Category: Westminster Larger Catechism Study

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Bunyan remains a favorite. Has anyone ever seen a list of all the ways to get off the narrow path?

Btw, Mike that’s a gift! “ I can now listen to or read the work of a professing Christian and can almost instantly tell if that person is focused on God and His glory and the edification of the Body of Christ for God’s glory or if all they are about is just more religiosity and taking people captive by philosophy and empty deceit according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ. This is where God has this ministry and me now.”

You use it as well as any I know.

We had the Purpose Drive movement in our Church, there are many others today. Each has its path, almost gnostic like way to follow. I’ve read many accounts of the issues, but I’ve never heard a clearly articulated Elevator Talk of what was/is wrong with the Purpose Driven Methodology. Is there one out there, for those with ears to hear?

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Mike’s comment on this is extremely useful. I love how he turns to Luther and Tyndale to highlight the issue.

I was personally back in the late 80’s attracted to the current Spiritual Formation movement, being a card carrying Renovare person. Practicing the solitary and silence 🤐 🤫. In the practice of Lectio, I was asked to follow my heart to hear what God was speaking though a limited word or phrase. I think I was drawn (could I say saved) out of it because I kept wanting to engage my mind and understand God’s word from God’s whole word in the Bible alone, not a mystical repetition. Lectio itself seemed so limited in hearing the full story of what God’s word reveals. And becomes mystical or even gnostic in gaining a higher personal revelation via the experience or personally directly from God.

Of course the Spiritual disciplines are now broadly taught and encouraged and those involved rarely will tolerate any questioning. In my observation, I can’t go a day without someone happily speaking about their Spiritual Formation practices. All of course really sincerely pursued.

This is well outside the realm of monks and nuns. It’s in the mainline and evangelical visible churches.

Curiously if the word to describe this is “idolatry” perhaps we can learn from what Paul says, and Old John Gill comments upon. I never looked at it in this context.

1 Corinthians 5:10 Yet not altogether with the fornicators of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or with idolaters; for then must ye needs go out of the world.

for then must you needs go out of the world; meaning not out of Greece, or of any of the cities thereof, into other parts, but out of the world itself; they must even destroy themselves, or seek out for a new world: it is an hyperbolical way of speaking, showing that the thing is impracticable and impossible, since men of this sort are everywhere; and were all trade and conversation with them to be forbidden, the families of God’s people could never be supported, nor the interest of religion maintained; a stop would soon be put to worldly business, and saints would have little or nothing to do in the world; wherefore, as the Arabic version reads it, “business would compel you to go out of the world”.

But he goes on to explicitly say this does apply to the church. If so it presents a very challenging 😥 task to be separate. We probably need more insight and Grace in applying that since so many are involved.

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Mike uses an unfamiliar word Diaprax. When I looked into I noticed a lot of familiar related terms. Turns out it opens up a huge area that needs one to depend upon a lot of prayer and a bucket full of God’s Authoritative Word, the Scriptures to examine. I’ll probably never use the terms “What do you think about or How do you feel about” again!

Here are a couple of quotes I found along the way. Just a sample.

“Classical theology has erred in its insistence that theology be ‘God-centered,’ not ‘man-centered.’” – Robert Schuller, Self-Esteem: The New Reformation 1

“An undisputed historical fact is that I am the founder, really, of the church-growth movement in this country….I advocated and launched what has become known as the marketing approach in Christianity.” – Robert Schuller, as quoted in Willow Creek Seeker Services by G.A. Pritchard

“In seminary I took the equivalent of a total quality management course where I learned how to survey the congregation: ‘What do you think and how do you feel?’….[However, w]e’re accountable to [the Word of God], as is, not how do we feel or think about it.” – Dean Gotcher, The Institute of Authority Research

1 I checked the first quote to an old reference in one of Ken Silva’s posts. I assume it and others are accurate but I didn’t read the book itself or verify the others. Robert Schuller, Self–Esteem: The New Reformation [Waco: Word Books, 1982], , p 64.