Truth that Troubles (5)

But some men came down from Judea and were teaching the brothers, “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.”
Acts 15:1, 2

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Fairly early on in the Christian movement large numbers of the theological elite of the Jewish religion began to convert to the Gospel (cf. Acts 6:7). Perhaps it was the thing to do. After all, the multitude of priests who turned to Christ had seen thousands of their friends and synagogue members abandon the old ways for the new Way that insisted Jesus alone is Lord and King and Savior, and in Him alone, according to His Word, can men hope to find eternal life.

But life in the new community was not entirely comfortable for some of these theologians. When they began to realize that following Jesus meant leaving behind practices they had always regarded as integral to their personal religious identity, they began to object. The Gospel of the Kingdom demands of all who embrace it that they quit the life they knew and take up the Way of Jesus, depending only on Him and His Word for their hope and direction in life. Personal preference or taste and inherited traditions that seemed to add to or otherwise qualify or modify the Gospel and the place of Jesus simply were not welcome in the Church.

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In every era men have tried to import into the faith of Christ ideas, practices, and terminology from the pagan religions of the surrounding culture. “Syncretism”, as this practice is known, has been present from the beginning of the Gospel; but it has always been greeted by the orthodox leaders of the Church with a firm rebuke and a renewed demand to cling only to Jesus and His Word. As important or cherished or even relevant as certain ideas or practices may seem to be, if they detract from the central message of the Truth, they must not be welcomed in the household of faith.

And this bothers some people, who will complain that those who cling to the Truth of the Gospel aren’t being sufficiently open or tolerant, that their claims to knowing the Truth can’t be proved and need to be toned down, or that they are being closed-minded and hard-hearted toward people of other faiths and beliefs. Those who want to live in appeasement with the unbelieving worldviews of the day are willing to alter the historic Gospel of Christ in order to accommodate the sensibilities and inherited practices of their contemporaries. The more we insist on the exclusivity of the Gospel and the certainty of Truth that we have in God’s Word, the more such people will shun and shame us.

But it is the nature of the Gospel to trouble those who, for the sake of their own preferred beliefs and practices, want to bend Truth of God.

VP Truth That Troubles