Apologetics from an Anabaptist perspective
To all my fellow believers in the saving blood of Jesus Christ. I believe we have a problem. At least most of us do. For sure I do.
The problem is that we want to be good Christians. So we mine the Scriptures for clues about how we should conduct ourselves. What we should do; what we should not do. Maybe that’s not a bad idea, but how does it work out in real life? We try to do things the way we should, and while we’re doing that a little voice tells us that we should go and visit someone. But we’re busy doing something good and important. And we’re pretty sure that person isn’t impressed with how good we are. We don’t know how to talk about God to someone who doesn’t want to hear.
We are trying so hard to be good and we think that should be enough to point people to God. We think even God should be impressed with how good we are. Do you see what is happening here? We have become self-conscious. And we should be God-conscious.
When we read the Bible we see all the mistakes that people have made, all the way through the Bible. We wonder why they were so foolish. But have you noticed that God continued to speak to those people and they went on to accomplish some pretty marvellous things? Maybe we could actually have an impact on the people around us if we stopped trying to be good and just listened to what God is trying to tell us.
We are not good people. We’re never going to be. Even Jesus objected when someone called him Good Master. “Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God,” is what He said.
So let’s stop trying to run our own lives and rather ask “Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?” Sometimes we will have trouble discerning the Lord’s voice because we are hearing so much other noise. We will make mistakes, just like the men of God of the past. He is ready to forgive. Are we ready to try again?
Let’s remember: we are not good, but God is. No one is ever going to turn to God because they see what a good person I am. But if they can see that God is helping this clumsy fool find his way in life, they might want to trust Him too.
It is 50 years since the Jesus people movement began in California. It followed close on the heels of the Summer of Love, that brief period in time when disillusioned young people believed they had found the solution to all the world’s problems. “All you need is love” by the Beatles was their theme. They gathered in San Francisco, wearing tie-dyed clothes and flowers in their hair, smoking pot and dropping acid, strumming guitars and loving everybody. This was the dawning of a new age of peace and love.
Somehow it didn’t quite work out. A lot of girls soon discovered they were pregnant with no means of support. There was an explosion of std’s, money ran out, a few had their minds truly blown, love began to come apart at the seams.
Amidst the crushing disillusion, some began to discover Jesus and found Him to be what they had been looking for all along. Suddenly there were young people everywhere, still looking like hippies, but toting Bibles and ready to talk to anyone about Jesus. And they were serious, the Bible had the answers to life, sin was real and needed to be repented of. That was how you found genuine love for everyone around you.
The movement spread like wildfire. In 1970 a rebellious young man from a small town in Manitoba found Jesus in the streets of Vancouver. Now he was troubled about the things he had done back home, acts of vandalism, stealing gas from farm yards and disrespect for parents and elders. His new Jesus people friends told him he had to go home and make those things right. So he did.
As he went through the community confessing the wrongs he had done and doing his best to make them right, all the while talking of his new found faith in Jesus, it caused quite a stir. He was back attending the church he had grown up in and other young people began to find Jesus and set about making right the wrongs they had done.
The pastor welcomed this enthusiasm for gospel truth and did his best to encourage it. He had Bible studies with the young people and they began to hold Wednesday night coffee house meetings in town, open to young people from near and far, where they sang the songs that were coming out of the Jesus people movement and shared their testimonies.
I was born again in the spring of 1970 and married that summer. In the summer of 1971 my wife and I began to attend this church. We were enthused by the love of Jesus and the Bible shown by these youth and the genuine changes taking place in their lives. I was a little older, but also a new believer and felt a kindred spirit in most of them.
There was just one little niggling doubt. Not about the whole movement, but about a few who seemed to go along just because this was the big thing, not because they had a genuine personal faith. The pastor didn’t seem to be able to discern the difference. Nothing that couldn’t have been corrected with the help of more seasoned older Christians.
Instead of that, the congregation fired the pastor. The enthusiasm of the youth was too frightening for them. The pastor moved on to a church a few miles away, the youth followed and so did we. The lack of discernment became more evident.
I have no doubt that the Jesus People movement as a whole was a genuine work of the Holy Spirit. But churches were woefully unprepared to welcome and guide the new believers. Some were appalled, some were willing to accept everyone without discernment. An untold number of people truly met Jesus through this movement, some fell away but the majority went on to live sanctified Christian lives.
Churches today are back where they were 50 years ago. Young people are disillusioned, leaving the churches in droves to seek fulfilment elsewhere. Is it possible that history might repeat itself? Why is it so hard to transmit faith from one generation to the next?
Jesus made two statements that seem contradictory, but really are not. In Luke 9:49-50 we read: “And John answered and said, Master, we saw one casting out devils in thy name; and we forbad him, because he followeth not with us. And Jesus said unto him, Forbid him not: for he that is not against us is for us.” Evidently Jesus has no problem with people outside of His immediate circle working in his name. Then we shouldn’t either.
But a little later He said: “ He that is not with me is against me: and he that gathereth not with me scattereth” (Luke 11:23). The New Testament picture of the church is a functioning body of which Jesus is the head. Scattered body parts, each interpreting the directions from the head according to their own understanding, cannot be the church.
The immediate baptism of all who professed faith in Jesus was a fundamental weakness among the Jesus people, leading to the fragmentation of the movement. The New Testament pattern is that new believers need to be taught before they are baptized, to ensure that they have genuinely met Jesus and are following the leading of the Holy Spirit.
The pattern in Anabaptist churches has been that new believers need to tell their experience to a congregation of believers. When the congregation can say “Yes, we believe this person has truly met the Lord and we have seen the evidence that he or she is walking with Him daily,” then baptism means something. The acceptance and care of fellow believers is essential to maintaining genuine Christian faith and life.
A recent Canadian study shows that young people are more apt to maintain their faith after they leave home if they had had a meaningful relationship with adult believers other than their parents. Where else is this possible but in a congregation of true believers?
Therefore thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest: for wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself; for thou that judgest doest the same things (Romans 2:1).
What kind of judging is the apostle talking about? Does he mean that we should make no judgment of right and wrong, in ourselves or others? That can hardly be his intention, as the Bible contains many instructions for discerning between good and evil.
This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away (2 Timothy 3:1-5).
“From such turn away.” “Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness.” Positive phrases such as these tell us that a Christian must judge between good and evil, between light and darkness. In fact, our eternal destiny hinges on those kinds of judgements. When someone insists that a Christian has no right to judge the actions of others, there is often cause to suspect that they do not want their own actions to be judged. While we have no personal authority to judge, or condemn, the person, we are in deep trouble if we cannot discern between light and darkness in the actions.
Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God (Galatians 5:19-21).
Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit (Matthew 7:15-16).
But we are sure that the judgment of God is according to truth against them which commit such things. And thinkest thou this, O man, that judgest them which do such things, and doest the same, that thou shalt escape the judgment of God? Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance? But after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God; Who will render to every man according to his deeds (Romans 2:2-6).
What we must not do is pretend that we as individuals can stand in the place of God. If we forgive others, that does not require God to overlook their sins. If we refuse to forgive, that does not require God to overlook their repentance. “Who art thou that judgest another man’s servant? to his own master he standeth or falleth” (Roman’s 14:4).
We must forgive, in order to be forgiven. “But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses” (Matthew 6:15). It takes a tremendous load off our own backs when we can forgive others. Perhaps they have not yet dealt with God — that is not our concern. Our concern is to be free of the bitterness that will eat away inside of us and poison our relationships with others, even those who have only goodwill toward us. Our professed desire for closure on a traumatic incident may be in reality a thinly-veiled desire for vengeance. That is outside of our sphere, only God is qualified to deliver a judgment of vengeance.
One type of judgment that is required of Christians is to judge ourselves in the light of God’s Word and through the leading of the Holy Spirit.
For if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged (1 Corinthians 11:21).
Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves (2 Corinthians 13:5).
Examine me, O LORD, and prove me; try my reins and my heart (Psalm 26:2).
There is a time in the life of every problem when it is big enough to see and small enough to solve.
– Mike Leavitt
