Why I Will Never Stop Teaching "Doctrine"
Jesus said, “Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (John 8:32)
This verse once spoke to and confused me. It spoke to me because I needed freedom. Freedom from my addictions. Freedom from the seemingly endless cycle of sin, feel bad, repent, feel fine, hit rewind and replay. And it confused me because, as far as I was concerned I knew the truth. But I still wasn’t free!
I had grown up an Adventist. I had been through Sabbath School, Pathfinders, and baptismal classes. I only listened to Christian music and went to church religiously every weekend. I would even go to the local Christian book store and get some extra stuff to read. Truth was something I had in abundance.
But I wasn’t free.
Turns out, I didn’t understand Jesus’ words in John 8:32 at all. Because when Jesus spoke about truth he was talking about something quite different from what I was thinking of. But before I tell you what that is, I want to back up a bit and introduce the rest of this blog with the following statement:
All of scripture is a revelation of God’s heart.
What does this have to do with John 8:32 and truth setting us free?
Let’s find out.
THE ESSENCE OF SCRIPTURE
The foundation and essence of the Biblical narrative is to unveil, step by step, a deeper and richer picture of who God is and what he is like. And this reality is expressed through all of scripture. Not just John or Galatians or the Psalms - all of scripture is an unfolding and uncovering of the mystery that is the love of God.
Another way to put it is like this: The entire Bible is gospel.
“The foundation and essence of the Biblical narrative is to unveil, step by step, a deeper and richer picture of who God is and what he is like. ”
Not just Matthew, Romans or Colossians. All of scripture is good news. Its there in Genesis, in Leviticus, in Isaiah and Ezra. The gospel doesn’t begin in the New Testament, and its not confined to the epistles. To the contrary, the gospel begins in Genesis and unravels itself through poetry, history and prophecy all the way through to Revelation.
What this means is that the entire narrative of scripture, from beginning to end, is about the love of God. His love is the essence, the theme, and the fullness of what the Bible is. And every doctrine that exists, does not exist independently of this love, but rather as a magnifier of it.
Picture it like this. Imagine the shape of a heart on a table surrounded by diverse magnifying glasses. As you approach the table, each magnifying glass enables you to zoom in on the heart in different ways. The main point of the whole experience is that heart. It is the hero of the story. But the magnifying glasses are there, not to take the attention to themselves, but to help you get a deeper look at the heart.
This is how the Bible is meant to be experienced. It’s not the love of God here and the doctrines there. Instead, the love of God is the centre of the entire experience and the doctrines are there to magnify that love in ways unimaginable to the human heart. If you think you have God’s love figured out, place it under the magnifying glass of the doctrine of baptism and you will walk away a totally new person, or the Sabbath, the Judgement, the Sanctuary etc. Each of these doctrines take us deep into God’s love and transform us.
DRY THEOLOGY
My biggest mistake when it came to this whole, “truth will set you free thing” is that I missed the essence of what truth was. Truth, in my mind, was a series of propositional ideas. I understood the Sabbath and could defend it. I understood the judgement as well. And the sanctuary. But what I missed was how each of these doctrines came together to tell one perfectly tethered story that both discloses the heart of God and immerses the reader in it’s intensity.
In short, I had a bunch of magnifying glasses with nothing to look at. As a result, none of my doctrinal knowledge really led me anywhere. They were facts, but they were not truth in the fullest sense of the word. Although I understood them, they did not lead me to the place of freedom.
Let’s look at Jesus’ words again. In John 8:32 he says, “you will know the truth and the truth will set you free”. But go down a few verses to verse 36. What does he say there? “Whom the son sets free will be free indeed.”
Jesus equates the truth that sets us free with himself. The truth that delivers us is not merely right theology or right doctrine. All that does it make you smarter. But if you want to be set free, then your doctrine has to lead you to Jesus. It has to lead you to God’s heart. Because true freedom is in the presence of God.
Unfortunately, what happens is some people focus on the doctrines as though they are the main point of everything. This is what I did. It’s not that God’s love was ignored but rather, I treated it as a separate doctrine. God’s love and gospel are here and his law and church and end time events are over there. In this view, what I ended up with was a table full of magnifying glasses with nothing to look at. So I became obsessed with the magnifying glasses themselves and then wondered, “Why am I not experiencing freedom if I know the truth? Why isn’t Jesus’ promise working for me?”
In time, God showed me that the magnifying glasses are not designed to be looked at, they are designed to be looked through. And that’s how doctrine functions in the Bible. Doctrine is not something we look at, its something we look through. But when you remove the love of God, there is nothing to look at through the doctrines, so the doctrines, not God’s love, become ends to themselves that lead you nowhere. This results in staring at the magnifying glasses rather than looking through them. There is no life in this.
CHEESY THEOLOGY
On the flip side, there are those who say, “Forget doctrine! Its not important. The only thing that matters is the love of God!” Usually, they are reacting to Dry Theology which is understandable. I too went through this experience where, in my desire to taste the love of God I abandoned doctrine and treated it as the unwanted step-child of the Bible. But the downside is I ended up with a Cheesy Theology that was just as powerless to set me free.
In fact, lots of churches do this. And its sad. Its sad because while you feel a sense of self-righteousness in not being like those “dry people over there obsessed with doctrine,” you unavoidably nurture a shallow, irrelevant theology.
In this model, doctrine is proudly ignored and we harp on about the love of God week after week. But the problem is we never dig into that love deep enough to discover what it has to say to the gut wrenching existential inquiries of humanity.
This theology may be comfortable and marketable, but it is powerless before the atheist, the political ideologue, and the sibylline like wanderer who wants to believe in God but can’t find a single Christian capable of answering his questions in any remotely compelling way.
The only way to avoid dry theology on one end, and cheesy theology on the other is to embrace the tension between doctrine and love. That tension doesn’t really exist, but I find it necessary to codify it and speak of it in these terms because most of us treat them as antithetical to one another. And yet, read properly, the Bible is a progressive unveiling of the heart of God that transforms the reader. And that unveiling takes place in the harmonious dance between the overarching theme of God’s love, and the intentional presence of doctrinal magnifying glasses that give us greater, more colourful and more relevant glimpses into the bottomless ocean of his heart.
And it’s when those two are in harmony - God’s love as the central theme and doctrine as its continual magnifier - that we discover the life changing and freedom spawning nature of the Bible. In this dance we can encounter and communicate a truly relevant and liberating theology.
Why Does this Matter?
Once I discovered this, I realised once and for all why I wasn’t experiencing the freedom Jesus spoke of. It’s because I wasn’t experiencing truth. Truth and Jesus are one and the same. The Bible offers eternal life only because it offers him (John 5:39). You can understand all the doctrine you want, but if doctrine is merely something you are looking at and not something you are looking through - a portal into the presence of God - then you will never experience freedom, plain and simple. But once doctrine claims its rightful place as a microscope into the depths of God’s heart and you spend each day exploring those depths, your heart will begin to change.
But why does any of this matter? There are two answers to that question. The first is that the battle between good and evil is fundamentally rooted in the the person-hood of God. Satan spreads lies about him while God reveals truth about himself. So, at the end of the day, this lie-versus-truth conflict is a conflict over who God is and what he is like. And the only way to get an accurate picture that breaks the spell of Satan’s anti-God propaganda is to discover the love of God through the Biblical narrative, complete with the doctrinal magnifying glasses it provides.
In short, read your Bible. But more. If Satan cannot keep you from the Bible he will warp the way you read it. The cheesy model is one way he warps our ability to grasp the beauty of God’s character. The dry model is the other (which Adventists, I’m so sorry, tend to be most fond of.) Therefore, read your Bible but do it with a simple twofold approach. The first, to discover the heart of God in everything you read. The second, to read everything.
The second reason why it matters is because we become like what or whom we worship. If the God we worship is strict, stoic and controlling we will become that kind of people. So Satan doesn’t really care if you go to church and read your Bible, so long as he can keep you chained to his lies about God’s character. And as you worship this god - this false god of approval, this false god who sits in heaven looking desperately for an excuse to keep you out, this false god who demands perfection of you on the threat of eternal damnation - then you progressively become like that god. Your character begins to reflect the insecurity, judgmentalism, criticism and stoicism that the god you worship exemplifies. In this sense, Satan’s lies about God have a double effect. First, they damage our picture of God’s character. And second, they damage our own character. As we behold this false deity, our characters are shaped into its false image.
I have seen this damage for decades as an Adventist member and pastor. Everywhere I go I meet Adventists who are stuck in the mire of legalism, unsure about their own salvation. The difficult God they worship, reflected in their own difficult characters. Our churches are dying - our monotonous worship merely a reflection of our mechanical God. Our youth are leaving. Our leaders are ageing. Our church is hardly known by anyone outside our walls.
I have seen broken people driven out of our churches, gossip and slander our primary weapons of choice as we dig our trenches in never-ending battle between liberals and conservatives. In our history, we have promulgated lies about God just as much as the very religious institutions we were raised to protest.
What this means is that our safety cannot rest in some label like, “Adventist”. Our only safety is in Jesus. The Bible must become to us a telescope into the character of God. Every doctrine, not a point of controversy to be debated, but a magnifying glass into his heart. And as we marvel at that beauty, we will be transformed into his image—the image of love that our world desperately needs.
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Icon made by Puppets from www.flaticon.com (Magnifying Glasses)
Icon made by Bogdan Rosu from www.flaticon.com (Heart)
The 1 Question Adventists Need to Answer
I’ve been a pastor for a decade. In that time, the most common question I hear church leaders and missional believers wrestle with is “why is our church struggling to share its message?”
We are hardly keeping our young people, let alone reaching new ones. And recent surveys have shown that to this day, very few people in the general public know who SDA’s are or what our message is. And of those who do know about us, most have a very poor and unfavorable picture of us. (You can read about that here.)
I don’t have the full answer obviously, but after 10 years of ministry, I have definitely picked up on something that is essential to this conversation. But before I say what it is, let me offer an illustration:
I want you to picture a bookcase. The case is stacked with books. Every book happens to be a story about the meaning of life. And every story is different. Some are thick, 800 page volumes. Others are short, 100 page novels. But again, they all answer the same question (the meaning of life) but tell entirely different stories with entirely different answers to that same question.
As you picture that bookcase, I want you to imagine people coming to the bookcase. Everyone who comes is searching for answers to the meaning of life. Some are old, some are young. Some rich, some poor. When they get to the bookcase they are confronted with hundreds of stories - all of them offering their own narrative - and they choose one, sometimes two or three and read the books hoping to find answers.
Now I want you to walk right up to the book case and begin reading the book titles. One book is titled “The Path of Buddhism”. Another book is titled “The Way of Islam”. Still another is titled, “In the Footsteps of Abraham,” and another, “The Wisdom of the Vedas.” As you scan the book titles you discover that all of them are religions, philosophies and ideologies. Every book on the book case is essentially a story attempting to answer the same question but all telling different stories with their own unique contribution to the search for meaning.
Next, you arrive at the Christian section but instead of finding one book, you find a whole ton of them. “The Puritan Path”, “The Baptist Confession”, “The Methodist Quest,” and on and on.
Each of these books represent different perspectives on the search for meaning - for God. They each tell a different story and offer different insights into that adventure.
Finally, you arrive at a book titled “The Narrative of Adventism.”
It’s there among all the others. But here is my question to you - is there anything in that book that merits it being there?
Does that book have anything to offer, anything remotely important to say that no other book is saying?
Does that one book deserve to be its own book? Does it have anything meaningful, compelling or beautiful that no other book on that bookshelf has?
If the answer is no, then why was the book even written? Why add to the confusion of those who already have to sort through so much by adding an unnecessary story to the shelf?
But if the answer is “yes, it does have something unique to say,” then my question is - what is it? What does it say that no one else is saying?
When it comes to the question of Adventism’s uniqueness - what it is we have to say that is so eccentric and needed in the world - very few Adventists seem to know.
On the one hand, I find people who think they know. They think its the law, or the mark of the beast, or prophecy, or warnings about judgment, Babylon, and the end of the world.
On the other hand, there are people who find the question itself offensive. They want Adventism to be like everyone else and the very suggestion that it may have something unique to say is interpreted as arrogant.
Both groups are wrong.
Now, before you get angry and dart off to the comments section hear me out. Our book isn’t on that shelf to tell the world scary stuff about God. Plenty of churches do that already. In fact, if your driving motivation is doom, gloom, and judgment I can think of denominations that are much better at it than Adventists have ever been. DM me if you want recommendations.
On the other hand, if we are saying the same thing everyone else is saying with a few slightly nuanced doctrines then that means we are nothing more than an unnecessary distraction for those on the search for meaning.
And after 10 years of ministry, I’m convinced the innability to answer this question in any meaningful or compelling way is at the root of our missional inneffectiveness.
Churches that answer it with the doomy-gloomy stuff are toxic, unhealthy, and off putting.
Churches that answer it by ignoring it or saying “we’re the same as everyone else” are missing out on the radical and relevant story we’ve been called to tell the world.
Somehow, we have to come up with a better answer. One that is neither arrogant nor banal. One that points to Jesus but does so in radically beautiful and unique ways that tell a story the world is longing to hear.
So what do you think? Share your thoughts in the comments!
Metamodernism & It's Impending Challenge
Postmodernism is dead…
- David Guterson, Novelist
To start off with, I want to focus on the death of postmodernity and the emerging metamodern oscillation that is already in full swing all around us.
If you want to read about this in more detail, make sure you get the ebook “How to Study the Bible with Postmoderns” here.
Now here is why I think its so important to talk about the Metamodern arrival.
Adventists started talking about and responding to the postmodern challenge when postmodernism was already on its death bed. Since the 70's, a new perspective has been arising to take postmodernisms place: metamodernism.
My hope is that Adventists invest in understanding this emerging vision of reality and find ways to reach this culture today, not 70 years from now when its old news.
Listen to the podcast episode below!
Is Your Adventism Beautiful?
Is your Adventism beautiful?
Or is it ugly?
Does it attract the seeking heart to God?
Or does it repell it?
Hang with me here.
In Isaiah 61:10 the Bible says,
I delight greatly in the LORD; my soul rejoices in my God. For he has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of his righteousness, as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.
Notice the imagery here. The text is saying that God adorns us like a bride adorns herself in jewels. Picture that for a moment. A bride getting herself ready for her wedding. She is careful to comb and braid her hair just right. Her skin is brushed to perfection. She hangs a necklace around her neck and earrings that match. The jewels themselves can’t be just any old jewel. They have to be just right—not so strong that they steal the show and not so weak that they look out of place. They have to compliment her eyes, her dress—even the shape of her jaw and the length of her neck. It’s a work of art intended to enhance her beauty and draw attention to her joy.
The Bible says that this is what God does for us. He adorns us. He clothes us in his promise of salvation, in a robe of his perfect life and love. The picture Isaiah is painting is clear. God isn’t interested in dragging us into a religion full of rules and weird standards. The exact opposite is happening. God courts us romantically and then, the day we embrace him, he adorns us in all the beauty heaven has to offer.
And God adorns us in this for one reason: He wants us to be beautiful.
But it’s deeper than this. In Psalm 90:17 David wrote,
“Let the beauty of the LORD our God be upon us…”
In other words, its not simply that God adorns us with his grace and forgiveness. According to David he adorns us with himself. He is like a jewel that enhances our beauty and draws everyone’s attention to his heart.
And yet, it gets even deeper! God is not simply an adornment upon you and me that others see when they interact with us. Instead, the Bible paints an even crazier picture. Notice what Isaiah says in chapter 62 verse 3.
“You will be a crown of splendor in the LORD's hand, a royal diadem in the hand of your God.”
Did you catch that? Not only does God adorn us with himself, Isaiah goes so far as to say that he adorns himself with us!
Imagine God placing a crown on his head, or a royal ring upon his finger. That crown and that ring represent you and me. It’s not that God needs us to make himself more beautiful because he is the height of beauty. However, in some weird way I don’t fully understand God still describes his people as jewels he wears upon himself. I would suggest that because the great controversy is a battle over the character of God—Is he good or not?—then the biblical picture of God wearing his people as jewelry has theodical significance. In other words, when we live beautiful lives we beautify God in the eyes of people who think he is ugly. Our lives are the jewels that catch their attention and enable them to see the true beauty of his heart.
Zechariah also captured a similar picture when he wrote,
“The LORD their God will save his people on that day as a shepherd saves his flock. They will sparkle in his land like jewels in a crown.” (Zech. 9:16)
And speaking through the prophet Haggai, God said to Zerubabbel,
“I will make you like my signet ring, for I have chosen you…” (Haggai 2:23)
So let me ask again. Is your Adventism beautiful?
Is your faith like a jewel that God would want to wear?
Because here’s the pain truth: Countless people have turned away from God because supposed believers live lives that make God look ugly. Judgmental, arrogant, disconnected, sectarian, holier-than-thou, argumentative, critical, fault-finding, condemnatory, negative, obsessed with rules, traditions and mindless customs, tossed around by conspiracy theories and full of hatred toward those different from themselves. That’s the sort of stuff that makes God look ugly.
So my question today is, is your Adventism beautiful? Is your life beautiful? Are you adorned with the character of Jesus? Are you kind, fun to be around, and encouraging? And on the flip-side, if you were a jewel would he put you on? Would your life be filled with care for the poor, the vulnerable and the lonely? Is it the kind of life that would make others say—“wow, God really is beautiful.”
The answer to these simple questions is the difference between a life of missional effectiveness and failure. And the point here isn’t to stress you out with the pressure of “being beautiful enough for God to wear me” because the truth is, the beauty God is looking for isn’t all that complicated. Its simple. Its relationship. Its caring for others, defending the weak, advocating for the oppressed, and loving your neighbor.
So today I want to invite you—stop and think if you are adorned in the beauty of God and if, in turn, God would adorn himself with the beauty of you. Because the world doesn’t need more religious people with the right answers. It needs believers adorned with the beauty of God’s heart.
5 Things I Love About Adventism
One thing I do often (and by often I mean very often) is challenge the Seventh-day Adventist church - particularly in the West - to… well, to do better.
Whether I am calling our local church structures to be redesigned for mission, provoking our cultural quirks and questioning their utility, or disputing unhealthy theological frameworks that exist among us the message is fundamentally the same: we have to be better.
But this week, I decided I would pause the revolutionary broadcast to share 5 things I love about Adventism. So here goes:
I love our theological trajectory. I could go on and on about this, but in short Adventism is a theological narrative that is not about Adventism and I love that. Instead, Adventism is a story about God, his heart and his love, centred and strung together in Jesus. But the best part about it is that our theological narrative is not set in stone but constantly unfolding and developing. Yes, there are those among us who would prefer a more stringent, creedal kind of Adventism but its just not in our DNA. As a result, we remain committed to scripture rather than a statement of beliefs. And that commitment, I believe, has enabled us to develop an understanding of the love of God no other theological system around can match. No, that’s not a very politically correct thing to say. But hey, I wouldn’t be an Adventist if I didn’t believe there was something eccentric about what we have to say.
I love that we are Historicists. Historicism has been challenged for forever by people outside and inside of our church. Today, there is a whole new gang of voices repeating the century old attacks (with some new developments I must concur). And that’s fine, I mean, everyone is entitled to their own thing right? But for Adventism, Historicism is an apocalyptic interpretive method that has transcendent efficacy. Now, I don’t pretend that it’s a perfect method, that we have it all figured out, or that it can’t be misused (because it can and is). But Historicism provides us with a kind of sociological significance unmatched by alternative methods. For example, Historicism gives us a narrative that manifests the injustice of religio-political empire in a way that is not immediately self evident. This gives us a foundation to diverge from the collective pursuit of utopianism and the ever trending move toward social reform via church-state legislation. Instead, Historicism calls us to a kind of theological and ideological remonstrance on the one hand, and social preparation (as opposed to reformation) on the other. This approach is rooted in our view of human empire, which even when united with God’s kingdom ultimately self destructs as Daniel and Revelation so aptly reveal. It is also rooted in the denial of a coming golden age for humanity. Instead, Adventists see a coming catastrophe that cannot be averted by political manoeuvres. Our mission is therefore, to prepare the world for this climactic zero-hour in which the only righteous Kingdom will abdicate the throne of humanities global res publica. Sadly, other common interpretive methods of Daniel and Revelation point in the opposite direction by envisioning a coming era of righteous human dominion which in turn leads to political power grabbing in the name of righteousness. This, Adventists believe, is the precursor to a manifestation of religious intolerance and injustice of apocalyptic proportions.
In addition, Historicism is the only prophetic interpretive method that unveils God in action throughout the entirety of human time. Even during the Dark Ages where it appears God took a vacation (as Morgan Freeman put it in the movie “Bruce Almighty”), Adventisms apocalyptic consciousness helps us understand his presence and movement even in the darkest pages of the church’s sordid story, including the chapters yet to unfold. It’s also cool that we are the only Historicist denomination left. Some people see that as a sign that we are the only idiots left in Christendom. I see it as a sign that we are the only anti-conformists left. Of course, at the end of the day my love for Historicism is rooted in the text and not in whether I think its neat or not, but explaining that will take more space than I allotted for this short post, so I’ll move on.
I love our global structure. Despite all the challenges created by having an intercontinental and cross-cultural institution I honestly can’t think of anything better. Now some of my more post-modern, anti-institutionalist friends find this appalling. They wonder how someone as forward thinking as me can be so fond of our global structure. After all, all those super cool non-denom churches are as neat as they are because they keep all the tithe in house. Why can’t we do the same? My answer revolves around the pragmatic idea that while cynical anti-institutionalism has some value it falls flat when it comes to the practical needs of a global mission. The fact is, Adventism has a message that must go to the entire world. If you believe that, then you need an institution to facilitate that mission. Those who reject the institution are often only interested in reaching their immediate, local region. But Adventism doesn’t have a regional message, it has a global one - for every person on earth. So the bottom line is, we need a global structure. Now of course, I applaud the voices that say the institution needs reform. It definitely does! But that doesn’t mean we should abandon it. The fact remains that if we have a global message, we need a global presence and the level of organisation needed for that sort of thing demands an institution. And because I accept the premise that we have a global message, then I embrace our global structure as a needed tool to that end.
I love our health message. Yeah, there’s always the annoying people who are like super gung-ho and fanatical and no one likes them. I get that. Even non-Christian vegan hippies have their weirdos who will chop your head off for daring to eat your sweet potato quinoa salad in a plastic container (HOW DARE YOU??). But despite this wacko-reality, the health message is one of the coolest things about Adventism. It’s rooted in the idea that human beings are holistic creatures whose spiritual, emotional and physical nature is intertwined like the rhythm, melody and harmony of a musical composition. When they flow well together, something beautiful happens both at the individual and collective level. Even other denominations have started to pick up on the value of a holistic approach to the human as opposed to the dualist approach that has governed classical theology and given birth not only to generations of Christians with little care for physical well being, but also to doctrines like eternal torment that have driven scepticism to the heights of influence it enjoys today.
I love our potentiality. Because of Adventisms theological trajectory, its apocalyptic consciousness, global structure and holistic view of man I believe its future potential is beyond anything we have yet imagined. While our beliefs exist outside our church, they do so sporadically - here, there and everywhere. But in Adventism, each of these elements coalesce to form a movement and a story unheard of in the world. And the moment that we lock into that, get excited about it and refuse to allow tradition, fundamentalism and narcissism to get in the way of it that is the moment that we will sweep the world with something grand. Our potential is overwhelmingly exciting and I pray and hope for the day it is unveiled for the world to see.
What are some things you love about Adventism? Share your thoughts below!
Why Truth is Bigger than Doctrine
Years ago, I had a run in with a church member who was very passionate about sharing “the truth.” For him, the biggest and most important task of the church was to “get truth out there.” Forget all this relationship stuff—we don’t have time for that. We have to share the truth!
I corrected him by sharing the following thought: If truth is only information, you're right. Forget about relationship. If truth is just data, the most important thing is to share that data with others, right? But what if truth isn't just information or data? What if truth is a person? If truth is a person, then for people to understand it, they need to get to know this person. And how do you get to know a person? Only through relationship.
Of course, I didn’t make this up. I was working off of Jesus’ own definition of truth when he said, “I am the truth”. (John 14:6) According to him, truth is not a series of doctrinal ideas that we disseminate. Truth is a person. And a person can only be known through relationship.
And that’s good news because the world doesn’t need more information on the Sabbath, end-time events, or the sanctuary. What the world needs is a personal encounter with the Jesus that Sabbath, prophecy, and sanctuary point to. Without him, these doctrines might have factual value but they are not truth in the fullest sense. Truth—the kind that melts the heart, rebirths the soul, and heals the world—is found only in Jesus.
This means three things.
Love is evangelism: Jesus said, "By this will all men know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." (John 13:35) This means authentic love is the strongest demonstration of truth, not arguments. Of course, I am not saying good theology is pointless. I am, after all, a huge theology nerd. What I am saying is that love authenticates our message. Through it, not our doctrines, the world comes to know that we are his disciples.
Connection is truth: Truth is not just a set of ideas; it's Jesus. Everything we say and teach must point to him. If it doesn’t, all we are doing is pumping religious information into the world. And the world has plenty of religious data as it is. It doesn’t need more. What it needs is Jesus. And Jesus said it best when he stated, “You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me…” (John 5:39)
Relationship is discipleship: In a post-truth world, truth is most effectively conveyed through the beauty of relationships and shared lives. The culture is fed up with religious know it all’s who want to push their doctrines onto everyone else. What people need is someone to sit with them and build authentic relationships.
Ellen White put it this way:
“You will meet with those who will say, ‘You are too much excited over the matter. You are too much in earnest. You should not be reaching for the righteousness of Christ, and making so much of that. You should preach the law.’
As a people we have preached the law until we are as dry as the hills of Gilboa, that had neither dew nor rain. We must preach Christ in the law, and there will be sap and nourishment in the preaching that will be as food to the famishing flock of God. We must not trust in our own merits at all, but in the merits of Jesus of Nazareth.”-The Review and Herald, March 11, 1890.
The bottom line: truth is bigger than doctrine, bigger than 28 fundamental beliefs, and bigger than our systematic theologies. Truth is more than data, more than information, more than propositional ideas. God did not send a dissertation to humanity, a philosopher, or a scholar. He sent his “only begotten son”. (John 3:16) He became “flesh and dwelt among us.” (John 1:14)
And this truth is the only truth that can redeem the world.