement. Let's take a look at the top of page 2. So there are three primary things for us to observe in verse 9. They're 1. Holding fast the faithful word. Holding fast is used in the Gospels for being a fully devoted servant. Faithful in the New Testament era had to do with truthful and consistent testimony. It was a legal term. Clearly, truth is at issue.

The next one, exhort and sound doctrine. The word for exhort means to come alongside, to give counsel. The word translated sound is the root of the English word hygiene, and sound here has to do with the idea of being healthy as opposed to sick. And then the third point, there are a few of those who contradict. This shows that what must be done with those who favor or teach doctrine that is not healthy. not what has been taught. And so the Apostle Paul is using the faith, that is the teachings of the Apostles, and also the term the teaching. Brings us to another point.

Is truth singular? This would say yes, truth is singular. He doesn't even say the points of the faith. He doesn't say all the individual teachings. but the faith, the teachings. So actually truth is singular and why would that be? How could that be? What's the basis for truth being singular?

Christ is the truth. Right. He said, I, and let me expand on what he said, this is from John 14, I, being in fact God, he used ego, me, I being in fact God, am the singular way, the singular truth, and the singular life, No one comes to the Father except exclusively through me. That's the expansion of that verse. The basis for saying truth is singular is it's also personal. It's Christ.

So notice how much of verse 9 has to do with communication. Try taking any words out of verse 9 that involve communication. And drop those out. Yes? I can't remember where, but didn't Paul say in one of the epistles that he's all things to all people so that he may save a few or something? Right, right. So doesn't that kind of indicate that he is willing to compromise in some degree to save a person?

What he's saying with that, he says, I'll be a Jew to the Jew and to the Greek a Greek. And what he's saying in that, he says, culturally there are things that are neutral. Culturally there are things that are spiritually neutral. What are things that we do in our culture, that's specific to our culture, that by themselves are spiritually neutral? There's actually a lot of them. Is it sinful for me to shave my face? No, it's a cultural thing, right? What's that? Depends what your face looks like. Maybe it's sinful not to shave it.

So that's not a critical issue. If that is all it takes, then fine, I'll adjust to whatever. But Paul is saying, I won't let the things that are neutral, that are not essential, get in the way of my conveying the gospel. But he also said, if anyone teaches another gospel than what I teach. That's right. You've got one singular gospel, and there isn't some other alternate gospel. God's got no plan B. God's got plan A and plan A and plan A and that's it. Let's look at the middle of page two. What difference does polemics make? There are three time aspects to a believer's salvation. One is while we are in our present bodies, the initial salvation and ongoing sanctification. And then finally, while we are in our new bodies, glorification at the rapture.

And by the way, are all Christian believers going to be raptured? Yes. Yes, all Christian believers will be raptured. Some who are asleep in the Lord, like the Apostle Paul, all the apostles, all those who are gathered with them, Timothy, on up to those for whom we've had memorial services here. All those will be taken up at the rapture. Yes? Are you talking about the inner circle, the second circle, or the outer circle? I'm talking about those who are saved, so this is the second circle in, right? Those who are saved, those who have believed the true gospel, the saving gospel.

Alright, so we have some points. The initial salvation is based upon faith in Christ. 1 Corinthians 15, 3 and 4, and Ephesians 2, 8 and 9 present the characteristics of the Gospel there. The believer has an eternal position in Christ that begins at the point of belief. One of the ways that we've put it is, as Christian believers, God does a lot of things. He does a lot of things at the moment that we believe. And we spend the rest of our lives catching up to what He's already done. When you first believe and became a Christian, did you understand the identification truths through and through? No. No, you didn't. So what happens is, but were they true at the moment you believed? Yes, they were.

And so what happens is an example of us spending the rest of our lives catching up to what God's already done. Growing into what God's already accomplished. So we have that. Here's John 14, 6, which I expanded on previously. I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but through me. Then you have the ongoing salvation, or sanctification. That's the catching up to what he's already done. In one aspect, we're catching up to what he's already done. In another aspect, we're looking forward to what he's going to do. All right, so then let's take a look at the top of page three.

We have also in this ongoing sanctification, we have and can look forward to five crowns and three rewards. These are identified in the New Testament. And one of the things that we can look at with this and ask a question about, is it possible that there are other things for which we will be rewarded? It could be. We might get there and find out, I get a reward for that? Some of the things, here's an instance.

The rapture lover's crown, 2 Timothy 4.8, for looking forward for His coming for us, God says, you're looking forward for that instant when He comes for us, and for looking forward to that instant, He says, I'm going to reward you forever. Isn't that gracious? And all it is, we're looking forward for that instant in time when He calls us to be with Himself. Does that also include being prepared, looking forward and preparing for that instant?

I think that's one of the things, if you look at a lot of, not all of them, but a lot of the rapture passages have looking forward to the rapture as a motivation for godly living. And so it's not an isolated thing, it's actually clearly connected with other important teachings, and that being one of them.

In other words, it isn't, I don't care about anything, I'm just looking for the rapture. It instead says, I care about the things that matter because I'm looking forward to the rapture. It doesn't make me apathetic. It makes me care about the things that matter to the Lord.

The second one on the sole winner's crown, is that planting seeds or is it actual? That's a good question. I'm not sure I know the answer to that. Looking back over my own past, and I don't think I have the gift of evangelism, but I can see different instances where the Lord has used me in different ways there.

And then this crown that's mentioned there is a Stephanos. The Stephanos crown is particularly a victor's crown. Sometimes royalty would wear it, claiming that they're victorious, etc. But it was explicitly a victor's crown in an athletic competition. Here's 2 John 8 and 9.

Watch yourselves that you do not lose what we have accomplished, but that you may receive a full reward. How is Christ motivated regarding the believer when it comes time for rewards? What does Christ want to do? What glorifies Him. Well, certainly what glorifies Him, and we'll talk about what those crowns are, but is Christ looking for you to slip up so He can say, ah, gotcha! His motivation is actually to reward you to the max, and that's what this verse is talking about. He is motivated to reward you as much as possible. That's his motive. Last chapter of Revelation, Behold I am coming quickly and my reward is with me. He says, anyone who goes too far and does not abide in the teaching of Christ does not have God. The one who abides in the teaching, he has both the Father and the Son. 1 Philippians 3, 12-14, and this is expanded and explained so it gets wordy.

Just so you don't misunderstand me, I want you to know that I have not even at this point already taken possession by my own actions of total knowledge of Christ or of conformity with Him, nor have I already been made completely spiritually mature by being conformed to His image by God's own doing.

But I am right now continuing to press on without hesitation or let up in order that I will take down as a prize that for which I was taken down as a prize by Christ Jesus at the time when He pursued me as a prize." Isn't that something? And then verse 13, brothers in Christ, having spiritual relationship with one another because of relationship with him, I do not make a judgment regarding myself based on careful consideration, as having already taken down the prize, but I have one thing in my focus. I am constantly in the process of forgetting what lies in the past, and I'm constantly reaching forward to what lies ahead in the future.

I'm right now continuing to press on without hesitation or let up, looking with constant attention toward the person of Christ for the prize of the upward call of God in the heavenlies, when this life is completed at His declaration, which upward call to me is the victor I have by reason of my being in Christ Jesus, which will bring me to a place of being rewarded by Christ and being fully conformed to Him, only at the victorious moment At that victorious moment will my condition be permanently conformed to the position I already have in Christ. Here is Jude 3, Jude being Jesus' half-brother. Beloved, while I was making every effort to write to you about our common salvation, I felt the necessity to write to you appealing that you contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all handed down to the saints. Was Jude an apostle? No, he was not an apostle. The brothers of the Lord, who were not believers until his resurrection, had a place as Jesus' brothers in the church. James was an elder in the church in Jerusalem.

James was killed in the early 60s AD, about 61, 62, about in there. This book was written by Jude after James was killed, it appears to be, as to timing. And so Jude is stepping forward and urging that they contend, and that word contend is an athletic term, and it has an intensifier, epiagonisimae, it has an intensifier, I urge that you put forth an intense athletic effort. on behalf of the faith, the set of teachings of the apostles.

Alright, let's turn to page 4. And so the last point there, glorification at the rapture. When believers are raptured, whether they're alive or dead, so again that's both, and what's really neat is if I do a graveside service, I tell people this is respectful and honorable as it ought to be, but just remember it's temporary. If you do a graveside service, just remember it's temporary.

They are taken to be with the Lord forever in new bodies. They are evaluated at that time by Christ for rewardability based on having lived, once having believed, by Christ's light, in dependence upon Him. Our eternal rewards, supplemental to our eternal position in Christ, are given and determined by Christ in our capacity to glorify the Lord. We get that from Revelation 4, 9-11, where the heavenly elders are casting their crowns repeatedly before the Lord. So the crowns are a capacity to glorify the Lord. To what capacity will we all be glorifying the Lord? 100%. We'll all be glorifying the Lord 100% forever.

Some will have a different capacity than others. So it's a capacity to glorify the Lord does not mean shame or anything brought up on into the future regarding the person who does not have the same capacity as another. So, all believers will ultimately be conformed to the image of Christ at this point because it's predestined. See, what's interesting is that people think of predestination as everything is just like a big machine, and it's all determined, and it's all fixed, and you really aren't making choices. But what's predestined is our ultimate conformity.

And instead of having a dread or an apathy because of that, it ought to instead come across to me as, this is wonderful, I can't blow it. I can blow it in time, but ultimately I can't blow it. It won't get messed up. So it's a gracious thing, it's a merciful thing, it's a comforting thing, not a dreaded thing, not something that ought to make me apathetic.

So predestination, biblically, is a good thing. Because it's the outcome that's predestined. So when does polemics matter? Polemics matters at the point of salvation. Is it the true gospel that saves? or a false one that does not save. Here's how you get saved. I have a flow chart that we hand out during the church history class of the Roman Catholic plan of salvation.

And it starts off with you get baptized, and then you get to a certain age, and then the confirmation comes in, and then you can begin accumulating merit. And if you accumulate enough merit, you can bypass purgatory. And some even have an excess of merit that will allow their merit to be applied to somebody else and reduce their time in purgatory. And people that are living can spend money, that's called indulgences, and decrease someone else's time in purgatory.

So this is getting really complicated. And then you've got venial sins, which are sins which detract from your merit accumulation. And you've got mortal sins which take you out of salvation altogether and you have to start over. So it is possible under the Catholic system for the Pope to have an excess of merit but commit a mortal sin in his last five minutes of life and go to hell. Under the Catholic system. A true gospel versus a false one. During one's life as a believer until death or being taken up alive to be with the Lord, so the life from which eternal rewardability will be evaluated by the Lord and given for eternity.

Once all believers are glorified, there will be no more need for polemics. Polemics is for here and for now. No more need for exercising discernment. The outcome of the application of polemics is for this life and on into the next. Polemics has a specific meaning among Christian believers, and that is the exercise of discernment within what is known in society as Christendom. The outer discernment within that outer circle. That word is used to distinguish the societal recognition of the broad range of teachings and practices under the umbrella of Christendom, as distinct from the teachings and practices that are biblically found in Christian faith, impacting salvation, doctrine and practice among those who are saved, and the eternal rewards of each believer, those rewards being the capacity to glorify the Lord.

Now, here's another question that we touched on earlier. are we to set aside doctrine for the sake of unity. And there are Christians that hold to that. We set aside doctrine in order to be unified. The Christian Church, have you ever heard of that? Disciples of Christ? They are one who favors setting aside doctrine for the sake of unity. Let's just love Jesus and forget the rest of this stuff.

When you're talking discernment, can it also be used as to be able to discern? It's a gift, isn't it? To discern? It was in biblical times, I believe, it was a gift, a giftedness, and that was because they lacked the revelations of the New Testament particularly.

However, I think in our time, having the complete revelation of scripture, it's scripture that is ultimately the means of discerning what's true and what's false. So it's not having to do with the application of wisdom in your life or being able to discern what you should do? I think from a practical standpoint, that discernment ultimately has to be applied. and exercised with wisdom. But again, scripture is the foundation for doing so. So knowing truth from error and then applying the truth. Right.

And by the way, it isn't just doctrinal discernment by itself, but it's like moral discernment, ethical discernment. There are various areas in which discernment is important for the believer to apply. Because believers can get pulled into all kinds of strange things. So we have here, there are those within Christendom who favor setting aside doctrinal differences for the sake of being unified among Christians.

They think that that call to unity is primary. Sometimes this has been expressed as, in essentials unity, in all else charity. So then the question is, what's essential? And so it tends to be, all right, we're at the core, we agree on this, and everything else we disagree, but we still love each other.

The Apostle Paul, however, exhorts the believers in Corinth in this way, and this is expanded and explained. Now I come alongside you as a fellow believer, brethren in Christ, making my appeal to you by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, so as to have that importance and priority that you all say the same thing from a unified heart and mind. and that there be no fleshly divisions among you, among all or any of you, but that you all be mended and restored to the unity that you already have in Christ, which comes from the same mind that you have in Christ, and therefore all of you are unified in the same judgment in all things, judging everything biblically by God's grace." The word there that is behind that you all be mended and restored.

It is a word that's used in the Gospels for mending nets that were torn. The disciples who were fishermen would, especially at the north part of Galilee, there's a lot of sharp rocks, a lot of basalt blocks and that kind of thing. So going fishing, which you have to do, you might be even likely, in some parts of the Sea of Galilee, to rip up the nets. And so, come morning, one of the things you do with the nets is to go in and mend the nets. And that's that word. It's also a word that Dr. Luke would have used because it was a term used for setting a broken bone so that it can heal properly. So that's the word.

He's saying you guys are torn up and broken as a church body and you need to get on the same page and say the one same thing. You need to be mended and say the one same thing. There are also other passages urging Christian believers to have the same mind and speak with one mouth. Romans 12, 16, 15, 5 and 6. Philippians 2, 2. That you all be of the same mind and even speak with one mouth. That you are all saying the same thing. So the diversity of doctrine idea is not a biblical teaching. And that we all just love one another while we have a gazillion differences is not the biblical model either. It's kind of like what Jesus told Pilate, what is truth?

Yes, and it's coming up with an answer for that. Ephesians 4, 11-16 points believers towards the unity of the faith. What are we aiming for? The unity of the faith. Both of those have definite articles. So the unity of the faith, that's where we're headed, that's where we're aiming.

Among the elders, if we have differences, we'll sit down and talk about them and work them through. The other thing is, in some cases, there are doctrinal areas where I will study it for years before I'll sit down with Mike and Roger, and go over it. And I said, after looking at this carefully, here's what I'm concluding. And I want you guys to point me where I'm wrong, if that needs to be corrected. Because it isn't a matter of Vern's right, Mike's right, Roger's right, God's right. And we know that. And we are able to determine what God intended and arrive at that unified conclusion.

So there was one particular doctrine I can recall where I studied it for nine years off and on before I drew a conclusion. Then I sat down with Mike and Roger before I taught on it. What kind of time have we got here? Yeah, we've got time. Turn in your Bibles to Ephesians 4, 11 through 16. And I'll be reading from the New King James here because that's what I've got. Ephesians 4, 11-16.

And he himself gave, that is Christ gave, some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers. Now we think of spiritual gifts and we typically think of this person or that person being given a spiritual gift. But what's interesting is these particular spiritual gifts are Christ's gift to the church.

So Apostles and Prophets, which we no longer have present and operating anymore. So Apostles and Prophets, that combination is three times in Ephesians, and one of those times it talks in chapter 2 about the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets. They are there as a foundation to start things, you don't continue building the foundation into the sky. But you've got apostles and prophets, evangelists and pastors and teachers, and those gifts continue. And the evangelist is to add people to the church, and the pastors and teachers are to teach and to shepherd.

So what do they do, these gifts to the church? It says then in verse 12, for the equipping of the saints, and by the way, that's military equipping. Military equipping of the saints for the work of ministry. Who's doing the work of the ministry? The saints are, right? So I'm not involved in doing the work of the ministry, the saints are. So my job is an equipping job.

For the edifying, the building up of the body of Christ. This is where we're aiming. Till we all come to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God to a perfect man, and that word perfect meaning complete, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. So that's where we're aiming.

So then it says in verse 14 that we should no longer be children tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the trickery of men in the cunning craftiness by which they lie and wait in to deceive. So diversity of doctrine, or doctrine that is skew, is immature. So we are aiming towards maturity in the church body, and that is aiming towards singularity, the unity of the faith in doctrine. But speaking the truth, now this is actually truthing in love. is what the Greek says, truthing in love. And that's another one where truth and love are connected.

Remember in 1 Corinthians 13, love rejoices in the truth. So truth and love are not to be chosen between, but they're always to be together. You don't pick one, you don't favor one or the other, they're always together. Truthing in love. So then, But truthing in love may grow up into all things unto him who is the head, Christ, from whom the whole body joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love. So this is what we're aiming to, and it's not, you know, we're going to go for this unity thing and love at the expense of truth, but they're always interconnected. Always interconnected.

And a unity, the unity of the faith, and a knowledge of the Son of God, not an ignorance, right? And this knowledge we grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. It isn't just packing our heads full of Bible information. It's knowledge of Him. It's personal. God takes it personally, right? It's personal. Not just, well, I know a lot of Bible stuff.

Yeah? So isn't it similar to where it says in Genesis that they were supposed to become one flesh in unity? mind and flesh and direction and goals and motivation, and that's kind of what Paul's talking about here, right? Spiritually. Ultimately, what he's aiming us towards here, it fits very well with what he talks about in the next chapter, in that Christ and the Church is the standard for husband and wife. So yes, those fit together. The marriage relationship does have a correspondence to the eternal romance of Christ and the Church. You're right about that.

Okay, so we're going to be marching on this topic after about a month. Then we'll step into individual groups. You know, this group that teaches this, and this group that teaches that. You know, that sort of thing. Hitting each of those kind of summarily, and pointing out, okay, this is biblical, this is not. and looking at those things. We'll be starting from the outside and working our way in.

That is, some of the things we'll be looking at first will be things that are definitely not biblical gospel, not biblical doctrine, and kind of working our way towards the inner circle there. Thoughts? Questions? Yes. On that verse in John 6, 644, I would come to the Father, and so on, and I will raise Him up the last day. So the last day is the Resurrection. But then you have more after that.

Yeah, and one of the things, and we won't be looking at it here, is that there are different times of resurrection for different bodies. And the church is specifically the rapture, and that's the first fruit. If you look at the Jewish sequence that they have in their feasts, the resurrection of Old Testament saints, Jew and Gentile, this is Daniel 12, verses 1 and 2, is at the end of the tribulation period, the beginning of the kingdom. So a different timing of resurrection. And then those who die during the Millennial Kingdom, and there will still be death, although someone only lives to 100 years old would have thought to have died young, will be resurrected later as well. So you'll have different resurrections for different groups of people. And after Christ's resurrection, the Church is first, the first groups. Alright, other thoughts, questions? Inspirations, exasperations? Okay, alright, let's pray.

Lord, we thank you for all these things that you've revealed, and you've revealed so many things with great specificity and great clarity, and the reason you've done that is because you love us and you care for us so very much. And we thank you for that great love, that love that motivated you to give yourself for us. We just give you thanks, in Jesus' name, Amen.