Blog Archives - Ironworks Pike Community Church

No Creed But Christ?

6/28/2014

The reason that is such a bad saying is because as soon as you use the word "Christ", you have to define what you mean. A soon as you define it, you are making a creed.

After all, by "Christ" do you mean the enlightened guru of the Hindu mystics? Do you mean the leader of the Unification Church? Do you mean Satan's brother, as Mormonism teaches? Do you mean a heavenly power that came down on an ordinary man named Jesus of Nazareth when he was baptized, and then left him just before he died? Do you mean the respected prophet Isa of the Qu'ran?

"Oh no!," you say. "I mean the Christ of the Bible!"

"Why the Bible?", some cultist might immediately say. "Why not our book?"

Then, as soon as you start to defend the inspiration and authority of the Bible, as opposed to the Qu'ran, or the Book of Mormon, you are making more creed!

God's Word commands us to show ourselves to God as ones approved, workmen who do not need to be ashamed, handling accurately the word of truth (2 Timothy 2:15). To say "no creed but Christ" is the same as saying, "I refuse to study my Bible thoroughly or in-depth. I want nothing but vague, general notions of my faith. I do not want to be able to defend Christianity against cults. I am against being clear, and I am against having standards."

The Bible stands over all statements of faith, but the Bible also produces statements of faith. Christians throughout history have written statements of faith because they needed to defend the faith against cults, confusion, and controversy. So don't say, "No creed but Christ." It's a fundamentally anti-scriptural saying.

Wives, Daughters, and Donkeys

6/24/2014

Liberal skeptics have chastised the Old Testament as damnably anti-female, and one of their claimed reasons for this opinion is that the 10th Commandment allegedly depersonalizes a man's wife and daughter by equating them with his ox, his donkey, and his house (Exodus 20:17). The skeptics are helped along in their hostility by the occasional koo-koo Christian ministry that proclaims a man's wife or daughter his "property"! I myself have heard and read such nonsense in a few places. They are the cracked rightward image of koo-koo leftist Christian groups.

Of course, when you want the Bible to be wrong, it's easy to find alleged "errors" like this. The leftward fundamentalist never allows the possibility that there could be perfectly sane interpretations of puzzling Bible passages.

Being "under the care of" is not the same thing as "owning." Moses was clear in Genesis 1-3 -- the woman was made of the same essential stuff as the man, God made her in His image, and God gave her authority to help her husband manage the earth. Killing a woman got you the death-penalty under Moses' law, which penalty elevated women far above the animal world. Women under Moses' system of laws could buy and sell their own property. Women could sue and testify in court.

Skeptics should try to be fair readers and size up the Old Testament for what it actually does say, rather than ignoring everything that doesn't fit into their worldview. And I would really like it if all the different koo-koos would quiet down, though that doesn't seem too likely, does it?