Imagine yourself as a member of a Mormon congregation & the issue of false teaching comes up in a discussion.  More specifically, suppose someone made the statement that the Jehovah’s Witnesses are a “cult”.   This is a discussion you will never hear among such groups, for how can they ever be critical of the errors of other groups or individuals when they are also in such gross error.

There are then only a few options for folks who find themselves in heretical error.

1.      Accept all to their “table”

2.      Ignore the issue altogether (push forward with the agenda of the group)

The first option treats every view as plausible & “deserving” of playing a role in discussion.  Much time is spent discussing nothing, but it makes the person feel very “generous” & “open-minded”.  The second option, being simply the other side of the coin is a willful disregard of the obvious – that the view being held is erroneous & being critiqued as such – instead the person or the group just continues to cultivate the false premise, not “worrying about what other people care, think or say”.  They will never let anything affect their agenda.

The recent horrific mall shooting in Omaha Nebraska, coupled with the other unspeakable events at Virginia Tech University not too long ago have brought home a point.  You see, after both shootings; one where over nine people were gunned down while shopping in a mall & the other where over 30 students’ lives were snuffed out we were told something quite amazing about both shooters –

The Virginia Tech killer was depicted as a young man that everyone knew had serious mental & character problems yet no one wanted to speak up.  The Omaha Nebraska killer was depicted as “gentle” & “loving animals” (source) – Herein is the problem.  The world has the notion that people are “basically good” so when such events happen, people scramble to make sense of it…yet cannot.

The Bible declares:

Might we even see this as being “repulsively wicked”? – but yet even many Christians don’t want to believe this so instead they become offended that anyone would dare point out that mankind’s natural state is a total depravity, a selfishness – even the so called “good” things humans do are loaded with self-serving purposes (to look “loving” before others, to assuage guilt & such).

I was glad to receive this question in my inbox today because it is so timely especially as some “teachers” out there are teaching people that Christians should no longer feel shame for anything.

The question came as a three-part expansion:

1. Is true repentance feeling bad for what you have done and asking forgiveness? 
2. Could it be inability or unwillingness to feel bad for the act, yet feeling bad for "letting God down"? 
3. How many times can one commit a particular sin and repent of it?

Here is my answer...read more 

In a day & age where men are attempting to gather a following, to make a name for themselves many sorts of strange teachings crop up but perhaps one of the strangest yet is one where a man actually is teaching that Christians no longer should be ashamed of anything they do.  And in the long eisegetic tradition of "proof-texting", this teaching stems from quoting part of Romans 9:33 KJV:

This concept of Total Depravity is an often misunderstood concept as evidenced by how people often object to it.  You will hear people say something like:

“I don’t believe in Total Depravity because I’ve seen even so-called bad people do good things”.

Total Depravity does NOT mean a person is as bad or evil as they could be but merely that they are evil at the core.  This is not a slight difference.  Total Depravity speaks of the core of a person & that the core affects everything about the person, even the person’s “relative” goodness.  Utter Depravity would mean a person couldn’t exhibit even relative goodness.  For example, I recently read where a man said this:

Recently, I received an email asking me to review an account by a man who was relating how he had forsaken his faith in Christianity & instead was embracing what he is calling "rationalism".  To understand with what I am interacting here, you should first read the account found here: http://www.newrational.com/joy/journey.html (will open in new window).  The account is multiple pages long so use the NEXT button at the bottom of the page of the referenced website.

It is important to occasionally look at how a person can make the "journey" from belief to disbelief.  It can help us understand why we even believe in the first place.  It can either cause our faith to solidify, not out of fear of "losing faith" but out of knowing why we believe rather than not believe or it can reveal we never believed in the first place.  This reminds me of John 6:64-68 where we see Jesus telling His followers that basically some of them were following Him for self-serving reasons & not because they actually believe.  When these followers realized what Jesus was saying was true, they went away.  I think that is what happens to some people, even people who had appeared to believe for a long, long time.  When faced with the truth that unless God Himself "grants" a person to believe, not because they "chose" out of their own freewill, many people become disillusioned & dropout.  And you know, this is ok, because not everyone is supposed to believe -- only the ones granted by God are to believe.  Some people find this repulsive & elitist & cannot follow a God like that, so they don't.  Other people attempt to create a more "fair" god, but if pushed to the logical conclusion, this god fails & the person goes away in disbelief...at least a disbelief of the REAL GOD of the Bible.  Either way, whether a person embraces no god or a god of their own making, it is still disbelief in the REAL GOD of the Bible, the one that MUST grant a person to believe before they have the ability to do so.

Anyhow, here is my interaction with that man's account:

A Methodist female pastor had surgery to give her male features & yet she is still welcomed by her congregation as a spiritual leader.  What follows is a report from the United Methodist News Service (UMNS).  As you read this keep 3 things in mind:

1. The slogan on the United Methodist Church is "Open Hearts, Open Minds, Open Doors" (source)

2. The people in 1 Cor 5 were rebuked by Paul for being proud of their tolerance of sexual perversion among them.

The more & more I hear the phrase..."But he was such a nice guy..." after some horrific murderer, criminal, or terrorist does his act, the more I am convinced that we need to be preaching the doctrine of the Sinful Nature of mankind even the more.

Ask most people on the street if they believe most people are basically good or basically evil & you may be shocked to find that most people will claim people are basically good.  This flawed concept of human nature comes at the hands of not only typical atheistic humanism but also by the hands & preaching of unbiblical “Arminian/Pelagianism” theology.  And guess what? Even if a Christian denies their theology is Arminian or Pelagian, they will show their form of theology in short order when asked the question of people being basically good or basically evil.  These systems of theology have saddled the Church & by effect the world with the notion that we just need to better understand why someone behaves the way they do.  They will claim we need to have a “relationship” to get to know the person better, but certainly not tell them they are sick to the core & need spiritual help.  We look to blame it on everything but the very nature of humanity.

You have heard people say “Jesus accepts us just the way we are”.  As nice as this may sound, we must ask if it is a true statement.  If Jesus really accepts people just the way they are then why does He call them to “repent”?  The word, repent literally means “to change”.

Further, if this concept that Jesus accepts us just the way we are then why does He say we need to be “born again”?

In reply Jesus declared, "I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.” (John 3:3 NIV)

All this isn’t sounding like Jesus accepting people just the way they are. 

Most Christians have heard of the theological branches such as soteriology (pertaining to salvation), ecclesiology (pertaining to church), eschatology (pertaining to “endtimes”) & such but I was recently reminded that perhaps the most important “ology” may be hamartilogy (pertaining to sin)

One encyclopedia defines hamartiology this way:

Hamartiology (Greek: αμαρτια, hamartia, "missing the mark," "sin," + λογια, logia, "sayings" or "discourse") is the branch of Christian theology, more specifically, systematic theology, which is the study of sin with a view to articulating a doctrine of it. (source)

Quite literally it means “Sin-ology”.  The reason it may be more important than the other ologies is that before a person can realize they need salvation, they must first realize the nature of their falleness & thus all the other ologies lose meaning unless a person first understands how & why they are in sin & even what sin is.