How Far is Too Far?

There's been a lot of talk as a result of Mark Driscoll crashing the strange fire conference and I'm not going to weigh in those matters at this late point in the game because they're not important to what I want to discuss.  What I do want to talk about is a common response I saw in the midst of these discussions.  A conversation would be going along about what various people thought about Driscoll's actions and the theological truths of Cessationism versus Continuationism and suddenly someone would chime in with:

"What does it matter?"

I was always taken aback by this response.  I know that they weren't trying to be flippant with God's word, and it came from people who I know to be solid mature Christians, but are legitimately asking the question as long as we have the fundamentals down isn't everything else of secondary importance?

So the question that springs to my mind in the midst of all this is at what point have we perverted so much of the rest of the Gospel that we are now teaching a gospel of our own making?  At what point do we, like this Justin Bieber fan

go too far? (yikes!)

The short answer is I don't have an answer.  I don't think it's possible for anyone but God to weigh the inner most workings of a man's heart and go "This one has truly trusted in Me alone".   That said, I think there are three points that are worth considering:

1) Secondary issues are a misnomer
2) We've been given instructions to test the validity of our own faith and the faith of others
3) It shouldn't be about how far we can get on secondary issues (see #1)

(Does this seem too long and you just want to skip to a short summary?  Skip to the tl;dr section, and read the rest when you have the time.

1: Secondary issues are a misnomer

2nd Timothy 3:16-17 states that

"All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work."

We also know from Deuteronomy 4:23-25 that God jealously guards the sanctity of His divinity and Leviticus 20 verses 22,23 and 26 states

"You shall therefore keep all my statutes and all my rules and do them, that the land where I am bringing you to live may not vomit you out. And you shall not walk in the customs of the nation that I am driving out before you, for they did all these things, and therefore I detested them.
You shall be holy to me, for I the Lord am holy and have separated you from the peoples, that you should be mine."

This does not paint the picture of a God who doesn't care about "secondary issues" We have been called to live in perfect accordance with God's commandments.  We will fail, constantly and miserably fail, but we are called to strive for that perfection of holiness because everything in the scriptures are of primary importance.

Now yes, I understand that when people say "primary" what they mean is that which results in Salvation namely a proper faith in the Gospel that Christ died for our sins, was raised from the dead on the third day, and it is salvation through faith in His works alone that justifies us, that we're all one body of believers and it doesn't matter at the end of the day if you believe that the miraculous works of the Spirit have ended, or if they continue.  Which is a great segue to number 2!

2: We've been given instructions to test the validity of our own faith and the faith of others.

There are two main illustrations we are given to test our own faith and the faith of those around us.

John 13:35 - "By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

John 14:15 - “If you love me, you will keep my commandments"

The first quote by Christ is rather self explanatory someone who has truly placed their faith in Christ will love the body of believers, but it's the second one that relates to the matter at hand.  Someone who has genuinely placed their faith in Christ, what people call the "primary" issue will be directly reflected by how they treat so called "secondary" issues! 

Which is why it very much matters how people either misinterpret or fragrantly abuse passages to support/undermine a given position.  Now I don't want to get into the meat of Cessationism and Continuationism, I think that would be a great post for another day, however it is worth noting that those who teach that the Spirit still works trough miraculous signs and wonders typically teach that one should speak in tongues because "A spirit language is the greatest gift the Holy Spirit can give a believer." (Reason #4 on this page).  Now ignoring for a moment that I would say that the Holy Spirit sealing our salvation for all eternity as taught in Ephesians 1 is the greatest gift given by the Holy Spirit and also ignoring that 1 Corinthians 14:5 states that prophecy is a better gift than tongues, the problem is that 1 Corinthians 14 also gives strict guidelines for speaking in tongues such as


²⁷ If anyone speaks in a tongue, two—or at the most three—should speak, one at a time, and someone must interpret. ²⁸ If there is no interpreter, the speaker should keep quiet in the church and speak to himself and to God.

 This is very clear and direct teachings yet it is completely ignored within the Pentecostal/Charismatic movement.  

Now no, I am by no means claiming that as a Christian I keep 100% of the Bible, I am still subject to the flesh and live in a fallen world.  However, when confronted with such a clear cut verse that attacks something I enjoy doing, I respond with submission.  Oh I will fall, sometimes I will fall so hard I'll find myself living in the old pattern of sin again, but I will strive against the temptation because I love God with all that I am and I desire to do his commandments.

Which brings me to the last thing 3: It shouldn't be about how far we can get on secondary issues (see #1)

My dad used to work in a Nuclear plant when he was in college.  He tells a humourous incident in which one of his co-workers was carrying a container marked "Hazardous Waste".  As he was transporting it, he accidentally stumbled and dropped the container.  Can you imagine this man had just stood there?  If he said to himself, "I can safely be exposed for X seconds so there's no rush"? Or if he said, "I need to be 10 feet away to be safe" so he methodically counted out 10 feet then stood there?

From what I'm told, this man, who was rather tall and gangly, resembled something more like this:

As it turned out the container was mislabelled and he was never in any danger at all, but he wasn't going to stick around to find that out! 

I posted the question how far is too far?  How far can I go down bad theological trails before a denomination ceases to be a part of the church and becomes a cult teaching heretical doctrines?  But it shouldn't be about  how far someone can go and "still be a Christian" Recognizing that God is a holy God who demands we follow His commandments, when we see a brother or sister following bad doctrine our response should never be, "Oh well, it's a secondary issue so it doesn't matter". 

Sadly in modern Christianity, the passage "judge not lest you be judge" has been so badly abused and mistaught that we think you cannot hold anyone accountable for doing something wrong.  In 1 Corinthians 5, however, Paul is practically yelling at them "Why are you not judging sin within the church?!"

When we see someone sinning, which includes following false doctrine, we should with all love pull them aside privately and take them to the scriptures so that they can respond to them.  Of course we should allow freedom in the Spirit on areas where God has not explicitly stated what we should or should not do, but when the Bible clearly teaches something such as "don't speak in tongues without an interpreter and then limit it to 2 or 3 at a time" and we see whole congregations speaking over one another without any interpretation then we need to call them back to proper worship.  If they respond with repentance then we've strengthened their walk in the Lord, if they respond with disdain then using the above passage as a litmus test we can reasonably assume that because they do not delight to keep God's commandments then they are not His followers and we should be bold enough to treat them as such.  (i.e. pray for their salvation and witness to them)


tl;dr version/summary:

I don't believe that I or anyone can with all authority say "here is a line in a sand and anyone teaching more than X number of theologically false statements has created a new gospel"

I believe that saying anything in the Bible is a secondary issue is a misnomer and demeans the Holiness of God.  While there are grey areas that God has given us freedom to do as the Spirit leads us to do, every theological truth is a primary part of the perfection of God that we have been called to perfectly emulate.

I believe that it is important to test our own faith and the faith of others.  We won't agree on everything about the Bible and that's okay, but when we are flagrantly disobey the commands of the Bible then we need to be rebuked.  Those who are in Christ will ultimately rejoice at the discipline because they love God and His commandments.  Those who continually chafe or lash out against discipline should be regarded as on who is unsaved (as described in Matthew 18 on Church discipline)

I believe that it shouldn't be about how far one can safely go into bad theology before we call them out on it.  1 Corinthains 9:24-27 (emphasis added) says:

"Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified."

We are to be in constant spiritual training constantly strive and checking ourselves and likewise encouraging fellow believers around us so that we can have confidence in our salvation lest we come before the throne of God and find ourselves saying "Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name" only to hear

"I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness"

And I suppose that's kind of the thing.  At the end of the day I believe that those who are truly in Christ will leave churches who teach an abundance of false theology because those who are truly in Christ don't desire to be far away from Him at all and that those who stay in such church do so because they cannot stand sound doctrine but desire to have their ear tickled pink.

How Far is Too Far?