Christian Living

From Baptist Bulletin, March/April 2016, used by permission. All rights reserved. Read Part 1 and Part 2.

As an exercise in remembering, Memorial Day has a specific focus. My purpose is not to detract from remembrance of our nation’s warriors who have lost their lives in the defense of liberty. Rather, I want to put this particular act of remembrance in the larger context of remembering as a feature of the Christian way of life.

Deuteronomy 8 helps us do that. Here we find that the Bible not only speaks powerfully to us in times of trouble but that it has equally important things to say to us after troubled times have passed and things are going well again. What it calls us to do in this “good times after bad” scenario is intentionally look back and remember the struggle.

Some context: Deuteronomy is a series of sermons Moses delivered in the plains of Moab before Israel crossed over into the land of promise. The “children of Israel” have endured four decades of wilderness life, and though they are about to face hardship of a different kind during the conquest, they are also going to experience unparalleled prosperity.

(About this series)

CHAPTER V - OUR LORD’S TEACHINGS ABOUT MONEY

BY ARTHUR T. PIERSON

From In the Nick of Time, Central Baptist Theological Seminary. Read the series.

Believers struggle with sin. But disagreement arises over how this ongoing conflict ought to be engaged. Some have suggested that classifying Christians into “spiritual” and “carnal” categories helps to explain the battle so that steps can be taken to secure victory over sin. Responding to a two-part essay on the “carnal Christian” by Charles Hauser, I proposed an alternative position. I first sought to provide some historical context as a foundation for the theological and exegetical issues that will be addressed in this essay.

John Wesley was the first to teach the concept of two categories of Christians: the saved and the sanctified. Once this second blessing theology took root in many evangelical circles, the revivalist preachers and holiness teachers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries embraced and trumpeted it. Out of this ferment arose the need to provide biblical support for the carnal Christian teaching. The one passage used by all who accept the two-categories-of-Christians view is 1 Corinthians 2:14–3:3 (Ernest Reisinger, What Should We Think of The Carnal Christian?, 8). For this reason, I offer an interpretation of this passage followed by a survey of several other references which argue against the two categories doctrine and which support the assertion that all believers will bear spiritual fruit.

From Baptist Bulletin, March/April 2016, used by permission. All rights reserved. Read Part 1.

New Testament texts

Luke 22:35, 36, and 38 are the only direct New Testament statements about self-defense. Jesus had previously sent His followers on various missions with instructions regarding what provisions and equipment they were allowed to take with them. In sending out the Twelve, He permitted no staff, bag, bread, money, or extra shirt (Luke 9:3). When He sent out the Seventy, He disallowed purse, bag, and sandals (Luke 10:4). These were not, however, intended as permanent, normative commands for all believers for all time. That is clear since Jesus contrasts these earlier restrictions with what would be necessary after the Crucifixion.

In Luke 22:35, 36, and 38 Jesus explicitly commands His followers to take the sort of provisions they were previously asked to leave at home: “He who has a money bag, let him take it, and likewise a knapsack” (v. 36a). But now a new item is added to the list. They are told to buy a sword (machaira), even if they have to sell their cloak to do so (v. 36b). This was not a butter knife for their bread or a paring knife for peeling apples. The machaira was, as BDAG (Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament) defines it, “a relatively short sword or other instrument, sword, dagger,” which is most commonly referenced in the New Testament as an instrument for killing (e.g., Mark 14:43; Luke 21:24; Acts 12:2; 16:27; Heb. 11:37; Rev. 13:10).

From Baptist Bulletin, March/April 2016, used by permission. All rights reserved.

Recently George Zimmerman has put up for auction the gun that he describes as a “piece of American history,” and which is notable for its role in the loss of Trayvon Martin’s life. The auction is currently being handled by the United Gun Group, owned by Todd Underwood (who I am told may have formerly been a student at Calvary—the school where I now serve as President). Underwood confirmed to the Washington Post that United Gun Group would host the auction, though he added “I don’t support it, I don’t condone it, I don’t have anything against it. It’s his property, it’s his decision.”

Previously the gun was listed on Gun Broker’s website, but apparently the auction was deleted, and the administrators of the website posted a statement saying, “We want no part in the listing on our web site or in any of the publicity it is receiving.”

From In the Nick of Time, Central Baptist Theological Seminary. Read the series.

One of my former professors, Charles Hauser, has recently written in support of the “carnal Christian” view as a way of describing the reality of sin in the believer’s life (Part 1 and Part 2). In response, I offer this essay in respectful dissent and in support of the more historically grounded position that there is only a single category or class of Christians: the regenerate (or sanctified or spiritual or justified or any number of adjectives used to distinguish believers in Christ from non-believers).

Though not intended as a point-by-point response to Dr. Hauser’s essays, this two-part article will provide some historical context to the sanctification discussion before furnishing an interpretation of 1 Corinthians 2:14-3:3, the favorite text of “carnal Christian” advocates. In regard to historical issues, it will first help the reader to learn the context out of which the “carnal Christian” doctrine has arisen. Second, I will address the historical connection between dispensationalism and particular models of sanctification, an issue raised by Dr. Hauser.