Stephens Family NC

Friday, January 4, 2013

Bibliolatry and Dogma

"A Bible that's falling apart usually belongs to someone who isn't."
-Charles H. Spurgeon

When it comes to the Bible, the so-called “WORD OF GOD”, let’s be completely honest, either God has spoken or He hasn’t. The Bible is either God’s inspired Word or man’s invented word. If the Bible is not God’s Word then it has no real ultimate authority over our lives and all of its claims or demands are negotiable at best. It may be a valuable book with historical significance but nothing more. However, if the Bible is God’s Word then it claims to contain God’s thoughts or His stance on particular issues and subjects. If there is a God and that God has given His Word on any particular topic then that word must obviously have ultimate authority and cannot be negotiable. You can disagree and argue with His view on anything, but you have no real authority to oppose Him, seeing that He alone has created all things, thus making Him the final Authority over the Universe. Doesn’t a creator or designer of a product know best how that product is to be used? Aren’t they the final authority on the very thing they themselves designed? I would say “yes.” And so, if God has spoken directly regarding Himself, man and the nature of the world then His word is, and must be the standard by which we should interpret reality. Since God has created reality then His word is the true interpretation of reality, and we can take His word “dogmatically.” When I say "dogmatically" I mean that we can hold God's view unapologetically as the final word and authority. I recognize it is not politically or culturally correct to be "dogmatic" about anything these days. But if God, the Creator of everything has spoken about anything, then He is making a dogmatic and authoritative claim about truth and reality. As I said, we can disagree, but we are disagreeing with the One who made all things, including us, and the very minds we’re using to disagree with Him. Now, if God has not spoken or given us His word about something then certainly we are free to reason through the issues and come to the best conclusions given the information we acquire. But I suggest that we interpret the “grey” areas in light of the black and white areas, or the “dogmatic” areas in which God has already spoken clearly.

I would never say that we should strive to be rigidly dogmatic about every aspect of our lives, but we should be thoughtfully dogmatic about the things that are most important in life, and God has spoken directly and clearly about the things that He considers to be most important. These are “non-negotiables.” I actually have God’s authority to agree with Him. And if agreeing with God and His Word revealed in the Bible puts me at odds with others or even the whole world, then I still have God’s favor, blessing and approval. I think Noah in the Old Testament is a perfect example of a man who dogmatically agreed with God while the rest of the world dogmatically disagreed with God.

Now some people say that those who consult what the Bible says about every little thing and obey its teachings meticulously are guilty of "bibliolatry," or worshipping the Bible. They say that you're setting up the Bible as an “idol” to be worshiped, because you're so over-zealously committed to its teachings and you just won't compromise. They’ll say things like, “You’re too dogmatic!” or “You don’t have to take everything in the Bible so seriously” or “God’s bigger than a book and you don’t have to be so close minded and strict about following the Bible,” or “You’re a slave to that Book because you’re not free to believe something outside of the Bible,” and on and on... But to take the Bible seriously as God’s Word and hold fast to His clear teaching on particular subjects is not “bibliolatry” or the worship of the Bible, but rather it is taking God at His word, believing His word and trusting in His word. This is what the Bible and Jesus Himself called us to. As Christians, disciples and seekers we are to pursue God’s truth and live it no matter what the cost. We are called to know and trust and obey God’s Word, not merely “know it” or “know about it.” In our culture anymore it’s an intellectual crime just to simply trust God and take Him at His word. It can’t be that easy. He can’t be that trustworthy...can He?

Jesus was dogmatic. He was dogmatic about the character and nature of God, the sinful condition of mankind and God’s divine plan of salvation. Jesus was unapologetically dogmatic. He calls everyone to be dogmatic regarding those things, and we do ourselves and others good to follow His lead in regard to doctrine and duty. When tempted by the devil Jesus used God’s Word to overcome him. When Jesus was tested by Pharisees and Scribes and skeptics He referred to God’s Word as the final authority. When questioned about everything from marriage to divorce, the afterlife or Sabbath day Jesus Christ often quoted Scripture as the final authority on all matters. Jesus knew the Word of God, studied the Word of God, believed the Word of God, lived the Word of God, shared the Word of God, taught the Word of God and finally He commanded His disciples to follow His example. It couldn’t be clearer; Jesus’ followers are to live like Jesus did. And we see this in the rest of the New Testament. After the resurrection and ascension of Jesus, His followers, the Apostles and disciples are recorded as those who believed the entire Old Testament Scriptures as the Word of God, and Jesus’ teachings as the Word of God. They not only lived out their faith in the Bible, but they quoted it often and taught others to believe it, read it, teach it, preach it, live it and grow in it.

The prophets of the Old Testament knew the power in believing, living and teaching the word of God. Jesus and the Apostles knew that an essential component to being an effective minister of God and a real threat to the devil, sin and evil of this world was to be immersed in a full understanding of God’s Word and intentionally live it out.

It is then no surprise that from the Garden until glory the greatest assault on God, the Kingdom of God, the ministry of the saints, and the personal lives of individual Christians has been and will always be to attack the Word of God. These attacks come in a variety of forms; reject the Bible, resist the Bible, or reduce the Bible to something less than the authoritative Word of God.

How do we confront these attacks? Very simple. Read the Bible, believe the Bible, live the Bible, teach the Bible, preach the Bible and pass on to the next generation a belief and behavior that reflects the power of a Bible that is the Authoritative Word of God. It just might be time to sick the dogma on Satan’s lies and compromise.

“The entirety of Your Word is truth, and every one of Your righteous judgments endures forever.” -Psalm 119:160

“Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful; BUT his delight is in the law of the LORD, and in his law he meditates day and night. He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that brings forth its fruit in its season, whose leaf also shall not wither; and whatever he does shall prosper. The ungodly are not so but are like the chaff which the wind drives away. Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous. For the LORD knows the way of the righteous but the way of the ungodly will perish.” -Psalm 1

Bibliolatry and Dogma?

Monday, December 17, 2012

Merry Christmas 2012 from the Stephens Family

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year everyone.
This is a quick "hello video" and some pictures from this past Fall.
We hope everyone is well and able to really enjoy God and one another this Christmas season.
With Love,
The Stephens Family

Stuck together forever

Gotta have that "Family Pic" that looks like it's from the 1980s

Best buds

You recon...

Nap time.

This is the Cathedral and tower at James Town

Full tummy = happy baby

X-treme games, wet-n-wild

James built his first boat and it do float

James wrote his alphabet

Bros!

Hug please!

Yaya took some fun pics of James playin in the rain

Oh yea, more than pals!
We love you Yaya! Thanks for being such a blessing to our family!

This is one of those hidden tracks at the end. It's called,

"Two guys who really don't know how to handle seeing themselves in their very first web-cam."

Stephens Family 2008

Stephens Family 2012

To view more pictures from this year and some baby pics of Jonathan you can click the link below.
Family Pictures from Summer 2012

You can enjoy some Christmas videos links here and here.

Sunday, December 16, 2012

Family Pictures from Summer 2012

These are pictures from last summer when Jonathan was born. I'm sorry for not getting these up sooner. Thank you to all of you who prayed for us! We're so grateful for all of you.

A Birthday Picture!
Johnathan Greg Stephens was born at home on June 1st, 2012 at 6:29pm, weighing in at 9 pounds 1 ounce.

Jonathan is a heavy sleeper like his dad.

James is excited to have a baby brother.

Mommy did awesome during the birth. Jonathan was born in our bedroom with the help of God and 2 wonderful midwives.

And of course Yaya was a huge blessing!

Our hearts broke when 8 days later we had to take Jonathan into the hospital for 3 days because he came down with a 103 degree fever. Thank God, he's doing great now.

Mommy is super busy with her boys.

The car is full now.

Jonathan is a pretty calm little guy.

Yaya was great at getting a smile from him.

Pray for this little guy to become a great man of God.

James has memorized a bunch of Bible verses, the Ten Commandments and the Gospel Message.
We are so proud of Him!

Our cutie #1.

He's growing up fast.

Saturday, May 12, 2012

Good Works!

Have you ever really stopped to think about how much the New Testament encourages, exhorts and even commands believers to be actively doing "good works." Now we know Biblically we are not saved by any of our good works but only by faith in the finished good work of Jesus Christ on the cross. But sometimes we can error in extremes and think that any exhortation to be continually doing good works could come off sounding legalistic or like we're pushing a works based salvation. Nothing could be further from the truth. Actually the main point is this, before we're saved our lives are often full of our own works and those works are often selfish and bad, but when God saves us, He Himself comes to live inside of us, and live His life through us, and God is full of good works. Actually that's all He does. And so my point is this, if God is really inside of you, your life should be marked by "good works" because a good God inside of you is going to perform good works through you. He wants to reveal Himself to this world through His people. Let's look at some verses.

Ephesians 2:10 tells us that we are God's workmanship, God's "good work" created in Christ Jesus, for good works which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.

You see, when we are saved, we officially become a child of God and that is all God's good work in us. But God saves us as His good work, so He can save us to His good works. And those good works He Himself has planned before we ever walk in them. Some then might say, "So, do predestined good works automatically come to pass apart from our will?"
No! For even in salvation God first changes our will to seek and desire salvation. He doesn't automatically save us without first changing our will and hearts.
And so, with good works, they don't just automatically come to pass, on the contrary, bad works happen automatically, good works, according to God's definition of "good works", must flow from the right heart and mind, that comes from a will to seek and serve God.
Philippians 2:12-13 says God works in us to will and DO for His good pleasure.
What determines whether we are doing His good works?
2Timothy 2:19-21- Cleansing ourselves from iniquity makes us fit for the Master and prepared for every good work. This identifies us as Christ's, belonging to the Lord and as an honorable vessel.
2Timothy 3:16-17 tells us that the inspired Word of God is sufficient to make a man of God complete and equipped for every single good work!
Matthew 5- Jesus says to let our light SO shine that others may see our good works and glorify God because of it.
Titus 3:8- Paul says that believers should maintain good works. That means that good works should be a regular consistant part of our lives. And Paul specifically says that Titus is to affirm this constantly with the Church and leaders. So Paul tells Titus to constantly remind and affirm God's people that they are to maintain a lifestyle of good works and that this is profitable to men.
Titus 3:14- then as if he hasn't said it enough, Paul tells Titus to tell Paul's people/ministry team/ or Church fellowships planted by Paul that they too "learn" how to maintain good works, clarifying that they meet urgent needs so that they're not unfruitful. He is saying that being fruitful is meeting urgent needs and maintaining good works.
Titus 2:14 says also on this same point that Christ died to redeemed us from lawless deeds to purify for Himself His own special kind of people who are "zealous" for good works. So we see here a few things:1-we been saved out of bad works/lawless deeds 2-we've been purified by God, our conscience being cleansed from dead works Hebrews 9:14, and our hearts are now made compatible with the works God has called us to, purified for pure works 3- He's made us His own unique kind of people, a people that are significantly different from those who are not His people, and one major distinction is that we are like God in that we are 4- "zealous" for good works, passionate, ever mindful, contemplating and executing good works. We have a zeal for doing good works, as opposed to being excited about lawless deeds and sin.
Titus 1:16 talks of those who claim to know God but deny Him in works, they're disobedient and therefore disqualified from every good work.
Titus 2:7 Paul exhorts Titus to be a good example to the younger men by showing himself in all things to be a pattern of good works. Titus is a powerful book that reminds us that "good works" are to be a given in the life of a true believer. We are to do good works, maintain good works, be a pattern and example of good works, and be zealous for good works. God's Word could not be clearer that those who truly belong to God should be easily identified by good works.
Hebrews 6:1 tells us that a basic elementary principle of the faith is repentance from dead works.
Hebrews 6:10 reminds us that God pays attention and does not forget our work and labor of love we show in His name towards the saints.
Hebrews 9:14 tells us that Christ offered Himself to God through the Spirit and gave His blood to cleanse our conscience from "dead works."
Hebrews 10:24 exhorts believers that on behalf of Christ's finished work for us we should hold fast to the faith because He is faithful to His promises and we should assemble together as believers to exhort one another and stirr up love and good works until Jesus comes again. We are not only called to do good works ourselves, but we ought to be exhorting one another towards good works.
Hebrews 13:16 exorts us to not to forget to "do good" and to share, these sacrifices (the sacrifice of doing good when we might want to do evil or nothing at all, and the sacrifice of sharing when we'd much rather keep to ourselves) these sacrifices please God.
Hebrews 13:20-21 ends the book of Hebrews with a prayer and doxology that the God of peace, who raised Jesus our Shepherd from the dead, through the blood of the new and everlasting covenant would make us complete in every "good work," working inside of us what is pleasing to Him for His glory!

There are certainly more verses and passages that address this issue, but we get the point.

Are you a Christian? Then your life should be full of good works for God. If your life is not full of good works for God, then my friend, you are backslidden and distracted with the things of this world, or you are not a Christian at all according to the Word of God. Either way, if we fail to be zealous for good works we need to repent and seek God afresh to work in us His priorities, lest on judgment day we stand before God and hear, "That was not well done, and you were not a faithful servant." God help us to help others!

When God saves a person, He changes their heart desires to conform with His heart's desire, and God desires good things. He comes to live inside of us so that he can live through us. He works on our hearts to think right, and then to do what's right. And our new lives in Christ are one long journey of allowing the Spirit of God to work in us and through us good thoughts, good words and good works for His glory! A Christian is "CHRIST IN" us, and Christ in us will show Himself as Christ through us.