Every Word I Say

Hey Everybody,

Well, I’m trying to get back in the writing groove after taking almost 4 weeks off. It’s not as easy as one would think. My routine came to a standstill and now I’m scrambling around trying to put my life back together. Brian Whitehead taped another episode of The Final word this week which is always interesting for me. I wouldn’t say it to his face but he needs to practice a bit more if he’s ever going to be really good at being a tele-evangelist. You can see it at

http://www.youtube.com/bradleyscotstephens

In my own life, I’m getting a sense that it is time to move to the next level, to move deeper into my calling and at the same time I find my calling becoming clearer. Those are always good things for me. I have a couple of opportunities before me and as they unfold I will let you know more about them. No need in talking about things that are simply wishes. I would however appreciate your prayers that God would lead me down the path.

Part of what is driving this is watching the destruction of multiple friends’ lives in large part due to bad shepherding: Bad theology coupled with short term vision and naïve understanding of the condition of man. In the so called new reformed circles there is a great desire to preach grace out of context from the real world.

The flocks are being taught that grace is a substance that puts you in right relation with God regardless of your actions. In fact, your actions can’t add to or take away from anything that God does. He is sovereign after all and so your actions are pretty much meaningless. Of course they would deny those charges but whether they intend their words to be interpreted like that or not they are by many people.

In the last couple decades I have seen many who have been under such teaching for years really starting to apply it to their lives. They are living out what they are hearing. They are doing what they are being taught and taking it in a direction that their pastors did not intend but good intentions don’t make up for bad theology.

People work their theology out in the real world as they understand it. The result in so many of my friend’s lives is nothing but devastation. I remember the feeling of that devastation being applied to my own life by someone close oh so many years ago. I don’t know how long this whirlwind will last but there will be damage to clean up for a long, long time. We may have only seen the first wave of devastation.

Back when I was a part of those circles I tried to be a bit of a balance to what was being taught. I saw the danger of rejecting the law because I lived the danger. I pursued grace to the inth degree. I hated the law in my early years. My life now is still filled with past consequences of bad theology. But my words were of no avail – offering vegetables to kids in a candy store doesn’t go over so well and so I moved on, not entirely of my own choice.

But now, years later people are dead, families lie broken beyond repair in many cases because of great sounding words coupled with poor understanding. See it’s one thing to preach grace alone to those who have been rooted and grounded in right and wrong, in the law. There is still a structure to hold grace in place. But if you feed someone who was raised with no real moral foundation the concept of grace alone not just in salvation but in every area of life and couple that with a concept of sovereignty that eliminates responsibility they will eventually come to the conclusion that it makes no difference what they do; there will be no consequences, grace will cover all and they will begin to do what they want to do. They will live what they are being taught.

There will, however, be consequences: Both for those who walk in rebellion and for those who don’t teach the whole word of God. Shepherds who feed their flocks ideas and words so big that the sheep can’t consume them, can’t make them a part of their lives or those who feed them things that cause disease and malnutrition will be held to a stricter judgment. Shepherds will be held accountable for the long term consequences of what they teach. Those men from the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s who taught that we should not be a part of culture because it would taint us or those who taught that we wouldn’t be on the planet past 1988 will all be held accountable for their part in ruining lives and cultures. We are living in the long term consequences of the food those shepherds fed the flocks.

We are only just beginning to see the effects of the half developed concepts of sovereignty and grace that are now permeating the sheep. They will not be good. I have seen suicides; divorces, adulteries and general destruction of lives already grow out of these things. But God’s sovereign so that makes it ok. What can you do? God planned it that way.

I’m sick of it. I’m sick of what the shepherds are doing to the flock. I’m tired of watching the flocks starve to death on what they are being fed. This may sound, I don’t know, heretical, but it is time to get past theology to application. By that I am not saying we should throw out theology, on the contrary we need to know what the bible says, but it is time to start applying what the bible says. My friends who are dying, running wild are simply living out the theology that they’ve been taught. The ones in those circles who refuse to follow suite are probably just too afraid that what they believe might really not be true in the long run so they are hedging their bets.

For too long we have been selective about what parts of the bible we will let influence our theology but that kind of study of God is nothing more than a study of us as god. If our knowledge of God doesn’t include the whole word of God then it is not a study of God. We live by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God not just the ones we like or agree with.

I am reminded of a song by the band Adam Again called Every Word I Say.

Everybody is talking, many words are spoken, But they're telling me the things that they think I wanna hear,
Enough is enough, it's time to get serious, Sounds so good, (can you see us?)
And if you tell me you love me...well, it better be the truth.

Well, I know that the things that we say are sometimes automatic, (I mean every word I say)
We just follow a script, like a charter reading his lines, (I mean every word I say)
Enough is enough, it's time to get serious, (I mean every word I say)
And if you talk about love, know the meaning of the word. (I mean every word I say)

From my heart to my head, from me head to my mouth,
Can the words cross the air between us, oh, and be true? - yeah. I mean every word I say,

Of course I take that as God speaking to us. He does mean every word he says.
On the other hand our lives, what we do, are a true reflection of what we believe.

May God have mercy on his church,

Brad

Cosmoyada.com