Saturday, September 07, 2019

God's Will of Being a Total Truth-Keeping Person: The Most Obvious Bifurcation of Truth in God's World Today

God's truth doesn't stop anywhere in the world.  It applies at some center point and in every place proceeding from that center, marking the center anywhere you want to put it.  It doesn't matter if there is a center, His truth covers everything.  Some might put a center to it in order to emphasize that center, but the truth still applies everywhere else.  One doesn't help the center where the truth is applied by not applying the truth in those areas further out from that center.  We can argue all we want about what the center is, but the whole world is still His world and integrity requires applying His truth everywhere.  Just because you picked a center and apply it there doesn't justify not applying the truth to all other areas in His world.

Not applying God's truth everywhere challenges the sovereignty of God over His creation.  It can't be justified by emphasis, which by that I mean that one doesn't emphasize the chosen center by disregarding the areas not in the center.  Let's say the gospel is the center.  If I apply the truth to art, I'm not deemphasizing the gospel.  If I apply the truth to music, I'm not deemphasizing the gospel.  If I apply the truth to business or science or education or nutrition or architecture or lawn care, I'm not deemphasizing the gospel.

In fact, just the opposite, every other truth is diminished when another truth is diminished.  God doesn't pick certain truths not to keep.  The gospel changes someone into a total truth keeping person.  Jesus said that in the Great Commission.  Every truth ignored creates a ripple.  All the truth is one.  Every truth fits into all the truth.  Not keeping one has some effect now or in the future on other truths.  This is because God is One.  When we talk about His attributes, we are talking about such perfection of harmony that never does a single attribute ebb at the flow of another.

Breaking truth into truths to emphasize one over another is like breaking God up into parts and emphasizing one part over another.  The truths are like the circulatory system.  Someone might bleed out faster by a violation of a major vessel, but he will bleed out with the violation of any vessel.  I'm just going to let it bleed, because it's just a trickle is still death.

An obvious practice in professing Christianity today is conceding truth, looking for what's important, what's really important, what's only important, and conceding other things, meanwhile perhaps saying no one is conceding anything, when they really are.  The world isn't going to accept everything, so diminishing much of what the world doesn't like and highlighting those parts that the world might like.  What this serves to do is like in ages past, the bifurcation of truth.  A dichotomy forms as occurred with gnosticism and neo-platonism, honing in on the sacred versus the secular realm.  Truth touches only certain spheres, bifurcated from others, because truth doesn't have to touch those -- they're off limits for truth.

The most obvious bifurcation of truth in God's world today is, well, the world today, that is, the culture:  music, dress, entertainment, friends, business, nutrition, art, architecture, etc.  Everything takes on a sameness, where Christians are no different, because there isn't a Christian anything out there.  It's kept only to the church setting.  Christians, true believers in churches, should be bringing the truth to everything in the world.

You are not living the Christian life, which means the gospel isn't even saving you in the sense that it saves you right now on this earth, if it doesn't change your music, dress, entertainment, friends, and every single other thing on the earth.  The prince of this world wants to protect the world like it's his, from whatever God would want to do to it through His people.  And God's people say, no, let's just keep it to the church, among the actual assembly, and blend everywhere else.

The truth is not therapy, that is there to work only in the assembly of believers, to help them get through the world without giving up -- feel good about one's self, give hope, make happy, and learn some biblicalish things.  The Bible deals with everything.  It is to be applied to everything.  Christians have decided to be fine with the separation between secular and sacred.  This is our Father's world, not Satan's.

As an example, I just watched a youtube video, where a professing Christian presented a fun outing on youtube.  I think it's fine, great, for a believer to use youtube as his medium.  Christians should use God honoring music in the background.  That doesn't mean a hymn or a psalm, but what would conform to the nature of God, like Paul commanded (Romans 12:2).  He used a country-western song with a fitting title, Good Times, but here is the chorus:
We just tryna catch a good time
Even if it takes all night
Pass that bottle 'round the campfire
Sippin' apple pie moonshine
For a true believer of Jesus Christ, passing a bottle of moonshine around all night shouldn't be or be thought to be a "good time."  It isn't good.  And that matters.  It is conduct unbecoming of the gospel, conflicting with the truth.  It is however an example of how an avowed Christian separates his life in the world from the truth.  It's a lie accepted especially today by evangelicals, misrepresenting biblical living.  I rarely see an evangelical podcast or other presentation that does not use ungodly music to introduce or in the background.

Engaging or integrating the truth all over, including in the places people might want it kept away because of lust or darkness, relates to the words of Ezekiel 44:23:
And they shall teach my people the difference between the holy and profane, and cause them to discern between the unclean and the clean.
God is holy.  He commands, be ye holy as I am holy.  To retain holiness in the world, the truth must engage to differentiate the holy from the profane.  There are profane "good times," which are not good, and holy "good times," and those need the light of truth out in the world to transect God's world for His glory.

Just because professing Christians bifurcate truth doesn't mean that God or the Bible do.   These "Christians" really don't have it both ways now.  They don't.  God is the judge of that, because God owns this world.  It's His world.  He's also judging this world.  But they act like they do.  It isn't Christianity.  Even if they bifurcate the truth, separating from the world where it exists, God doesn't.

A believer is to and will bring the truth to every area of life.  The word "integrity" comes from a Latin root, which means "whole."  A believer's integrity requires integrating the truth into everything.  The truth shouldn't clash with anything in a Christian's life, or in that aspect he is lying to the world or at least to himself or God.  Nothing is out of bounds.  It's all God's.  A believer is going to treat it like it is and not some separate entity outside of divine dominion.

2 comments:

kddlporter said...

Truth. What you wrote here made me think of this verse. Truth is the issue & wisdom should flow from truth if it is to be saving & freeing. John 8.
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James 3:17 But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy.
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First pure. The opposite of 'implacable' is there in that verse, too. Ever an issue of choice to acknowledge or resist & reject truth.

Kent Brandenburg said...

Thanks Kddlporter.