Winds of Doctrine and Deceitful Scheming in My Own Writings

some thoughts on how I used to approach the Bible

This is a continuation of the last article on how there are different kinds of knowing: the head and the heart. When we prioritize heart knowledge, we pay more attention to fruit than proofs. We listen to the Sprit of God that is within us, and we value experience over syllogisms, neat arguments, and things that just sound good.

You can find that article linked below.

In this article, we’ll be examining something I wrote a decade ago to show how something can sound good and appear to have tight logic when really it only sounds doctrinally correct because of the language I use and the specific parameters in which I operated, which may or may not be valid.

Winds of Doctrine and Deceitful Scheming

We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine by people’s trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming; but speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body’s growth in building itself up in love. Ephesians 4:14–16

Three phrases stand out to me in the first part of this passage: trickery, craftiness, and deceitful scheming.

I’m going to let Daniel from ten Daniels ago have a few things to say, and then we’ll see how his argument is a bit tricky and crafty; I won’t judge him as deceitful because I know he was doing the best he could with what he had. This was written on June 11, 2016—ten years ago this month.

In order for us to have true, biblical unity, we must give up any man made doctrines or creeds and worship God in the authorized manner. We must stay with the book. This is the pattern that Jesus set out when He prayed for unity before His death. He said “Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth” (John 17:17). It is a biblical fact that in order for our worship to be accepted of God, we must worship Him in Spirit and in truth and we do that through the authority of God’s word.

Everything that we do in worship and in our teachings must be done by the authority of God. Instrumental music, for example, is not authorized or commanded anywhere in the New Testament; not by example, necessary inference, or command.

How then can people worship with instrumental music and profess to be worshipping in truth? If we want unity we must go to God’s word for appropriate methods of worship.

Look at him go! I may print this one out, throw a smiley face sticker on it, and throw it onto the fridge.

I want to walk you through my trickery, craftiness, and “deceitful scheming” here, but just as a full disclaimer: I don’t actually think what I said here is analogous to what Paul is talking about in Ephesians 4, and while this teaching is dangerous because of how divisive it is, I think this version of Daniel (along with others who say similar things) is in good hands. I’m concerned for his anxiety, obnoxious certainty, and the emotional and psychological damage he is potentially doing to people, but I really do think there is enough grace to go around.

That being said, let me show you why my certainty in this article is only possible because I was operating within a clearly defined set of rules that I had imposed upon the Bible and God.

First Paragraph

In order for us to have true, biblical unity, we must give up any man made doctrines or creeds and worship God in the authorized manner. We must stay with the book. This is the pattern that Jesus set out when He prayed for unity before His death. He said “Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth” (John 17:17). It is a biblical fact that in order for our worship to be accepted of God, we must worship Him in Spirit and in truth and we do that through the authority of God’s word.

I say that we must give up man made doctrines while I was literally binding my own interpretation of Scripture onto others using cherry-picked passages from across the New Testament, none of which had anything to do with authorized worship in a required weekly Sunday morning worship service.

I say that we must also give up creeds while I carried around a copy of Why I’m a Member of the Church of Christ in my Bible case along with my Bible for years. Why? Because it was basically a Church of Christ catechism that explained why we believed what we believe. Do you know what the definition of a creed is? It’s “a system of Christian or other religious belief.” And I carried it around next to my Bible while I told people to abandon “man-made systems of belief.”

When I said to “stay with the book” and quoted John 17:17, I was making the assertion that “thy word” in Jesus’s prayer is the Bible. Given that Jesus lived, died, was resurrected, and ascended into heaven twenty years before Paul started writing his letters (given when you date Galatians, but cut me some slack), I don’t exactly know how I fit the New Testament into John 17:17. What is the truth/ word of God in the context of John? Well, according to the first chapter of John, John 8:32, 36, and Jesus’s own words in John 14:6, the Truth is Jesus, who is the Word of God.

Apparently, it is a biblical fact that our worship must be in spirit and in truth to be accepted of God, and we can only know what it means to worship “in truth” by looking at “God’s word.” I was referencing John 4:24 and Colossians 3:16-17 here. But if one actually looks at John 4, they will see that Jesus was having a conversation concerning the location of worship, not the style. I interpreted “in spirit and in truth” as “giving [oneself] completely to God in their devotion and praise of Him” and by worshipping in the authorized way. Instead, Jesus answers the Samaritan woman’s question by inviting her to drink of the Holy Spirit and approach God through himself. Our worship to God is inherently Triune: we praise God in the Holy Spirit and in Truth (which is Jesus).

I was also making a big assumption here as to how the Bible works. Apparently, God desires us to worship in a specific way just as the Levites were expected to worship in a certain way, but instead of giving us a book of Leviticus or even just one example of what this worship is supposed to look like, we were given a “Big Book of Search & Find” to piece together a Sunday morning worship service that follows a very particular pattern that we will go to everlasting punishment in a fiery hell if we get wrong on any point. How that is a yoke that is both easy and light, I will never know, but ten Daniels ago Daniel certainly thought it was…at least in theory.

Second Paragraph

Everything that we do in worship and in our teachings must be done by the authority of God. Instrumental music, for example, is not authorized or commanded anywhere in the New Testament; not by example, necessary inference, or command.

This one is fun. The first statement I made here is pretty tricky because it sounds good, right? But it assumes so much.

First, where did I get the idea of a required Sunday morning worship service?

Second, where did I get the idea that what happens during this hour on Sunday must be authorized? And who gets to decide what is authorized and what is not? And why is that a twenty-two year old kid with virtually no formal education in biblical studies?

Third, who came up with the idea of examples, necessary inferences, and commands? If everything we do is supposed to come from the Bible, where does the Bible give us this plain directive if it is of such eternal importance?

And isn’t this a lot to expect from people living two thousand years in the future reading a collection of letters, stories, and prophecies from people grappling with contemporary situations in the first century? Like is that really the message we’re supposed to take away? And why are some examples binding but others aren’t? And if some are and some aren’t, who’s to say which ones, how are they to determine which ones, and where does the Bible tell us how to determine which ones and why?

Also, since I get the “command to sing” from Ephesians 5:18-19 and Colossians 3:16-17, does that mean I’m supposed to sing psalms? I mean, I understand not singing songs about animal sacrifice or bashing babies heads against stones; the New Testament explains why that sort of thing isn’t cool, but how would we know to not sing the songs that talk about praising God with various kinds of instruments? Since so many psalms mention instruments, shouldn’t Paul have put a disclaimer out about them? And if he didn’t, does the punishment of an eternal, burning, fiery torment really fit the crime? What the hell is that about?

(if this joke is still in here by the time you read this and you are offended, it’s 4am, I’m at Waffle House, and my editors should have told me to remove it. It would be fallacious to throw away this whole article because of such a joke. You don’t want to be fallacious, do you? If you think it’s funny, then imagine me bowing over a cup of coffee in a corner booth.)

Third Paragraph

How then can people worship with instrumental music and profess to be worshipping in truth? If we want unity we must go to God’s word for appropriate methods of worship.

I’ve said a lot on this paragraph already.

But, let me reword it:

How then can people worship in truth if they aren’t walking with Jesus? How can they worship in Jesus if they aren’t standing with those outside the gates of our theological fortresses—those who are often victimized by our neat, tidy arguments, those hungry, naked, and sick sheep who are suffering while we debate theology, and those who have lost their faith in light of the endless division and harm perpetuated in the name of Jesus?

If we want unity, we must go to God’s Word, which is Jesus, for appropriate methods of worship: praying in our closets instead of on street corners, not letting our left hand know what our right hand is doing, and defining true religion as caring for the fatherless and widows in their affliction and keeping ourself unspotted by the world: unspotted by division, by hatred, by greed, by violence, or by anything that doesn't look like Jesus.

Tricksy Hobbits

“Not fair! not fair!” he hissed. “It isn’t fair, my precious, is it, to ask us what it’s got in its nassty little pocketses?”

Honestly, Bilbo’s unintentional “riddle” was pretty lame, and Gollum was right to be mad.

And just how Gollum couldn’t possibly solve that riddle, I was playing a game in which I couldn't lose. The rules were in my favor, the questions were in my favor, and the framing of the questions were in my favor. Without questioning those questions and challenging that framework, the outcome is unavoidable.

And this is why it’s possible to be “carried about by every wind of doctrine.” When we ignore Jesus’s advice and try to meet these crafty schemers on their own playing field, the home field advantage can be a bit strong. It takes time and more effort than some are willing to allow to actually deal with these issues at any depth. And sometimes someone like ten Daniels ago will point to the time it takes to debunk something as evidence that it can’t be true: “Look how long he’s taking! Truth is simple.”

But when we examine the fruit produced by such a system (church splits, years of division and infighting, and miserable people who mask their own misery through condemning everyone else), then the source of this whole framework is obviously not the Spirit of God.

But what is the proper framework? Let’s return to Ephesians 4 once more.

Love, Love, Love

I, therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beg you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace: Ephesians 4:1–3

We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine by people’s trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming; but speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body’s growth in building itself up in love. Ephesians 4:14–16

Bearing with one another in love.

Speaking the Truth in love.

Building up the church in love.

When we start binding our opinions on everyone else, we end up destroying that which Christ built, but when we bear with one another in love and speak the Truth (Jesus) in love, then we cooperate with God in building up the church in love.

Credits

Special thanks to Corri Johnson and Jordan Winkert for reading and editing what I write and for all of you who pitch in through liking, sharing, and otherwise contributing to the community here.