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Bad Theology Corrupts Modern Mission · Reformed Thinking

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  Welcome to Reform thinking. I am so glad you were here with
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  us today. We are.
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  We're stripping everything back to the studs.
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  We're looking at the engine room of the Christian faith.
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  And honestly, we are looking at why so much of what passes for
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  missions today might well, it might actually be doing more
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  harm than good. It's a bold claim, I know.
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  It really is. But we're working through this
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  stack of essays. It's called Biblical Missions,
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  Principles, Priorities and practices.
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  And the authors in here, you've got guys like Michael Riccardi,
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  Bill Shannon, Nathan Odeid. They're not pulling any punches.
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  They're making the case that if you get the theology wrong, you
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  don't just end up with a weak church.
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  You get you get a tragedy. And we are talking about literal
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  tragedy. We're going to get to a section
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  later in this deep dive about South Africa where, and this is
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  true, that theology has led to people literally eating grass
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  and drinking gasoline in the name of faith.
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  It's horrific. Yeah, it really is.
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  And it illustrates the core premise of this entire stack of
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  research. Missions is not primarily about
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  geography. It's not about maps or planes or
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  visas or even digging wells. Missions is about theology.
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  Right, because you can travel 5000 miles, but if you don't
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  have the message right, you haven't actually gone anywhere.
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  At least not spiritually speaking.
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  Correct. And to frame this, we have to
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  look through a well reformed lens.
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  If you know the Westminster Confession, you know the very
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  first question What is the chief end of man?
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  To glorify God and enjoy him forever, right?
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  So if the purpose of humanity of you is to glorify God, then the
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  purpose of missions has to be the same.
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  It can't just be about making the world a better place or
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  humanitarian aid. I mean, those things are good,
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  but they're not the goal. The goal is the proclamation of
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  truth so that God is glorified. OK.
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  So we've got a four part discussion lined up today.
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  We're going to look at the message.
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  So what we actually say, then the response, which is
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  repentance, then the methods and how we tend to mess it up, and
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  finally the reality, what happens when it all breaks?
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  So let's start with the foundation, this section from
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  Michael Riccardi on the content of the Gospel.
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  This is fascinating because if I just walked up to you on the
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  street and asked what is the gospel or maybe where does the
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  gospel start? What would you say?
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  The standard answer God loves you and has a wonderful plan for
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  your life. That's it.
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  That's the standard opener. It's on the pamphlets, it's in
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  all the tracks. But Riccardi argues that's not
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  where the Bible starts. And if you start there, you
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  might actually be setting the person up for failure.
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  Because it makes the whole story about me.
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  Precisely, It centers the entire narrative on the human.
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  But the Bible, the Bible, centers the narrative on God.
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  Riccardi takes us to 1st John chapter one, verse 5.
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  It says God is light and in him there is no darkness at all.
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  So we have to start with holiness, absolute purity.
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  We have to. You can't understand the good
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  news until you first understand who God is.
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  He's not just a bigger, nicer version of us.
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  He is the standard of perfection itself.
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  And Riccardi points out that the law, the 10 commandments,
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  they're not just, you know, traffic rules God made-up to see
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  if we jump through hoops, their reflection of his character.
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  I think that's a huge shift for people.
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  We tend to view the 10 commandments as this list of do
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  nots. You know, don't lie, don't
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  steal. Like a schoolmaster just
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  slapping your wrist. But think about why those
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  commands exist. God says do not bear false
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  witness. OK, Why?
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  Because God is truth. He cannot lie.
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  So when you lie, you're not just breaking a rule, you're acting
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  in direct contradiction to God's very nature.
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  Or do not commit adultery. Same thing, because God is
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  faithful, he's the covenant keeper.
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  Adultery is a violation of faithfulness.
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  So every sin is actually a personal offense against the
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  character of God. And because he is the creator,
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  he cannot. He literally will not have
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  fellowship with anything that is nature.
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  Which brings us to the bad news. And this is where that God loves
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  you intro tends to skip a few steps.
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  The source material hits hard on the doctrine of total depravity.
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  Yeah, Riccardi titles this section.
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  Man is sinful, but what he's describing is a legal guilt.
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  The problem isn't that people are broken or mistaken or just
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  struggling. Yeah, those are all therapeutic
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  words. The biblical word is guilty.
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  And dead, Dead in trespasses and sins.
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  Right. And Riccardi doesn't let us
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  wiggle out of it. He goes straight to Jesus in
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  Matthew chapter 5. Yeah, you might say, well, I
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  haven't murdered anyone. I'm a good person, I pay my
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  taxes, I'm nice to my neighbors. But Jesus says, have you been
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  angry in your heart? That's the seed of murder.
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  Have you looked with lust? Well, that's the seed of
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  adultery. See, the standard isn't better
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  than your neighbor. The standard is perfection.
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  And the text here quotes Ecclesiastes 7.20.
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  Indeed, there is not a righteous man on earth who continually
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  does good and who never sins. It's a sweeping indictment.
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  It covers everyone. And Riccardi makes this chilling
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  point. If God is light and we are
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  stained by darkness, we're just cut off.
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  We are incapable of doing the very thing we were created to
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  do, which is be in relationship with them.
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  And it gets worse. We have to talk about the
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  penalty, the H word, hell. This is the part where modern
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  sensibilities just recoil. We think, OK, sure, I've told
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  some lies, I've been selfish. But eternal torment?
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  That feels disproportionate. It feels like an overreaction to
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  us, it really does. But Riccardi lays out the logic
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  of divine justice here. And it's it's airtight.
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  The severity of a punishment isn't determined by the action
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  itself. It's determined by the dignity
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  of the one you have sinned against.
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  OK, walk us through that because I think that is the key to
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  understanding this entire concept.
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  OK, so imagine you slap a mosquito that's on your arm.
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  What happens? Nothing.
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  I mean, I might even feel good about it.
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  I'm doing the world a favor. Spot on.
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  Now imagine you walk up to a police dog, a canine unit, and
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  you slap it. I'm getting fined, probably
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  arrested for assaulting a service animal.
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  Right. And imagine you walk up to the
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  King of England or the prison in the United States and you just
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  slap them across the face. I'm going to prison for a very,
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  very long time, or worse. But look, physically the action
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  was the same. It was the same amount of force,
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  the same hand, but the penalty just skyrocketed from nothing to
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  life in prison. Why?
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  Because the status, the dignity of the one you offended
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  increased. So when we sin against an
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  infinitely holy, infinitely glorious, eternal God.
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  The offense is infinite, and an infinite offense demands an
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  infinite punishment. That is why hell is eternal.
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  It's not God being mean, it is God being just.
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  That is, that's heavy. But you know what?
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  It actually makes the gospel make sense.
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  If the bad news is that bad, infinite guilt, then a simple
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  try harder message is just it's useless.
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  We need our rescue. We need a substitute and this is
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  where we get into the glory of penal substitutionary atonement.
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  I love how the source material breaks this down.
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  It talks about the two obediences of Christ, the active
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  and the passive. I think most people know the
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  passive part, the dying. But let's talk about the act of
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  obedience for a minute. This is so crucial and it's
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  often forgotten. Jesus didn't just come to die.
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  If you just needed to die, He could have come down as an adult
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  on Good Friday and gone straight to the cross.
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  But he lived for 33 years. Why?
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  To fulfill the law. Yes, for 33 years, every single
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  second of every day, Jesus loved God with all his heart, soul,
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  mind and strength. He never had a lustful thought.
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  He never had a moment of pride. He never told a single lie.
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  He built up a A treasury of righteousness.
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  He lived the life you were supposed to live, but couldn't.
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  So he earned the A+ on the test that we all failed.
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  That is it. That is the act of obedience.
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  Then comes the pass of obedience, the cross.
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  He takes the penalty for our F. And Riccardi clarifies something
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  really important here about the crucifixion.
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  We often focus on the physical pain, the nails, the thorns, or
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  we focus on the villains, Judas, Pilate, the Romans.
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  But the source material reminds US of Isaiah 53.
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  It pleased the Lord to crush him.
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  It wasn't the Romans who made the atonement work, it was the
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  Father. Yes, Jesus was bearing the full
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  righteous wrath of the Father against sin.
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  He was drinking the cup of infinite punishment that we just
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  talked about. He absorbed all of.
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  It and this leads to what's called the Great Exchange double
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  imputation. This is the mechanism of
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  salvation. Think of it like a bank account.
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  You were infinitely in debt. Jesus has infinite wealth on the
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  cross. God takes your debt, your lies,
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  your lust, your anger, all of it, and he transfers it to Jesus
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  account. And then God punishes Jesus as
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  if he were you. That's the first imputation.
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  But then comes the second part. God takes Jesus's infinite
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  wealth, his perfect obedience, his A+ life, and he transfers it
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  to your account. So when God looks at you, he
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  doesn't just see a forgiven Sinner with a blank slate, He
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  sees the perfect righteousness of His own Son.
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  That is incredible. It is so complete.
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  It is. And Riccardi's whole point is
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  this. This is the message.
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  This is what missionaries must carry.
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  If you go to a foreign country and you build a school, or you
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  teach English, or you just say Jesus loves you, but you do not
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  explain the holiness of God, the depravity of man, and this great
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  exchange, right? You haven't done Christian
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  missions yet. You've done philanthropy, which
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  is fine, but it's not the Great Commission.
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  Correct, it's not. OK, so that's the message.
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  We have the message, now we have to talk about the response,
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  because if I hear that message, what am I supposed to do?
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  This brings us to Bill Shannon's section on repentance.
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  And honestly, this feels like the missing note in so much
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  modern preaching today. It really is.
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  The word repentance has almost vanished from our vocabulary.
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  It has it's viewed as harsh or fire and brimstone.
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  We want to be inviting. We want to be seeker sensitive.
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  And Shannon says we treat the gospel like like an add on.
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  Right, he talks about the natural man.
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  The natural man thinks I'm stressed so I need Jesus to give
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  me peace or my marriage is feeling I need Jesus to fix it.
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  They want Jesus as a therapist or a life coach to add to their
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  existing life. But Shannon argues you can't
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  just add Jesus to a sinful lifestyle.
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  No you can't look at Jesus very first sermon Matthew 4.17.
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  He didn't say join me for a better life.
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  He said repent for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand.
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  It was his first word. So let's define it, because I
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  think people here repent and they think of a guy on a street
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  corner yelling at them, or they think it just means Christ
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  crying and feeling really, really guilty.
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  Shannon is very precise on this. The Greek word is metanoia.
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  It literally means a change of mind.
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  But don't let that fool you, it's not just some intellectual
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  shift. It is a change of mind that
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  leads to a total change of direction.
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  He makes a distinction here between this and worldly sorrow.
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  Yes, this comes from Second Corinthians Chapter 7.
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  Rolly Sorrow is just feeling bad that you got caught.
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  It's the guy who cheats on his taxes and feels terrible when
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  the audit letter comes in the mail, Or the guy who has a
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  hangover and regrets drinking only because his head hurts so
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  much. That's not repentance, that's
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  just regret. True repentance is about God.
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  Yes, it's agreeing with God that your sin is evil.
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  It's for staking that sin because it offends him.
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  It's 180° turn and Shannon uses strong language here.
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  You cannot be dominated by thin and claim to be a follower of
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  Christ. That's a scary thought for
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  people who struggle. I mean, we all struggle with
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  sin. Of course we all struggle, but
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  there's a huge difference between struggling fighting
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  against sin and making peace with it.
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  If you're habitually committing the same sin, maybe defending
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  it, planning for it, there is no repentance there.
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  The fight is gone. And this brings us right to the
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  missionary's dilemma. Shannon talks about the pressure
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  missionaries face to just make friends.
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  It's a huge. Temptation.
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  Imagine you move to a whole new culture.
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  You're lonely. You don't speak the language
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  well. You want the local people to
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  like you. The very last thing you want to
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  do is start your new relationship by telling them
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  they are offending a holy God. It's a lot easier to just be the
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  nice American who hands out supplies and plays with the
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  kids. But Shannon argues that truly
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  loving someone means telling them the truth about their
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  danger. If you saw a blind man walking
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  toward a Cliff, the loving thing to do is not to compliment his
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  outfit. It is to scream stop at the top
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  of your lungs. He uses the fruit analogy.
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  Right. If there is no fruit, there is
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  no rib. A missionary has to look for
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  changed behavior. Has the thief stop stealing as
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  the liar stop lying? If the life has not changed,
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  it's because the heart has not changed.
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  We often settle for just a verbal profession.
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  Oh, they prayed the prayer. But Shannon says watch the life.
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  So we have the message holiness and substitution, and we have
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  the response, which is repentance.
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  Now let's talk about how we messed this up.
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  Part 3 is based on Ronnie Anderson's essay on
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  methodological dangers. This is where the rubber really
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  meets the road. In terms of modern strategy,
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  Anderson identifies 2 extremes that both miss the mark.
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  OK, let's start with the first one, what he calls the results
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  game. This is a reality of the system.
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  Missionaries have to raise, support, donors give money.
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  And naturally, donors want to see a return on investment.
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  They want to read a newsletter that says we had 50 people get
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  saved this month. It's the metrics trap.
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  Everything becomes about numbers.
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  It is, and this pressure leads to what Anderson calls
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  decisionism. OK, unpack that for us.
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  What is that? Decisionism is the idea that
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  salvation is tied to a specific external act, like raising your
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  hand at the end of a service, or walking an aisle, or reciting A
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  sinner's prayer. The missionary counts the hands,
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  reports the numbers back home and assumes the work is done.
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  But the real problem, as Anderson points out, is false
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  assurance. That's it.
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  You are telling unregenerate people that they are saved
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  because they performed A ritual, but there's been no change of
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  heart. Anderson calls these the rocky
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  soil, hears from the parable of the sower.
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  They have immediate joy. Oh, wow, this is great.
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  I'm going to heaven. But there is no route.
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  So when the sun comes up, when persecution happens or just the
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  emotion fades, they wither away and they're gone.
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  But in the meantime, they've been counted as a statistic in a
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  newsletter back in Ohio. And worse, they are now
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  inoculated against the true gospel.
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  If you try to evangelize them later, they'll just say I did
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  that already. I raised my hand back in 2015.
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  Oh, huh. They think they are safe while
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  they are headed for destruction. That's tragic, just tragic.
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  Now Anderson also talks about a newer trend that swings the
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  pendulum to the complete other side.
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  He calls it obedience based discipleship.
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  This one's a bit more subtle, but he argues it's equally
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  dangerous. In an attempt to avoid cheap
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  grace, some messiologists are now encouraging obedience before
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  conversion. Wait.
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  How does that even work? How do you obey Jesus before you
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  know Him? Well, the idea is that you get
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  people to start obeying the commands of Jesus, you know,
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  changing their habits, doing good things, and eventually
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  through that process they will belong and then they will
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  believe. They actually define faith as
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  obedience. But for a reformed believer,
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  alarm bells should be ringing right now.
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  Deafening alarm bells. This strikes right at the heart
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  of solified faith alone. The moment you define faith is
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  obedience, You have turned faith into work.
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  You're essentially telling people that they can obey their
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  way into salvation. The source material here quotes
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  a book that's advocating this method and it literally says
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  faith is defined as the continuous act of choosing to be
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  obedient. And Anderson just flat out says
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  that is not faith that is works. It's a rejection of the grace of
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  God. We are saved by faith alone in
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  Christ alone. Obedience is the result of
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  salvation, not the cause of it. So what is the biblical balance
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  here? Because we don't want cheap
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  decision ISM, but we certainly don't want works righteousness.
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  The balance is the distinction between justification and
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  sanctification. Anderson synthesizes this
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  clearly. Conversion is immediate.
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  It's a moment of regeneration where God gives you a new heart.
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  You repent and believe that saves you, but that conversion
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  results in a lifetime of sanctification, of growing in
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  obedience. So the good works are the
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  evidence, not the requirement for entry.
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  Precisely. Missionaries should be focused
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  on faithfulness in teaching the truth, not on inflating numbers
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  for a newsletter or trying to force behavior modification
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  before the Holy Spirit has actually changed the heart.
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  It requires patience. Patience and faithfulness, 2
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  things that do not always look good in a quarterly report.
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  No, they do not, but they are what God requires from us.
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  OK, so we've covered the theory. Now we need to see what happens
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  when all of this goes wrong in the real world.
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  Part 4. We are moving to a case study in
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  crisis based on Nathan O Dee's report on the Church in South
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  Africa. This section, I'll be honest, it
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  was hard to read. It's heartbreaking, it really
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  is. O Day paints a picture of what
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  happens when the prosperity gospel runs rampant, completely
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  without theological checks and balances.
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  He calls it the commercialization of the gospel.
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  Give us some examples, because I think people hear prosperity
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  gospel and they just think of a guy in a nice suit asking for
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  money on TV. But Odata is describing
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  something much, much darker than that.
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  He mentions pastors telling congregants to eat grass to
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  prove their faith. You mean literally getting down
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  on their hands and knees and eating lawn grass?
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  Yes, literally. He mentions other pastors
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  telling people to drink petrol, gasoline, claiming it will turn
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  into pineapple juice in their stomach.
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  That is insanity. That's poison.
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  It's abuse. There are stories of pastors
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  spraying people in the face with insecticide to drive out demons,
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  or selling miracle water for huge sums of money to people who
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  are living in abject poverty. And the terrifying part is that
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  the deception is so deep that even when these guys are exposed
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  as frauds, the people don't leave.
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  Because they've been taught to chase power, not truth.
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  They've been taught that the man of God is beyond question.
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  It's hero worship. And the result is that these
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  false teachers get famous and rich, while sound doctrine is
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  completely ignored. And the situation got so bad
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  that the secular government had to step in.
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  This is the most humiliating aspect of date highlights the
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  South African government. A group called the CRL Rights
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  Commission launched a full investigation.
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  They looked at the church and said you are abusing people, you
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  are violating human rights, you are conning the poor out of
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  their money. The irony is just.
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  Crushing you have the secular world, which usually wants
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  nothing to do with the church, trying to force light into the
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  church. You are right.
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  O'dade says the world is acting as the moral guardian because
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  the Church has failed so badly. The government is even proposing
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  things like peer review committees and demanding
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  theological qualifications for pastors, similar to what's
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  happened in Rwanda. Imagine that.
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  The government saying you can't be a pastor unless you actually
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  know what you are talking about. It's a rebuke from.
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  God, honestly, that's what it is.
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  Now O'Day does make a careful distinction here.
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  He talks about the starving pastor.
• 18:37
  Not every one of these leaders is a malicious con artist, no.
• 18:40
  And this is where. Our compassion needs to kick in.
• 18:43
  Odet shares his own story. He spent decades in Catholic and
• 18:47
  Pentecostal circles. He says he was starving for the
• 18:50
  Word. He wanted to know God, but he
• 18:53
  literally never heard exegetical preaching, preaching that
• 18:56
  actually explains the Bible verse by verse, until he
• 18:59
  stumbled into a conservative evangelical institution as an
• 19:02
  adult, he says. The billboards.
• 19:03
  Are all charismatic theology. It's all about miracles, healing
• 19:07
  money. He didn't even know there was
• 19:09
  another option. And there are.
• 19:11
  Thousands of pastors across Africa who are in that exact
• 19:14
  same boat. They're leading churches, but
• 19:16
  they have no training. They have no resources.
• 19:19
  They are just mimicking what they see on TV or what the big
• 19:22
  man of God down the road is doing.
• 19:24
  They aren't wolves, they're misguided shepherds leading
• 19:28
  their sheep right off a Cliff. So what's the call to?
• 19:30
  Action here because O'Day has a very specific challenge for
• 19:33
  evangelicals and specifically for those of us who hold to
• 19:36
  Reformed theology. His challenge is.
• 19:38
  That we cannot just hide in our safe bubbles, he says.
• 19:41
  Conservative missionaries tend to focus on the reached 1%, the
• 19:45
  people who already agree with them, or they go to the easy
• 19:48
  places, he says. We need to engage.
• 19:50
  The synchronistic leaders, right?
• 19:51
  He gives the. Example of the Zion Christian
• 19:53
  Church, the ZCC. It has 12 million members.
• 19:56
  It mixes Christianity with African traditional religion,
• 19:59
  ancestor worship, things like that.
• 20:01
  And Odade asks how many Reform missionaries are trying to
• 20:04
  evangelize the leaders of the ZCC.
• 20:07
  The answer is almost none. It's messy work.
• 20:09
  It is incredibly. Messy.
• 20:11
  But Odade argues that Africa is not virgin ground anymore.
• 20:15
  You're not walking into a village that has never heard the
• 20:18
  name of Jesus. It's polluted ground that is a
• 20:21
  strong. Phrase polluted ground.
• 20:25
  It means. They have heard of Jesus, but
• 20:27
  it's a twisted, commercialized, false Jesus.
• 20:30
  So the strategy has to shift. We can't just plant new churches
• 20:34
  next door to the bad ones and hope for the best.
• 20:37
  We need deep theological reformation.
• 20:39
  We need to go to these starving pastors, invite them in, treat
• 20:42
  them with dignity, and teach them how to read their Bibles.
• 20:45
  Because if you win the. Leader, you impact the thousands
• 20:47
  of people who are following him. Spot on.
• 20:50
  It is a multiplication strategy, but it requires humility.
• 20:54
  It requires stepping out of our theological ivory towers and
• 20:57
  getting our hands dirty in the mess of syncretism.
• 21:00
  So let's synthesize. All of this, It really feels
• 21:02
  like 1 cohesive argument from start to finish.
• 21:04
  It is. It flows.
• 21:05
  Perfectly, we started with the. Message It's not God loves you,
• 21:08
  it's God is holy. You are a rebel, and Christ is
• 21:10
  your only substitute without that foundation.
• 21:12
  You have nothing then we talked about.
• 21:14
  The response? It has to be repentance, a total
• 21:18
  change of direction evidenced by fruit.
• 21:21
  No. Fruit.
• 21:22
  No. Root, then the methods.
• 21:24
  We have to avoid the shortcuts of decisionism and the legalism
• 21:28
  of obedience based discipleship keeping the method.
• 21:31
  Faithful to the actual message. And finally.
• 21:33
  We saw the stakes. If we get this wrong, we don't
• 21:36
  just get a boring church, we get a dangerous one.
• 21:39
  We get South Africa, we get a church that.
• 21:41
  Eats its own people and brings shame upon the name of Christ.
• 21:44
  It really changes. How you view the missionary
• 21:46
  report, doesn't it? When a missionary comes to your
• 21:49
  church and show slides, what are we listening for?
• 21:51
  Are we just listening for numbers or are we listening for
• 21:54
  the message? That's the key.
• 21:56
  True Missions is about exporting the full counsel of God.
• 21:59
  We cannot shortcut the Great Commission.
• 22:01
  We can't water it down to make it palatable, and we can't use
• 22:04
  manipulative techniques to make it look successful on paper.
• 22:07
  We have to trust the power of the true gospel, the hard
• 22:10
  gospel, to save. I want to leave the listener.
• 22:12
  With a final thought, one derived from that South Africa
• 22:14
  segment, we looked at a church so unregulated and chaotic that
• 22:19
  the secular government felt the moral obligation to step in.
• 22:23
  So here's the question for you. If your local church was fully
• 22:26
  transparent to the world, If the government did an audit of your
• 22:29
  church's ethics and behavior, what would they find?
• 22:32
  Would the world see order, love, and truth, or would they see
• 22:37
  chaos? What does the health of your
• 22:40
  church say about your witness? And I would add one more.
• 22:42
  Question specifically for the reformed listener.
• 22:45
  We love our theology, we love our clarity, and that's a good
• 22:48
  thing. But are you willing to engage
• 22:51
  with those who are drowning in bad theology?
• 22:53
  Are you willing to walk onto the polluted ground?
• 22:55
  Or are you content to just be right in your own corner?
• 22:58
  The Great Commission calls us into the mess, armed with the
• 23:00
  truth. That is the challenge.
• 23:02
  Thank you for joining us on this deep dive.
• 23:03
  This has been reformed thinking. Let's get to work.