Theological debates via Facebook comments? Seriously?

1 Corinthians 2-3 talks about how Paul taught only simple things at Corinth, because they were not ready for the mature things as they were divisive and would use such teaching to further divide themselves. Unfortunately most teachers today, especially in the celebrity realm, do not exercise similar restraint. With the reach of the internet, a piece of teaching can quickly turn into seeds of division, as immature members use such articles to rebut and bash other’s view points. Even more so with the relative comfort and distance of social media.

Futhermore, with celebrity teaching being so widely disseminated, so accessible apart from the nurturing guidance of accountable relationships, local leaders are pressured to "pick a camp" or risk having their leadership undermined by celebrity teachers. As a result discernment, well demonstrated in Acts 17 by the Bereans as the process of working through the scriptures with fellow brothers and sisters to validate a truth claim, has now degenerated into simply comparing something/someone to the teaching/teachers that one agrees with; one human source against another human source. A brother once, when I asked if it occurred to him that a certain celebrity teacher could be wrong on the issue being discussed, flatly replied, "Well, he's usually right."

Interestingly, Paul also describes this attitude in 2 Timothy 4 (emphasis mine):

3 For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, 4 and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.

Most will interpret that as referring to the prosperity gospel in the present day, but I believe it also speaks over the other extreme, the hyper-calvinist, pharisee-like faction that is gaining such prominence with young believers these days. Just as true as it is for unbelievers, believers also seek to hear what they want to hear. We pick a church based on which we think has “good” teaching, we surround ourselves with brothers and sisters that believe in the same theological bent that we do, we post rebuttals of articles with articles from the coalition that we align with, filled with scriptural references and twists that we ourselves did not even look up.

We close our hearts and minds and stay away from truly wrestling with God about what we and others think of Him, perhaps because in our zeal to "defend the faith" we have developed the pride to say that we are fully right all of the time. Or we go after teachers to follow and shy away from hearing God for ourselves because others have taught us that without them we do not have the authority to do so correctly, or simply because spending the necessary time in the Word and in prayer ourselves would require too much effort and too much uncertainty, as if trusting God's voice from any man not named Jesus was any more certain.

Maturity is not focused on knowing more to begin with, never mind knowing just one take on the big picture of God. What the apostle was saying in 1 Corinthians 2-3 was that the mature never allows teaching to divide the body of Christ. For those who pursue learning more and more teachings as a path to maturity, but end up using it to fester resentment and disunity among brothers and sisters on Facebook of all things, the Apostle Paul simply calls them immature.

Theology ≠ Scripture

I am not challenging the sufficiency of scripture, I am challenging the sufficiency of our theology, the sufficiency of our understanding and interpretation of scripture. I believe that the scriptures hold a sufficient account of the character and intent of God. I am not so confident about our ability, with full accuracy, to extract that from scripture. So what I’m really challenging isn’t whether the scripture is sufficient, but whether my ability to understand it, or John Piper’s ability to understand it, or Mark Driscoll’s ability to understand it, is fully sufficient. A lot of the time, that’s all people do, to supplement their understanding with some other person’s understanding, ignoring the necessary personal revelation of the Holy Spirit, all the while championing the practice as the sufficiency of the scriptures.

A human’s perception of the world is always flawed. We see white light when really there is a rainbow of colors. We see a solid when really there are billions of separate particles. We perceive us standing still when really we’re moving through our galaxy at millions of kilometers an hour. So it is with our perception of scripture. Apostle Paul said to the Corinthians that only at the end, when we and God meet face to face, will we know fully. He says to them that no eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has imagined what God has for those who love him.

God intends to change that over our lifetime with Him of course, and He has sent us a helper for that purpose, the Holy Spirit. Therefore we must treat the Holy Spirit as the primary source of understanding in our interactions with the scriptures, just as Jesus told the disciples that the Holy Spirit is the one who will lead them into truth, not a video sermon from a celebrity teacher, or the commentary column in their study bible, or whichever theological faction was prominent at the time.

Be in love with scripture (what God says about Himself), not teaching or theology (what others say about God). They are not the same thing.

What is all this hiding?

Maclean’s recently had an article speaking on how the increased joblessness in the US has correlated with an increase in diagnosed mental illness cases; that prolonged joblessless creates stresses and removes the routine, structure and purpose in one’s life. It could also be argued that not having work has allowed the mental distress to surface. Perhaps it is the same for spiritual health, that a lot of church structure and events and busyness hides what’s really wrong with someone’s relationship with God. With that said then, perhaps some amount of structure could make the symptoms more manageable, but none the less the root problems must be dealt with.

Haircuts

God shaping our character is sort of like giving a kid a haircut. Goes great if the kid keeps still, goes poorly if the kid is restless and frantic and doesn’t wanna. Not that God isn’t an amazing barber, but when we’re busy and anxious and running about all the time, those scissors end up lopping off parts it shouldn’t, and missing parts that should. We take His snips as Him hurting us, and God ultimately has to redeem it and fix it back up. Thus a half hour hair cut ends up being 3 hours.