The Most Common Paradigm for Apostasy As Also Related to Making Decisions and Having Discernment

"Apostate" and "apostasy" are technical terms not found in the Bible, but they are in common use through church history to describe turning from the faith to various degrees.  In general, it is viewed as complete turning from the faith, as done by an unsaved person and proving that he is not saved (1 John 2:19).  Jesus said that those who are His disciples will continue in His Word (John 8:31) and that His sheep will hear His voice and follow Him (John 10:27).

Turning away completely is apostasy, which means someone isn't saved, never was saved in the first place, so didn't continue in the faith.  When I say "various degrees" of apostasy, I mean that someone can turn from something he once believed for whatever reason, but is still saved.  This is a more difficult concept, because the question arises, "Does an actual true, genuine Christian turn away from anything that God says?"  And perhaps another, "Isn't a person who lives in perpetual sin unsaved?"  Any unrepentant sin merits church discipline in the New Testament, where someone is regarded as a heathen man and a publican (Matthew 18:17).

A lot is changing in professing Christianity today in whatever realm someone might want to characterize genuine Christianity, evangelicalism or fundamentalism.  Do these changes represent the changes of saved people, where now they aren't obeying scripture as they once were, or these are just unbelievers?  This is a tough call, but also a common question.  We're not saved by doing good works, but by grace, and yet on the other hand, grace isn't a means of disobeying what God said.

For the sake of this post, I'm going to say that there are saved people, who are just not practicing like they once did.  The biggest crowd of these are millennials or perhaps we could call them younger people.  They still believe in Jesus Christ for salvation.  They would still say they want to live for the Lord.  They still believe the Bible is the Word of God. However, they don't practice the same way as the previous generation and this is happening all over the place.  To put this into the above discussion, are these saved people?  I'm going to say, yes, for the sake of this post, but I wouldn't want to be in their shoes.  The Bible doesn't change, God doesn't change, so the change could be apostasy.  Perhaps someone just needs to wait and see.

I'm making room for a partial apostasy still being saved, because of the churches in the New Testament, where they were not practicing like Paul wanted according to his epistles and Jesus expected according to His letters delivered to seven churches in Asia.  Did the changes at Corinth, ones of which Paul did not approve, constitute not being saved?  Did the changes at Ephesus or Pergamos or Thyatira mean a departure from the faith totally?  It did at Laodicea, we know (Revelation 3:14-22), but it's tough to know to what extent the people were unsaved in the other six, where Jesus disapproved.

Again, salvation is not something to mess around with, so we shouldn't give people a false sense of security about salvation, if they have departed from some orthodox belief and practice, while holding on to a profession of faith.  Today, I think, that millennials are banking on the notion that they still have reached the low bar, a minimal threshold, to count as salvation without having to live all the stuff that they don't like.  They are changing Christianity very often to the degree that it isn't even Christianity any more, and they don't care, as long as they're happy with it.  Does that sound like saved people?  It's difficult for me to say, yes, that sounds like Christianity to me.

This has all been introduction so far, but the way I believe the apostasy is occurring, saved or not saved, has taken on the following steps, which I'm calling the most common paradigm for apostasy.  I'm going to write them in the second person for someone reading to apply to himself.

1. You want to live like you want.
2. You want acceptance of that lifestyle.
3. You recruit validation from like-minded people.
4. You destroy or scorched-earth the source of the former belief and practice to justify your leaving for the new.

This paradigm fits 2 Peter, an epistle with apostasy as its theme, as Peter describes lust as the impetus for the apostasy (2:10, 18; 3:3).  You can't say "no" to what you want, so you look for those who will accept the lifestyle.  Those churches and people are available.  They have already conformed Christianity to their lusts, just like Darwinism conformed science to lust, eliminating a Creator.  You can find people will approve of what you are doing, but it doesn't stop there.  If you can't get acceptance from your former church or authority, you destroy it.  You might find enough to discredit it with the approval of your new belief and practice.

You should notice that the paradigm doesn't start with God's Word.  It doesn't begin with revealed truth.  It doesn't look to historical faith and practice, already established among the saints.  Jesus said, "Thy Word is truth" (John 17:17).  Scripture is the basis for truth, not feelings or lust.  Feelings or lust should be doubted in favor of scripture.  Any legitimate, biblical change, what is sanctification, will start with the preaching or study of the Word of God.  This doesn't happen with the most common paradigm of apostasy.

Since scripture isn't the authority, decisions are made based upon lust.  Scripture conforms to the lust.  If you read 2 Peter 2, you can see this as the pattern.  I'd ask you to read that whole chapter.  Feelings and lust take the preeminence, not God or His Word.  Paul describes this as "the course of this world" (Eph 2:2).  Since decisions and lifestyle are not proven based upon scripture, you lack discernment or wisdom.  You make regular decisions that look no different than an unsaved person, so you are making decisions like unsaved people make them.

The reason you think decision-making based on lust is fine is because you have gathered around you a group (a community) of people who validate you and that way of making decisions.  You've joined a group like that and then recruited others.  Many professing Christians are prey to usefulness toward apostasy.  They don't want to hurt someone's feelings and their silence reads like acceptance.  They might think they are helping because they themselves get approval for their acceptance.  This is a form of lust itself or related pride.

A common advocate for lust perverts the grace of God, what Peter and Jude call turning grace into lasciviousness.  You think that's the grace of God.  It isn't.  It's the apostatizing of biblical doctrine or practice or just the general apostasy of an unsaved person.

I've written recently how that uncertainty and doubt are crucial in the most common paradigm of apostasy (here).  The critics of your lust are classified as proud because of their total certainty, which means they don't allow liberty to practice Christianity in the preferred areas of doubt.  What was once certain in Christianity has been shifted to uncertain to make room for lust.

The lust shapes one's view of God.  He conforms to lust.  The lust can't but help do that.  God becomes like a goody-meister, there to fulfill your wishes.  He requires very little but fills your stocking with what you desire.  That's who he is.  This is a kind of blasphemy of God, but acceptable to both give you what you want and also give you eternal salvation.  You've got a new "god" in your mind who allows you to live like you want, but he isn't really "God," but "god."  It is the apostasy of the truth of genuine Christianity.  At what point has this dipped below a threshold of salvation?  I'm not sure, but I don't want it.  Even if it doesn't damn someone, it results in regular bad decision making and diminishing discernment.

The Former Pharisee, the Apostle Paul, the Theologian of Separation

"Pharisee" means "separatist."  BDAG, the foremost lexicon of the Greek New Testament, says right at the beginning of the definition:

The Semitic words mean ‘the separated ones, separatists'.

The Pharisees were separatists.  Paul had been a Pharisee.  Upon conversion, Paul was no longer a Pharisee.  He left Pharisaism.  So does that mean he wasn't a separatist?  Wrong.  After he was saved, Paul still taught separation.  He could rightly be called the theologian of separation, the face of scriptural separation.

The modern evangelical calls separation Pharisaism and separatists, Pharisees.  When Paul gave up Pharisaism, he didn't give up separation.  One could say he doubled down on actual separation, godly separation, because no one represents it more in the New Testament than the Apostle Paul.

Separation isn't Pharisaical. No, separation is scriptural.  Pharisaism is what is unscriptural.  "Pharisee" means "separation" and the lineage or legacy that led to Pharisees was legitimate.  If we went back into the history, there was good reason to participate in separation.

The legitimate forefathers of the Pharisees were the separatists from Greek culture, when Antiochus Epiphanes offered the pig on the altar of the temple.  They led the Maccabean revolt, which is was a legitimate expression of disgust with impurity.  Daniel represents this by separating himself from the sinful aspects of Babylonian culture, despite living in the midst of it.  By the time, we get to Christ, the Pharisees were a mere caricature of that group of separatists.

The Apostle Paul didn't give up separation.  He gave up the self-righteous separation of the Pharisees.  They separated to show others how much better they were than others, comparing themselves with men (see this post).  What set the Pharisees apart was not biblical practice, but traditions that were not required by scripture.  They were showy traditions that emphasized the easiest ways to manifest a faux righteous behavior.  They weren't even obeying scripture.

In recent days, and this isn't unusual, I was called a Pharisee by someone, and it included the label, whitened sepulcher, a designation Jesus used for the Pharisees.  From what I could gather, I was being called these things for three main reasons:  one, the standards I hold, two, the practice of separation to which I adhere, and three, my lack of sinless perfection.  None of those three made a Pharisee to be a Pharisee in the pejorative use of the term.

No one is a Pharisee for interpreting, believing, and applying scripture.  The Pharisees weren't doing that, which is why Jesus asked them continually in the gospels, "Have ye not read?" (Matthew 12:3, 5, etc.).  Because it seemed like they hadn't even read the book, they were so far off in their understanding of it.  When He corrected their perversion of the Old Testament in the Sermon on the Mount, He started by saying, "It hath been said."  What was said in scripture was true; it was their corruptions that were not true.

In general, the Pharisees conformed God's Word to their own attempts on keeping all of the law.  That was impossible, so they turned it into mere ritual that they thought they could keep.  They wouldn't even do that, but it was an attempt to minimize the Old Testament to what was possible for them, which is salvation by works.  The people attempting to be saved by works don't respect the scripture, because they are impossible to keep by one's self.

The idea of separation itself, subsisting within the carcass of Pharisaism, was correct and the Apostle Paul taught it in nearly every one of his epistles and implied it in all.  In Romans he said, mark and avoid (Rom 16:17-18).  In 1 Corinthians he said, not to keep company with someone who calls himself a brother, but is still continuing in sin (1 Cor 5:11).  In 2 Corinthians 6:17, he said, come out from among them and be ye separate.  In Galatians he said, if any many preach any other gospel, let him be accursed (Gal 1:6-9).  In Ephesians, he said, have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them (Eph 5:11).  He implied separation in Philippians 3:18-19:

(For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ: Whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose] glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things.)

In 2 Thessalonians 3:14, the theologian of separation said:

And if any man obey not our word by this epistle, note that man, and have no company with him,, that he may be ashamed.

In 1 Timothy 6, he said to withdraw your self from those who do certain things.  In 2 Timothy 2, he said to purge yourself from vessels of dishonor.

God will separate every unbeliever from Himself into the lake of fire along with the devil and His angels.  He had separated Noah and his family by water and the ark from every other soul on the entire planet.

Just because you believe something and separate over it doesn't mean that you will live it with sinless perfection.  You're not a hypocrite or deceive just because you don't keep it one hundred percent.  No one keeps the standards with perfection.  I'm not saying I'm better than someone else.  I do break the laws that I believe are right.  I don't separate from anyone else for breaking them.  That isn't biblical separation.  A Pharisee might separate after one violation, but a biblical separatist will first get the beam out of his own eye, so he can remove the mote out of his brother's eye.  He still tries to help his brother, and if his brother, after three tries, won't repent, then he separates from him.   He doesn't want to, but God tells him to, so he does.  That's not Pharisaism.

Pharisaism proclaims what he is not willing himself to keep.  He acts like he believes it, when he really doesn't.   He just wants others to think he does.  He judges other people harshly to make himself look better in front of them.  That would fit with what Jesus said about the Pharisees in Matthew 23 with His woes to the Pharisees.

Paul was a former Pharisee, and He knew and taught Christians to separate.  Separation isn't Pharisaical.  If you are saying that, please stop.  If you are not separating, then you are disobeying scripture.  If you disobey scripture, and then act like you do obey it, you're being a Pharisee.  Don't say you're obeying scripture, when you won't practice biblical separation.

Info

Mainly because I said I was preparing to do something, and I'm not going to do it, I want to give some information here.  I would think I'm going to finish in my lifetime a couple series I've started, if the Lord tarries and I live, but for now I'm discontinuing them.  Those series are, one, the adult children series, and, two, the relationship series.  I've put a lot into them, and I think you get my drift.  I'm done for now.  I think they are scriptural and practical, so helpful and good, but they're enough for now.  I'm announcing that because I said I was going to finish them, and I'm not now.  Everything else I said I'd keep doing, I'm planning on continuing.  Thanks.

Navigating Faithsaves.net

A while ago, the faithsaves.net website was updated to a new format.  While the new format had a variety of advantages, including being mobile friendly, some people thought that the old format was easier to navigate.  It is now possible to look for articles in both the old and new formats.  To find something the new way, you can:

1.) Use the "topics" menu at the top to search for topics

2.) Use the search feature on the top of the home page

If you liked the old way better, it is now easier to find.  In the old way, articles were (and they still are) divided into a variety of topics.  If you:

1.) Click on the new "Theological Compositions" button on the right side of the page, you will be taken to a page where the articles are divided into the following topics:

Apologetics and False Religions

Testimonies

Bibliology

Theology Proper, Christology, and Pneumatology

Anthropology and Hamartiology

Soteriology

Ecclesiology

Eschatology

The Christian Family

Historical Studies

Politics

Commentaries

Unconventional and New Age Medicine

Biblical Financial Stewardship

Miscellaneous

Literary Compositions

Everything in “Theological Compositions” on one webpage

You can then pick the topic you would like to look at.

2.) There is a new "All Content" button on the homepage as well. Here you can search for the titles of pretty much all articles that are out there on the site. The All Content page also has links where Microsoft Word files of various gospel tracts and pamphlets can be downloaded. 

3.) For unconverted people reaching the site, the "God's Gift to You" and "Bible Studies" buttons provide information on the gospel, with links to other pages useful for the unconverted, including the "Different Religions" page, and, for those that doubt the truthfulness of Scripture, the "Is the Bible God's Word?" page and "Science and the God of the Bible" pages.  These might be useful links for separated Baptist churches to include on their church websites, unless they already have resources available on Christian evidences in a Bible-believing, historic Baptist perspective.

4.) Another way to find material is to search in Google for "faithsaves" as one word and then whatever topic you want; the search engine should search specifically for that topic at faithsaves.net.  

5.) For college classes, the large college classes button at the bottom of the homepage is an easy way to gain access.

I rejoice that there have been over 300,000 page views at FaithSaves.net from visitors in the large majority of countries in the world. If you find bad links or pages with other problems, please let me know so they can be fixed--pointing out these problems is much appreciated. You can also employ material on the website provided that you comply with the terms of use policy, and if you want your car to be evangelistic, you can get FaithSaves.net bumper stickers as well.  Adding links and sharing articles by email, social media, etc. is also appreciated.

--TDR

The Apostatizing of Humility for Proud Reasons

Before I get to this post, I want to give some updates.  A few of you wrote me about my hint at going to Israel.  I'm sorry, but I've postponed that at this time because of some personal reasons.  It might still happen in the future and I'll keep you informed.  I've got a few series going on here, and I'm going to keep all of them going hopefully.  I will, Lord-willing come back with the second part of the review of Van Bruggen's booklet.  I am continuing the adult children series, relationship series, the weekend Europe trip travelogue, the Frank Turk debate, and anything else.  I plan on putting everything onto the index that isn't there yet, what has been written since I completed it.  I want to write a post on the Jordan Peterson speech I heard in San Francisco, as well as a bit of take on his book, which I've read.  Thanks for sticking with it.

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Any one of us need to be open to the reality of personal pride.  Are we proud people?  How could a humble person say, "No"?  The meaning of humility has changed though.  Being humble no longer means what it once did.  Neither does love and other biblical words, but humility has now morphed into something that doesn't mean humility.  The word "humility" is used as a weapon by unbelievers and by those who call themselves Christians, but it's not actual humility, and I'm going to explain.

First though, humility itself is good.  Scripture teaches humility.  We should encourage it.  In the King James Version, "humble" is used 25 times, "humbled," 28, "humility," 7, and all the other forms of the word in English combined, 11.  The Greek word translated "humble" is also translated "lowly," so there are all those instances as well.   The concept is described also in different other ways, like "poor in spirit" in Matthew 5:3 and then what Paul writes in Philippians 2:3, esteeming others better than ourselves.

Humility is required for salvation.  God gives grace to the humble, not the proud.  Someone must humble himself before God to be saved.  This is the idea of 'humble yourself and you'll be exalted and exalt yourself and you'll be abased.'  You can't come to God on your own terms.  You've got to subject yourself to Him in humility.  This is the thought behind Jesus saying that if you are to come to Him, you've got to deny yourself.  Self-denial is humility.

So how is humility being perverted?  A common idea today -- it isn't true -- about humility is that it is some degree of doubt, uncertainty, capitulation, or tolerance.  This has become the new humility.  What is ironic about the perversion of humility is how certain the new humble are that you are proud if you are not their new kind of humble.  They were never more sure that you are proud.  Why?  Because you are so certain that someone is wrong.

Doubt becomes a necessity for someone who wants to live like he wants to live.  He can't be judged as wrong anymore, so he's at liberty to do what he wants to do.  He doesn't want the one judging him to be sure.  If that person is sure, it's because that person is unreasonable, not open, or he is proud.  He isn't being humble or gracious, that is, to see it in more than one way.  Any one who doesn't allow for more than one way is being proud, and this is how humility takes on a new definition.

In reality, humility is submitting to what God says, living by faith.  God says He is clear, so He is.  What He says is plain, because He says it is plain.  Doubt is actually a proud excuse.  This confidence isn't focusing inward, but upward.  God says it, so I'm going to do it.  If someone else isn't doing it, I'm going to say what God wants me to say.

What I've read about this apostatizing of humility has been called "espistemological humility."  It is another form of calling good evil and evil good (Isaiah 5:20).  Epistemology is basically how one knows what he knows.  How do we know what we know?  Faith is attacked.  Certainty is opposed.  This is bad, but it is called good in a kind of counterfeit fashion.  The real humility is replaced by this faux humility, which is actually pride.

God resists the proud, gives grace to the humble.  He doesn't give grace to the counterfeit humble or the faux humble.  That's actually pride.  It's somebody who doesn't want to do what God wants him to do and he doesn't want to hear about it.  That's pride.

In Ephesians 5:11, God says through the Apostle Paul, "And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them."  Reprove what?  How can anyone know with certainty what is an unfruitful work of darkness?  That sounds too ambiguous.  Who would be so proud to reprove someone?  Humility would leave it alone -- too much doubt.  Don't be fooled by this.  This is apostatizing humility.

Somebody wants to do what he wants to do.  The person who tells him to change -- that is the proud person.  Why?  He can't know it's wrong.  He's got to be more humble about not knowing what's wrong.  He's got to have doubt, because that would be humble.  The pride is someone not wanting to change, not humbling himself under the teaching of scripture, but that is absolutely switched around.

Earlier in Ephesians 5, Paul mentions stuff that he wants reproved:  fornication, uncleanness, covetousness, filthiness, foolish talking, and jesting.  What are those?  Can we be sure?  If Paul wants those to be reproved, of course we can be certain what they are.  I know that people behave like they don't know and they want their critics not to know either.  It makes it easier for them.  And then they get angry if someone comes at them with certainty.  They call it pride.  It's actually humility.  The pride is calling it pride.  It is humility to obey God when he says something.

Epistemological humility is not humility.  It is unbelief.  Without faith it is impossible to please God.  God is not being pleased by this faithlessness.  It should not be expected from either party -- the one criticizing or the one being criticized.  God wants us living like we know and can apply what He said -- because we can.

An Attempted Shell Game with God: Classifying Scriptural Issues of Practice as Non-Scriptural

God has given mankind a lot of liberty.  A list of non-scriptural issues is a much longer one than a list of scriptural ones.  Given enough time, I might be able to write a list in length past the distance to the moon of non-scriptural activities.

What kind of furniture polish do you use?  Do you hang landscape art instead of portrait?  What fruit variety do you add to your oatmeal?  What is the thread count of your sheets?  What type of allergy medication do you use?  Where do you take a walk?  What variety of pet do you own? What brand of car do you drive?  Is your yard grass or turf?  Do you like Target or Walmart more?  You get what I’m talking about.  However, when we either on purpose or incidentally veer into a scriptural issue, it must be what and how God says.  We don’t have options there.  We’ve got to do what God says.  We don't have liberty on scriptural issues.

What has happened today is that scriptural issues have been shoved over into the non-scriptural category to give liberty to do what people want in scriptural issues.  This is actually sinning.  People are sinning, but they aren’t calling it sinning because they have shifted scriptural issues into non-scriptural ones.  This is the shell game being played with God.

A shell game is a lie.  It says something is there that is not.  It's a con.  A shell game can fool people, but it can't fool God.  It doesn't and it won't.  When I say it won't, I mean at the final judgment.  God will announce in essence that it didn't work, and there won't be anything to say.  Living by faith requires projecting one's self to that moment and understanding that God already makes that judgment.  The scriptural issue stays a scriptural issue, even when the shell game is being played.  God knows.

What's the point of this shell game?  Someone doesn't like Christianity, the one and only Christianity -- in other words, what's taught in scripture and so the practice of historical Christianity.   He's got to move the shells around and replace the real thing with something different.  Scriptural issues are turned into non-scriptural issues.  To do this, you've also got to pervert the meaning of scripture.  You get a new Christianity, but not really, because it's just playing a shell game.

Why not leave Christianity, rather than invent a new one, that's just an empty shell?  I understand how that someone could try to bridge Christianity to something incompatible with it.  They know Christianity is true, that it is the right explanation for the world, but they also want fleshly lust and the world system.

Fleshly Lust

When someone is saved, he still possesses the flesh, an aspect of human fallenness that will be eliminated in the future when he is glorified.  Paul refers to this as the presence of sin or the law of sin in his members or body parts.  The Apostle Peter refers to "fleshly lusts" in 1 Peter 2:11, when he writes:

Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul.

"Fleshly lusts" war against the soul.  They contradict the soul of a person.  They are desires of someone that war against what God ordains.  These include all forms of rock music, lewd entertainment, immodest dress, alcohol, and foul language.  These are what are shifted like a shell game to the non-scriptural to form an acceptable Christianity to conform to the fleshly lust.  It's not true, but it is the goal of this game.

The World

John says, whoever loves the world, the love of the Father is not in Him.  There is not a Christianity that conforms to the world, but the shell game Christianity does.  It's a pop Christianity that accepts worldliness.  Unscriptural issues are classified as non-scriptural ones to keep the world -- worldly entertainment, worldly music, worldly activities, worldly friends, an essentially worldly life.

A new Christianity that corresponds to fleshly lust and conforms to the world isn't Christianity.  It's just a shell.

Jessie Penn-Lewis: Keswick & Welsh Revivalist, Quaker and Freemason (part 1 of 22)

The content of this post is now available in the study of:

1.) Evan Roberts

2.) The Welsh Revival of 1904-1905

3.) Jessie Penn-Lewis

on the faithsaves.net website. Please click on the people above to view the study.  On the FaithSaves website the PDF files may be easiest to read.

 

You are also encouraged to learn more about Keswick theology and its errors, as well as the Biblical doctrine of salvation, at the soteriology page at Faithsaves.

Adult Children, pt. 5

Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four

According to God, relationship on earth is hierarchical, which is why all the teaching in Ephesians 5 and 6 on relationship corresponds to submitting to the Holy Spirit.  Peter said, obey God rather than men (Acts 5:29).  If submission in a relationship means disobedience to God, then we shouldn't do it.  That severs relationships.  The relationship with God is the one that must be maintained.  Every other relationship is subservient to that one, which is where enters the following teaching of the Lord Jesus in the gospels:

Matthew 10:34-37, "34 Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. 35 For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. 36 And a man's foes shall be they of his own household. 37 He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me." 

Luke 14:26, "If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple."

Scripture doesn't mean nothing.  It is God's Word.  These preceding verses mean something.  What is this "variance against" someone's own family members?  What sets parents in variance against one or more of his children?

When the above verses of scripture say son and daughter, those are not sons and daughters that are still in the home.  While a parent's children are still in the home, the tools exist to bring them into line, at least in appearance or on the outside.  This is variance with adult children.

What is the variance with the adult children?  Jesus wouldn't be saying that the variance is a non-scriptural issue or a personal preference.  It isn't, a child missed a birthday card, so there is variance.  No.  A child decides he wants to go completely plant based with his food.  That's not a scriptural basis of separation.  What sets variance is a violation of God's Word.  It is Jesus saying that He, Jesus, is or has come to set variance between adult family members, including parents and their children.  Variance doesn't have to exist, but Jesus came to cause some of it to happen, even a lot if it is what Jesus has come to do.

What is variance caused by?  The Greek word for "variance" in Matthew 10:34 is dichazo, which means, "to divide in two."  BDAG says, "to cause someone to turn against someone else."  Would Jesus turn two adult family members against each other for just arbitrary reasons, or is it scriptural reason?

Notice that Jesus doesn't turn to friendships or acquaintances or members of some organization, but goes straight for the most intimate relationships between people on earth that He came with His sword to divide.  These are the most painful divisions on earth, when adult family members turn against the other.  Jesus came to cause this, to do this.  People are going to have to be ready to comply to what is most difficult, making anything less than these more feasible to accomplish.

Sin separates from God, either doctrinal or moral sin.  If a family member sins and then won't repent, that causes the division.  An adult child won't repent and the parent warns, pleads, begs, and uses every scriptural tool in his toolbox, including mediation if it is available, and the adult child goes on his way, that is what causes variance between parents and an adult child.  The separation according to the verses is the will of God.  Jesus came to see this done.

The overarching message is that no human relationship surpasses the relationship with God.  The lack of division or separation from the adult child affects the relationship with God.  God doesn't permit acquiescence to some unscriptural belief or practice, just to keep the relationship going, what might be considered a faux relationship.  It's just a relationship of appearances, playing a game, one of which God doesn't approve.

During the colonial period, parents of congregational or Puritan churches in New England overlooked the unbelief and false practice of children to include them in the church with what was called a "halfway covenant."  The practice was designed to keep unconverted children in the church.  Conservatives see this as the decline of those churches.  They had other problems, but the decline of those churches proceeding from the halfway covenant created the need for a great awakening.

The sentimentalism of parents toward adult children doesn't help their children.  It will also result in more apostasy among other children.  Jesus called for separation.  He came to bring it.  Parents must be willing to take what might seem to be a harsh action out of love for God.  Children must anticipate that this will occur.

Any counsel or advice I hear in contradiction to the teaching of scripture very often I will call psychobabble.  I have other names, such as seat-of-the-pants theology or conventional wisdom.  I hear a lot of psychobabble regarding the relationship of parents to disobedient adult children.  It's not based on what scripture says, but based on the longing for an adult child to turn it around.  What God says in His Word is the best opportunity for the best outcome.  Part of trusting God is also trusting the process God expects to see it occur.  If it doesn't happen, the obedience to God's methods is not the reason.

As you are reading this, you might be thinking, I love my children too much to do what I'm reading here.  This is a common corrupt viewpoint of love.  It isn't even love.  I call it sentimentalism.  God is love.  If something is love, it must correspond to God.  The separation itself is an act of love.  It is a more difficult act than just getting along.  Getting along is easy to do, but that can't be love, because it clashes with God.

Today the social justice warriors see "love your neighbor" very often as an acceptance of sins of various kinds.  They really do think that they love more than others or that the others aren't even loving, because they are willing to ignore what God said to treat sin with favor.  This is the outcome of the kind of deceit that accepts the sinful behavior of adult children.  It isn't love.  It is love to do what God says, at least love for God, which isn't contradictory to love for an adult child.  The one not loving, and I repeat not loving, is the adult child.

If someone divides the ten commandments into two parts, the two tables of the law, he gets love God and love neighbor.  The second table of the law starts with "honor thy father and thy mother."  Someone doesn't love his neighbor if he is dishonoring his parents and violating the very second table of the law that the second great commandment represents.

More to Come