How consistent is your theology? Do you have any contradictions in it?

Do you believe some things that do not fit with other things you believe?

You may say in the words of scripture that “God is love.”

You may believe that deeply and sincerely. But do you also believe that God does some things that are not loving?

And if you believe that God is love but does unloving things, how do you work that out?

Jesus told us in Luke 6:35 that “God is kind to the ungrateful and to the wicked.”

He doesn’t modify this in any way. He is telling us that God treats everyone with love all the time.

This is the nature of God—to love and love only.

Do you believe this?

Or do you believe 1 Samuel 15 where God orders the destruction of the Amalekites?

God is quoted as saying, “Go attack the Amalekites. Do not spare them. Kill both man and woman, child and infant.”

If God did this, God is not love. God is not kind to everyone all the time.

So, what is your choice?

What image of God do you choose?

You can’t choose both. The two images of God are contradictory.

Back to my first question: Do you have a consistent theology?

Or is your theology—your belief system—just a mixed up mess?

If it is a mess, I have a suggestion for you: Just accept what Jesus taught us about God. Accept it completely.

God is love. God loves even his enemies. God is kind to the ungrateful and to the wicked.

Let Jesus have the final word. He alone is Lord.

Accept no substitutes.

Steven Weinberg said, “Without religion, good people would do good things and bad people would do bad things.”

“It takes religion,” he said, “to make good people do bad things.”

The late Nobel laureate was a renowned physicist and devout atheist.

I don’t often agree with him. But I agree that religion can make good people do bad things.

Nonbelievers are often kinder toward people with differences than Christians.

They are often accepting of gay folks and advocate for equal rights for women and people of all races and religions.

Give me a gracious atheist over a mean Christian any day.

But what makes some Christians mean?

The Bible.

That is, the Bible read by people who don’t know how to read it.

People who absolutely refuse to put Jesus first.

There are Old Testament passages that say people with disabilities must be kept away from worship.

A blind or a crippled person will defile a holy place. They don’t count as people.

Paul tells women to be submissive to men and to be quiet in church. They have a second-class existence.

The Book of Revelation paints God as warmonger, bloodthirsty, and vengeful.

In reading the Bible, we must always turn to Jesus for the final answer.

If we put Jesus first, we will know when Paul gets off track. We will know when a passage of scripture falls short.

Jesus is the standard.

He tells us that God loves all of us equally and unconditionally.

If Jesus is Lord, let him be lord of the scriptures also. Accept no substitutes.

Beware the Orange Man

Even after the verdict, millions of Christians still cling to the orange man.

How can that be?

Christian conservatives are morally conflicted.

What is a Christian conservative? Anyone who reads the Bible as if it is inerrant.

As if it is a monolith.

As if literature written over one thousand years (and more) speaks with one voice.

As if the images of God from ancient Israel match the image we have in the teachings of Jesus.

As if Moses has the same authority for Christians as their Savior.

As if Deuteronomy is as important to Christians as The Sermon on the Mount.

Inerrancy breaks the first commandment. It makes the Bible an idol. It turns the Bible into God.

And it diminishes the authority of Jesus.

Jesus tells us to love those who don’t love us, even our enemies.

The Old Testament says God ordered the Israelites to kill their enemies.

Who wins out? 

Bible inerrantists take an average. Jesus loses. 

His message of God’s unconditional love for all people is rejected.

For Bible inerrantists, love is not an absolute standard. This puts them on shifting sand.

This is why Conservative Christians are vulnerable to the orange man.

And vulnerable to others who preach vengeance and self-interest.

Someone analyzed the sermons of a well-known inerrantist preacher. Over 90 percent of his scripture references were from the Old Testament.

Yes, the Bible is our authority. But it has within it an even higher authority.

Jesus.   

If you don’t know this—the orange man may get you.

A note from Jason: Hello, Saint Matthew family. With the storms that blew through our area on Tuesday morning Pastor Max was without Internet and couldn’t upload his article in time for publishing. I hope you’ll indulge me as I share one of my personal favorite Friday’s Word articles with you, published February 18, 2022, in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

Did you ever notice how reasonable Jesus is?

In fact, he teaches us the principle of consistency.

“A bad tree cannot produce good fruit,” he told us.

“You cannot serve two masters,” he said.

You will end up cleaving to one and letting the other go.

Now let me test your awareness of consistency. Which of these words does not belong with the other words? Dog, Cat, House, Mouse, and Moose.

I know you got that right. The word “house” is not consistent with the words which name animals.

Now another test, just as easy. Scripture passages:

1-God so loved the world that he gave his only son.

2-God is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked.

3-While we were sinners, Christ died for us.

4-God is love.

5- Then God rained sulfur and fire from heaven on Sodom and Gomorrah.

Now, which of those statements is inconsistent?

Again, the answer is obvious. The last statement does not agree with the other four.

If God is love, if God is kind even to the wicked, then God does not rain fire down on anyone.

If God deals with our sin by dying for us, then God does not seek to destroy us. So, if the first four statements are true, the last one cannot be true.

And here’s the point:

If you are a biblical inerrantist, you must believe that all five statements are equally true.

In other words, you must believe nonsense.

In other words, you cannot accept what Jesus teaches us about the nature of God.

You are a house divided. You are trying to serve two masters, two very different ideas about God’s nature.

You can’t do that, Jesus said. So, stop trying!

Let inerrancy go.

Lord Jesus, Lead the Way

Funny—there is a kind of giddy hopefulness in the United Methodist Church now.

We’ve lost a third of our churches nationwide. Most of them are smaller churches, but some are very large.

But ah!—the freedom we feel! It’s like a great load has been lifted.

As Bishop Saenz put it, “We are no longer supporting homophobia in the name of Jesus Christ.”

Or as I have said, we are no longer promoting hate.

The vote at the General Conference was 93% in favor of removing the hateful language against gay people in our Book of Discipline.

It was placed there in 1972, a darker time, a time of greater ignorance about human sexuality.

Many churches are still trapped in that time. They push a gospel that excludes people for being who they are. And until recently, we United Methodists were in on that sin.

But God has delivered us. And we are reveling in the freedom to live for Jesus Christ.

You know, evil has an allure and it is the allure of power over others.

It leads to a perversion of Christianity.

Christians in Germany wanted power over the Jews.

White Christians in the South wanted power over black people.

Men want power over women—and in many churches, they still have it.

It is all wrong.

This lust for power over others who are different is a sin. And United Methodists have had a conversion experience.

Praise the Lord!

We are free now to love others as God loves us.

And we are ready as a church to go where God calls us.

Lord Jesus, lead the way.