If you’re on YouTube, then you’ve probably seen the “Try Not To Laugh” challenges where someone puts together a bunch of funny clips and you’re supposed to watch them with a friend and see who laughs first.

Well, I was watching some YouTube videos the other day and came across one where the people were doing the “Cringe Challenge”. This was a bunch of clips of really awkward, embarrassing and cringe-worthy moments that were happening to other people, that were meant to invoke empathy for that poor person. It worked.

The first was a video of a guy on a talk show trying to do a back-flip off a couch. It didn’t work and he full face-planted on the carpet. That wasn’t too bad. There were a couple others I got through without flinching, but the one that got me was the man at the outdoor concert who walked past a TV reporter over to a trough he thought was for washing hands – but it wasn’t. We all watched as he grabbed the urinal cake like it was soap, scrubbed up, dipped his hands in the pee, and started looking around for the tap… it wasn’t there. That got me.

There are a lot of things in this world that cause us to cringe – to get that inward feeling of embarrassment or disgust that ends up taking over a part of our body. Oftentimes it’s not something that physically happens to us, but something that happens around us that causes us to wrinkle our nose, clench our teeth, cross our arms, and take a step back. Even though nothing is physically touching us, we feel it nonetheless.

That’s how I feel about bad theology. I’ve said it before and I’ll keep saying it, “I take great comfort in good theology.” I can’t remember if I heard that somewhere or if I came up with it myself, but for me, it’s a very true statement. I take great comfort in good theology. I could even switch it around to “good theology brings great comfort”. When I’m feeling sad, angry, confused, ashamed, prideful, or whatever, the thing that makes me feel better, or gives me answers, or guides me back to sanity, is good theology.

And actually, the opposite is true too. I am discomforted when presented with bad theology. It makes me cringe. Chances are, if you’ve been around me for any length of time, you’ve probably seen me cringe when someone goes off the theological rails. I can’t help it.

I was at a funeral a while ago where the speaker gave a message that almost put me into fits. It was full of wrong thinking, false assumptions, and unbiblical claims, and it made me really uncomfortable – to the point where Anita had to lean over and tell me to get control of myself. The words that were meant to bring comfort to the mourners were actually causing me pain. Why? Because they were false (or at least terribly misunderstood) claims about God.

I can’t remember exactly what they are – I may have blacked out at some point – but they said things like,

• “They’re looking down on you from heaven today.” – which has absolutely no biblical basis.
• Or “God needed another angel in heaven so He took them away.” – which is really, really bad theology.
• Or “They had accomplished all they were sent to do.” – which is probably not true.
• Or “Everyone here will see them again when they meet in Heaven.” – which was also probably not true. Each one of these phrases made me cringe.

Why? Because, as John Piper once said, “Bad theology will eventually hurt people and dishonor God in proportion to its badness.”[1] It hurts people and dishonours God – and the worse the theology, the more the hurt and dishonour. Lying to people about sin, salvation, worship, and eternity doesn’t ultimately bring anyone comfort. Instead, it puts words in God’s mouth and causes people to put their hope in the wrong place.

Studying God

Here’s the thing. Bad theology sounds comforting, but it isn’t – instead it leads to confusion and despair. Why? Because “Bad theology will eventually hurt people and dishonor God in proportion to its badness.”  Let me add one more quote from JI Packer:

“Evangelical theology is precise and sharp, honed as a result of centuries of controversy reflecting the conviction that where truth fails, life will fail, too.”[2]

Christians believe it’s important that we work hard to get what we say about God right! We have worked hard for hundreds of years, and spilt much blood, sweat, and tears, fighting for that “precise and sharp” theology, “honed” to reflect the truth, because we know that when we get it wrong, bad things can happen.

In case you’re wondering where we are in our Corinthians study, we haven’t left the passage we did last week – 2:9-12. If you remember, I said that God’s plan is a “revealed” one. Paul said to the Corinthians,

“What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him – these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit.”

I’m still stuck on that word, “revealed”. That’s a critically important word and one I don’t want us to miss.

I’ve had a few conversations recently about why good theology is so important.

Some have talked about how divided Christians are and wondered if we really needed to split up over these issues.

• Others have asked about Catholics and Evangelicals, wondering if their Roman Catholic friends and relatives are part of the Christian family, and whether they need to evangelize them or not.
• Others have mentioned how meaningful they have found certain teachers, how much they’ve touched their lives, and wondered if them being different in a few areas is such a big deal.
• As a leadership team, we’ve had discussions about the theological direction of our own denomination and the liberalization of the churches within it, and wondered what we should do.
• We’ve talked same-sex marriage, race issues, Hollywood films, fallen celebrity pastors, the charismatic movement, the pope, women pastors, natural disasters, and more…

Each of these issues has deeply theological implications. And to even begin talking about them as Christians, we have to ask the same basic question: What does God say about this? What has God revealed about this? That’s what theology really is: it simply means to “Study God”. Biology is the study of living organisms. Archaeology is the study of ancient cultures. Bacteriology is the study of bacteria. Theology, is the study of THEOS, which is the Greek word for God.

When we are doing theology, we are studying God. It is our attempt to understand who God really is and what He wants. Yes, we will ultimately fall short, since our human capacities cannot possibly explain an infinite God, but it’s still our responsibility and privilege to try. He has given us His Word and access to the Holy Spirit and that is more than enough to understand everything He wants us to know about Himself and what He wants from us. We don’t have to make things up.

“Revealed”

I want to park on this word “revealed” for a moment because I think it’s so critical for us to get this concept deep into our minds. Too often, when it comes to our thoughts about God, the church, human relationships, politics, religion, or any number of other things humans argue about, we tend to trust our feelings and our ability to comprehend the situation. Last week I warned about the dangers of pursuing human wisdom and trusting our own feelings, and I’m sort of continuing that thought, but adding that when we are confronted with this, we need to pursue what God has revealed.

Last week I emphasized the importance of humbling ourselves before God, getting on our knees, and allowing God to reveal His truth to us. This week, I want to reemphasize how important it is to realize that we don’t have the right to think whatever we want about God, and assume it’s right. In other words, we don’t get to make up our own ideas about what God is like, how His plan of salvation works, how His church operates, or how we relate to Him and His creation. Instead, as Christians, we come under the Lordship of Christ, and allow Him to reorient our thinking to His revealed truth.

Allow me to drive home this idea with some scriptures:

We’ve already seen in 1st Corinthians that God’s plan for our lives can’t be figured out without Him. (1 Cor 2:10, Eph 3:5), but I also want you to see that when Jesus talks about who can know God, He says in Luke 10:22,

“…no one knows who the Son is except the Father, or who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.”

We require Jesus to intervene before we can know God.

When Paul talks about the core of the Gospel in in Romans 1:16-18, he says,

“For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, ‘The righteous shall live by faith.’ For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.”

We can’t know the righteousness of God or the wrath of God or the salvation that God offers (which is really the whole message of the Bible) unless God reveals it to us. We can’t understand what He expects of us, or what condemns us, or how to become free from condemnation unless He tells us first – through our conscience and the scriptures. Our sin causes us to suppress the truth, even when we are presented with it.

That’s why this is such a big deal. We’re dealing with massively important things here, and we want to get it right.

Dangerous Times

RC Sproul wrote a book a while back which was cleverly called, “Everyone’s a Theologian”. His point was that everyone has some ideas about God. Everyone has put some thought into it. C.S. Lewis put it this way,

“If you do not listen to theology, that will not mean that you have no ideas about God. It will mean that you have a lot of wrong ones.”

Remember that JI Packer quote? It said: “Evangelical theology is precise and sharp, honed as a result of centuries of controversy reflecting the conviction that where truth fails, life will fail, too.” God is the giver of life and truth. Sin leads to death and Satan is the father of lies. We work hard as Christians to study what God has said about things because when we get it wrong, when “truth fails”, when we teach “wrong ideas”, we point people towards death. That may sound like I’m exaggerating, but I’m really not!

Examples of Dangerous Theology

I said before that I take great comfort in good theology, and that bad theology causes people harm – and worse than that, it dishonours God.

Let me give you a couple examples:

Funeral Platitudes

I’ll start with my funeral example. I heard a preacher say once, “I’ve never been to a funeral where the person in the casket went to hell.” What he meant was that it is really hard as a pastor to stand in front of a group of people at a funeral and know that the person in the casket had no discernable faith, showed no repentance, and gave no testimony of being a believer, and is likely in hell now. It’s tempting to avoid the subject of eternity, or even try to whitewash the situation by implying that maybe they were saved, or outright stating that God lets everyone into heaven because He’s so loving, or because as a religious official you have the power to save them by saying the right holy words.

But is that really the most comforting? It’s not what God says, not what scripture declares, and God is very serious about not being a false teacher, and the danger that comes to those who listen to them. Is it better for everyone in the room to believe God saves everyone no matter what? Is it more comforting for a victim to walk away believing that there is no such thing as divine justice – that wrong will never be punished? Is it kind to lie to someone about their eternal destination, and have them live their lives thinking their beliefs and actions don’t matter? Is it better to make everyone in the room put off the question, “What will happen to me after I die?”? I don’t think so.

Catholics

In the 15^th century, the Reformers like Martin Luther, John Calvin, and William Tyndale worked against centuries of bad theology that had crept into the Catholic church as it got more political and corrupt.

• They had lost the understanding of how God saves people.
• They presented God’s grace as something that could be bought for money, or had to be earned through rituals and rites.
• They added books to the Bible.
• They told people that they didn’t have the right or ability to read the Bible, even keeping their own priests in the dark about what they were saying.
• They told people to say their prayers to dead people instead of Jesus, and that they would be heard better if they also paid some money for their prayer.
• They said that Jesus’ death on the cross wasn’t enough and that God wouldn’t forgive them until they did penance, or suffered for their sin.
• They invented a whole new state after death called “purgatory” where Christians would have to go to be purged and punished for their sins, for thousands of years, before they could go to heaven, because Jesus’ death wasn’t enough – unless they or their relatives gave money to the church.
• They even refused to give Communion to believers because they taught that the elements were too special for common folk to handle.

These beliefs haven’t gone away, and cause millions of people to be not only confused, but abused by the church, and terribly worried about the state of their soul, every day.

Is it more loving for an evangelical to sweep all this under the rug? Is it right to pretend that all none of this matters and allow people to continue to believe lies about God, salvation, grace, prayer, and the Bible? Would it honour God most for us to ignore it and try to get along? I don’t believe so.

DNC “Prayer”

One last example, though there are many more, this one is fresh. I recently watched a “prayer” that was given by “Methodist” “Pastor” at the Democratic National Convention.He asked everyone to join hands, and then with eyes open, gesturing to the crowd the whole time, he prayed a prayer so skillfully vague that you could almost interpret it however you wanted. However, when you listen with discernment, and realize his context, you can see that it could never be addressed to the God of the Bible.

He asked everyone to join hands, and then with eyes open, gesturing to the crowd the whole time, he prayed a prayer so skillfully vague that you could almost interpret it however you wanted. However, when you listen with discernment and realize his context, you can see that it could never be addressed to the God of the Bible.

There was no mention of Jesus, of course, but instead he prayed to “the god of many names”, at least implying that all religions pray to the same God – which isn’t true.

He spoke of how he wanted God to allow love to overcome fear so we can work together with people “no matter their race, creed, sexual orientation, or colour”. He prayed that God might help humanity “end discrimination in all its forms.” which could be a prayer against racism and prejudice, but does he really think God wants people to stop discriminating altogether? To discriminate simply means to know the difference between good and bad, right and wrong. Was he asking God to get rid of all forms right and wrong?

In the worst part of his “prayer”, he claimed that God’s prophets and teachers taught us to build bridges to other faiths and not demonize them. And yet, all through scripture we are taught that there is One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism and One God and Father of all (Ephesians 4:5), and that it is the work of Satan and the demons to try to draw people away from that one faith (1 Tim 4). We are told that there are false teachers and demonic spirits in the world that will tell lies and lead people astray, and that we are to be discerning as to who we listen to (1 John 4:1). Jesus condemns false religious as dangerous, worthless, and a rejection of God (Mark 7:7-9), and warns that there will be many false Christ’s and false prophets that will lead people astray (Mark 13:22-23). In 2 Corinthians 11:13-15 we are told that those who present themselves as false apostles and prophets are literally serving Satan.

We are warned specifically not to tear down the walls that divide us from those who teach false things, who promote bad theology, or who worship God’s enemy! Now, we aren’t to take up the sword and harm people who don’t believe like us, but are to love them as much as we can – just as Jesus did – but we are certainly not to put aside our beliefs and join them.

In 2 Corinthians 6:14-18 we are commanded explicitly:

“Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? What accord has Christ with Belial? Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever? What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said, ‘I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Therefore go out from their midst, and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch no unclean thing; then I will welcome you, and I will be a father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to me, says the Lord Almighty.’”

Conclusion

Let’s conclude with this: the whole point of this message is that God is very, very clear that He doesn’t want us messing around with what He says about Himself, or His Son, His Spirit, His Word, His Worship, His People, or anything else He’s revealed. He calls us out from the world to be His people, revealing to us a portion of Himself, and then fills us with the desire to know Him better.

But there are voices all around us, and within us, that tempt us towards taking an easier, more politically correct, more socially acceptable, more personally understandable, view of God. They tempt us to compromise and change what God has said so that faith is easier. They tempt us to alter God’s truth in an attempt to bring people unity and comfort. But it doesn’t.

Listen to the words of Galatians 1:6-10. Paul says to this church,

“I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel—not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed. For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.”

Who are we trying to please when we bend theological truths, ignore what God has said, and try to comfort people with falsehoods and misinformation? We’re trying to please man, which means we are not serving Christ.

In 2 Corinthians 5:20 it says,

“Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us.”

Ambassadors aren’t allowed to change the message! If God is “making His appeal through us”, then we had better get the message right! And to get the message right means that we need to realize and accept that sometimes what our hearts tell us is simply wrong. Sometimes what we think is right and best isn’t how it’s supposed to go. It means humbling ourselves before God and allowing Him to tell us how things go. It means admitting that sometimes we don’t know what we’re talking about and that we let our emotions and prejudices get in the way.

• How does He want to be worshiped?
• How does He want to be talked about?
• How did He design the church?
• What does He want us to do and not want us to do?
• How does He want us confront sin or comfort people?

God’s truth is a revealed truth. God is a God who reveals Himself. There is great comfort in good theology, and so I invite you to humble yourself and allow God’s Word and God’s Spirit to shape your thinking, instead of allowing the feelings within you and the voices around you to do it.

[1] A Godward Life Volume Two, pg. 377

[2] Keep in Step with The Spirit, pg. 173