Shifting Perspectives - Biblical Conversations about Topics that Matter - Episode 19

Welcome to Shifting Perspectives,

biblical conversations about topics that

matter. Let's get to it.

welcome you to a the first of two or

three very interesting uh discussions on

topic on a topic u that actually came

out of discussion I had with a few

people recently um as we were discussing

these videos on things that they had

seen and and and thought about and

contemplated and it is uh really as I've

done some research. One of the things

that people really want the answer to

and the the question becomes if we've

got a Bible and we've talked about

studying the Bible and we talked about

what the Bible is and where it came

from. If we've got that source of our

single truth, then how can we have all

these different denominations, all these

different beliefs, all these different

um subcategories of believers? What does

that mean? Where does it come from?

which one's right, which one's wrong. If

I am trying to search out my faith, how

do I navigate the road of all the

different denominational pieces? Yeah,

that's a great question. And and you

know, that's really ultimately the

reason why we're doing these videos is

to provide some context and to provide

some information for some people who are

looking for answers uh biblical

conversations about topics that matter.

And this is a topic that matters for for

a lot of people. what defines us as as

brothers and sisters, what what maybe

doesn't define us. And so, in order for

us to really take that subject and kind

of unpack it, we kind of need to address

a couple of different things um kind of

first and foremost. Um the first of

those is what defines us as Christians.

Um and so there's really three ways that

we can look at this and that is um you

know an an orthodox view of

Christianity.

um what we would consider error or a

view that's not quite right u but

doesn't necessarily make a person saved

or not saved and in defining that we

would say they they lean into um

orthodoxy but maybe have some areas that

they're a little off on. Um and then

there's what we call heresy. Um and

heresy we would define as as a religion,

an organization. Maybe you would call it

a denomination, but that is a group of

people that by definition of what the

Bible says are not saved. and they are

presenting a picture even if they claim

Jesus. Um, which is one of those things

we've talked about, right? I mean, you

can go on YouTube and you find somebody

that says Jesus says this or Jesus says

that and and they're not necessarily

presenting the Jesus of the Bible.

They're presenting a Jesus from

something else. And so you can put some

groups in that category that you

probably ought to move out from

immediately like um you know Mormons and

whatever flavor that that is whether you

call that community of Christ because

you know they changed their names a few

years ago um the reorganized church of

Latter-day Saints um and there's another

one I can't remember what it starts with

an R2 it's not reorganized but it's u

anyway uh but but that group one thing

is is they hold to an extra biblical

document as scripture, right? And that

defines some things that are contrary to

scripture. And the Jesus that they

present doesn't align itself with

orthodox Christianity. You know, another

one you could say was the Jehovah's

Witness. I mean, if you you mentioned if

we all have the same Bible, right?

Right. The Jehovah's Witness does not

have the same Bible. Um their Bible is

different than ours. Um, and so, um, we

would say that if you fall into that

camp, we would like to share with you

the Jesus of the Bible. Um, and that

goes back to the conversation we've had

a few videos back. So if you haven't

seen it on and actually one of the very

first series we did was where the Bible

came from, why this why we believe this

is the Bible, the historical documents,

the references, um you know, the extra

biblant the outside of the Bible u

writings of the time that corroborate

what the Bible says. All of those

things, you know, you got to have that

because we say this is the Bible and the

other ones are not. You got to go back

in the history of this this Bible that

we have as as inspiration inspired by

God u with the history and the study

that we've done behind that in some of

those first videos. Go back and watch

those because that's a foundation you

understand as to why we say this is the

Bible that we believe and why we believe

what we believe which again was I think

our first three or four three or four uh

videos that we ever did. So jump into

that and you because you need that for

background as to why this Bible is

important. Yeah, that's right. Um, and

so out of that, you really need to

define Christianity because, right, we

live in America, so everybody's a

Christian, right? We're a Christian

nation. And so saying I'm a Christian,

um, doesn't necessarily hold water when

you compare what the Bible says, our

Bible. And when I say our Bible, I mean

the the Bible that we have those

manuscript evidence that we have, that

historical evidence that we have. When

we say Christianity, we're defining it

by something. We're defining it by the

word of God. Um, others might say,

"Well, we're Christian." Mormons will

say, "Hey, I'm a Christian." And that's

become rather mainstream of of them. And

that's part of the reason why they

changed their name to Community of

Christ was because they wanted to to

present themselves more Christian. Um,

but ultimately at the end of the day,

Christianity isn't defined by what what

a denomination or what a religion says.

It's defined by what we call orthodoxy.

Okay? And so, what is what does that

mean? So for the listener that's trying

to unpack orthodoxy and has no idea what

that means. What does that mean? How do

we how do we measure that? How do we say

this is what the Baptist or versus the

Mormon versus all the other things that

we've talked about what how do we how we

define it? Sure. So um before I say how

we define it, let me say that from a

doctrinal position, we call we call our

study of the word of God and our

understanding of of the positions of God

doctrine. Um, and so we do what we call

uh theological or doctrinal triage. Now,

some of you may not know this, but uh

before I before I became a pastor, I was

a career firefighter and an EMT and

worked on an ambulance and I I still

serve in that arena today. And we do um

we have to do triage, right? So, if we

go to let's say there's multiple

patients on a car accident, we have to

determine what is the highest order of

priority in treatment that we that we

treat those patients at. If you go to

the emergency room, you're going to see

what they call a triage nurse. And that

triage nurse is going to decide whether

the person who's having a heart attack

in the in the lobby is a higher priority

versus a lower priority than say the

person who came in and fell out of a

tree and has a broken arm. Um and those

and and how we treat those. So orthodoxy

is what we call tier one top tier

highest priority. Um, orthodoxy is

defined by the things that u both the

historic faith and the word of God

define as Christianity. And so what are

those? What are some of those things?

um at the at the barebones cusp of it,

if you want to just narrow that, we

would say um the uh the immaculate

conception conceived by the Holy Spirit,

the incarnation of Jesus Christ, his

perfect sinless life, his death, burial,

and resurrection on a cross as uh

payment for our sins, um his ascension,

his bodily return, Jesus is coming back

again. And then inside of that, we would

include the Trinity that there's only

one God. So monotheistic. One God, three

persons. God the Father, God the Son,

and God the Holy Spirit. I could do we

could do a whole video series on on what

that looks like. So we won't no won't

necessarily put that in here at the

moment. But um orthodoxy um includes

things like justification by faith. you

know, our salvation, what Jesus did for

us, um, really is, especially if you

look at scriptures like Ephesians, uh,

2:8 and9. For by grace you're saved, um,

not of works or not of anything that

you've done. It's by faith that no, uh,

no one can boast and claim that they did

anything to accomplish that. It was

solely accomplished by the work of

Christ on the cross through his death,

burial, and resurrection. You can't do

anything to earn it. You can't do

anything to keep it. Exactly. And so

those are those are simple areas that we

would define orthodoxy. And so so when

you begin to talk about a denomination

or um the local churches and maybe

you're looking for a local church right

now and there's tons of great local

churches um in our community and

probably whatever community you're in,

there are a ton of great local churches.

And our issue number one in finding one

is that yeah, do they believe in

justification by faith alone in the

saving work of Jesus Christ in his

substitutionary atonement? Do they

believe in a triune God? Not

polytheistic many gods but monotheistic

one God in three persons, three distinct

persons in the Godhead. Do they believe

that? Um do they believe that he lived a

perfect sinless life? Do they believe

that um in that immaculate conception

conceived by the Holy Spirit? Do they

believe born of a virgin? Do they do

they believe those things? And if they

do, they are likely orthodox.

Um and so within the realm of orthodoxy,

if you're looking for a different, you

know, say you're looking for a church,

then you kind of got this group, we'll

call it

um lurggical

um versus at least in that day it was

contemporary. Nowadays, you might define

contemporary different, but but a

lurggical church might be orthodox, but

their worship

practice might look a little different.

So you would say, you know, Lutheran,

uh, Methodist, Episcopal, Anglican, you

know, those those types of of churches

that have a more, um, ritualistic

approach to how they worship. Guess

what? They're still Orthodox. I mean,

they still believe those things, the

same things. And then you might say in

the contemporary camp, you might say,

"Well, we're Southern Baptist." Yeah, we

believe that same set of orthodoxy. Um,

and you might go to the um, you know, to

the Assembly of God church down the road

and they're going to believe the the

same orthodox truth about that. Um, and

so those those kind of things

define whether or not we're Christian or

not, not why we have an Assembly of God

denomination. Why do we have a Southern

Baptist denomination? U, why do we have

a Methodist denomination? We all believe

orthodoxy. Yes. then it seems like it

should be a no-brainer, right? That

we're just we're just all together. We

all all believe the same thing. And that

is why we have second tier doctrinal

issues that I think we'll jump into next

week. And I and and I hope if you have

questions about what orthodoxy looks

like, what do we mean by what does it

mean to be a Christian in our faith and

and and whether or not you think

something should be orthodox or not,

shoot us a comment. Um, be sure you

like, follow, and share because I bet

there's lots of people out there that

had this very same question. In that

group I was in, there was it was like

once that topic come up, that was the

one everybody grabbed a hold of and

said, "I'd love to know more about this.

I'd love to know more about this. I'd

love to know more about this." And so,

so in our next video, we're really going

to get into what we call second tier uh

doctrinal issues. And those are the

place where um two things happen. One,

that's where denominations come into

play, right? And that's um and that's

where um even local church autonomy

comes into play. Why is it that you can

have a Southern Baptist church that

believes one way and then go down the

street and have a another Southern

Baptist church that believes

differently? Well, we call that the

autonomy of the local church. um and the

um the openness that we have to walk

with brothers and sisters, but not the

openness to say you're a leader in in my

church, per se, but for the sake of the

gospel, we partner together in areas

that are and so we're going to kind of

get into that stuff next week and talk

about denominations and local church at

Tommy. So, join us next week. It's going

to be exciting. Um this is a great

topic. So, uh we talked about tier

number one. We're going to get into your

number two uh coming in a week. So, see

you then. Thank you.