Examining "A More Christlike Word"
by Brad Jersak
“For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough.” (Paul’s concern from 2 Corinthians 11:4)
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The False Filter |
The Biblical Filter |
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The word OR the Word |
The Word THROUGH the word |
This
peddling-for-profit becomes apparent as we head into the “What Then?” heading
(p. 95). I will continue using my “BJ’s Claim” and “Monte’s Reply” format to
show what stands out in a deadly kind of way. However, I first must remind us
of the difference between BJ’s hermeneutic and the Scripture’s hermeneutic:
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BJ’s “Another Jesus” Emmaus Hermeneutic |
Monte’s “True Lord Jesus” Emmaus Road Experience |
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We need a precondition to reading Scripture that comes from outside
Scripture so we can rewrite Scripture to make a god in our own image who
neither executes justice against sinners nor gives us a Savior who satisfies
God’s justice against our sin. |
We need to come to Scripture with the precondition that it is the
breathed-out words of God that tell us in the harmonious and rhyming thoughts
of the Scriptures how Jesus, the Word, continually used Scripture (the word)
to tell us who he is and what he has done for us in our great salvation. |
It has
been clear that this has been the author’s aim from the beginning, to steal the
authority of the Scriptures as the breathed-out words of God so he can be the
authority telling us what other authorities we need to listen to. This, of
course, is used to convince people that his “another Jesus”, his “different
spirit”, and his “different gospel”, are valid. And it makes me want to feel
what was in Paul’s heart when he lamented, “you put up with it well enough.” I
am sure the grief of an apostle losing people to deceivers is greater than I
have felt.
BJ’s
Claim: As the author declares that he is not cutting ties with the Bible,
he continues his poison-in-the-pudding approach: “But what I can commit to is
submitting my reading of the Scriptures to their gospel context” (p. 95).
Monte’s
Reply: Now, if “their gospel context” was biblical, this wouldn’t be
deadly. However, because BJ’s aim is to remove our faith from the authority of
Scripture to the authority of his Emmaus-Way, he is leading people astray.
What I
mean is that the author in the previous section has made clear that the way we
know the “gospel context” is not from Scripture, but from tradition and
liturgies. This is apparent in the next thing he says, “I can read them in the
way prescribed by the church…” (p. 95). Instead of reading Scripture in the way
prescribed by God in the Scriptures, BJ has denied the authority that is
inherent to the documents, and that was recognized by the Jews and the Church
as bearing that authority. His aim in this whole thing is not to give us a more
Christlike Bible, but to place the authority on what is his "another Christ" traditions.
But,
again, that makes BJ the authority in telling people what are the authorities!
He is not teaching us what is “prescribed by the church” through the Scriptures
because what was prescribed by the apostles of Jesus Christ in the Scriptures
has no authority to him. It is the church outside of the Scriptures that he
authorizes to be our authority, and that is NOT the way God breathed-out his
will for the church.
I am
skipping over the ingredients for the pudding that the author puts next since I
have no contention with the ingredients that match God’s recipe! It is the
poison I am focused on because that is what Satan is using to steal, kill, and
destroy everyone who buys into this book (I had to buy it, but I don’t buy it,
if you know what I mean).
BJ’s
Claim: “I will read and hear the Scriptures as a product and function of
the church, ancient and modern, that faithfully stewards them” (p. 95).
Monte’s
Reply: The Scriptures are NOT a product of the church. They are the product
of God breathing out his words through men who were carried along by the Holy
Spirit. They did not originate with the people of Israel, and they did not
originate with the church. The church is not the authority behind the
scriptures; God is. We either “live by every word that comes from the mouth of
God” in the Scriptures, or we steal, kill, and destroy people’s attachment to
the word of God.
Let me
remind us of how different BJ’s view of the “inspiration” of Scripture is from
that of the apostle Paul. This is of concern for me in a very personal way
because I have grown to love this apostle as a man of such depth of emotion
that I did not appreciate when I was younger and only thought he was stern and
particular. I also gathered from my friends who recommended BJ’s book to me
that there was some kind of disdain for Paul that shocked me, so I’m wondering
how that will play into BJ’s teaching (it is hard to believe I’m on day 37 of
my journal journey and only 35% of the way through the book!).
Here
is the reminder of the contrast between BJ and the beloved apostle:
BJ’s Claim: “I’m seeing ever more clearly how the annual calendar of feasts and fasts, and the weekly divine liturgy, are the framework through which we see the Scriptures come together to tell our story of redemption both yearly and weekly” (p. 95).
Monte’s
Reply: It is scary to hear someone claim to see something “more clearly”
that the apostle Paul declared to be “accursed”. When he told the Galatians, “I
am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace
of Christ and are turning to a different gospel—” he was talking about people
trying to bring elements of the old covenant back into the new, the very thing
BJ is peddling in his book.
Paul
makes clear, “not that there is another one (another gospel), but there are
some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ.” It is nothing
new that people are just as willing to trouble believers today and distort the
gospel of Christ as was happening in Paul’s day. BJ does not want his disciples
to see the gospel as it was announced in the 100% authoritative Hebrew
Scriptures, revealed in the 100% authoritative four gospels, and explained in
the 100% authoritative letters to the churches in Scripture. Instead, he wants
to turn hearts away from the Scriptures to his box of church history and
liturgies summarized as the nebulous “Emmaus-Way”.
The
apostle Paul’s indictment of this was, “But even if we or an angel from heaven
should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him
be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching
to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed (Gal
1:6-9). BJ’s “different gospel” is different from the one the church received
from Jesus and the apostles. His ”another Jesus” corrects Yahweh his Father
even though there is no record of Jesus doing that in the Scriptures. His
“different spirit” works outside the Scriptures through liturgies, traditions,
the church, and his Emmaus-Way, while the Scriptures equate being “filled with
the Spirit” with letting “the word of Christ dwell in you richly” (Ephesians
5:18; Colossians 3:16).
I know
my point is “simply” that BJ’s “gospel framework” is outside the Scriptures
while the church’s “gospel framework” is in the Scriptures. However, the fact that
this book has such high ratings among professing Christians requires a more
detailed exposure of the poison-in-the-pudding.
BJ’s
Claim: “By stripping Christianity of the liturgical framework in which all
Scripture has its role and place in the great story – in the name of breaking
free from tradition and religion – we’re left with a Bible organized only by
genre, with no clue how Moses, the Prophets, and the rest of the Scriptures
prefigure the passion of Jesus, and a randomized sequence of sermons contrived
by independent preachers” (p. 96).
Monte’s
Reply: The responses that were exploding in my head while I typed that out
were things like, “Are you SERIOUS?!!!” followed by a sigh of regret that the
author can stir in so much poison in one paragraph that requires many
paragraphs to point it out to the many people who are devouring this stuff! So,
unfortunately, let’s consider this poison ingredient by ingredient.
First,
“By stripping Christianity of the liturgical framework” is false. Christianity
is what is revealed in the Scriptures. There is no liturgical framework taught to
the church in the Scriptures. The churches that created and depend on such
things are not authorized by God to do so. How do I know? Because what is
authorized by God is in the Scriptures, the breathed-out words of God.
Liturgies are not there, they were never required, and no one has stripped
anything from Christianity by returning to the Scriptures after the abuses of
the manmade liturgies.
Second,
“…the liturgical framework in which all Scripture has its role and place in the
great story” is also false since it reverses the authority structure. In BJ’s
world, the authority is in his Emmaus-Way which somehow includes liturgies,
church tradition, and cycles of feasts. The Scriptures are not authoritative in
themselves, hence his “another Jesus” is free to correct what has already been
breathed out by God.
However, in reality, it is the Scriptures that are the authority. They
don’t merely have a “role and place in the great story”, but they are the very
means of us knowing the great story. They are the only place believers in Jesus
Christ can turn for the authoritative description of whose and who we are.
Under the authority of the Scriptures, we can ask, “Is there any ‘role and
place’ for liturgy and feast cycles in the life of the church?” And the
Scriptures say no. The old has gone. The new has come. We now operate in the
new way of the Holy Spirit instead of the old way of the written code.
Third,
“…in the name of breaking free from tradition and religion”? No. The church
broke free from the old covenant when Jesus gave the new. We broke free from
tradition because the Scriptures told us all about the gospel of the kingdom.
We broke free from the constraints of religion because Jesus did not come to
institute a new religion, but to bring together people from all the nations to
be his body, his one new man, his holy temple in the Lord.
Fourth,
is it true that “we’re left with a Bible organized only by genre, with no clue
how Moses, the Prophets, and the rest of the Scriptures prefigure the passion
of Jesus, and a randomized sequence of sermons contrived by independent
preachers”? Absolutely not! And it is arrogant of the author to make such a
bogus claim!
I have been reading/hearing the Bible as the “word of God” (not the “Word of God”) all the way back into my childhood years. Just as I knew as a child that the song, “Holy, Holy, Holy,” was communicating a feeling of reverence and awe long before I knew what those words meant, I have always known that the Bible was the word of God. About 32 years ago, God tweaked my relationship with his word so that I began treating its authority in a more personal way. I have begun almost every day since then opening up the Scriptures and searching them like the Bereans who wanted to know what was true. Simply reading the Scriptures has not left me ignorant of its grand themes.
In fact, I am often using the imagery
of the divine tapestry to illustrate how anyone can read the Scriptures every
day of their lives and grow in their experience of seeing the threads of
Scripture standing out over the years in ways that seemed foreign when we first
began. It is the Scriptures that have taught me how everything fits together.
Even though there is some place in which pastors and teachers have taught these
things (and very rightly so, according to the Scriptures), it has always been a
matter of whether I agree with pastors, teachers, books, videos, even songs,
that whatever they are teaching really is what is there on the pages of the
Bible. If it's not, I have no obligation to listen to their sermons, read their books, watch their videos, or sing their songs!
So, it
is offensive to those in the church who have been faithfully meeting with God
in his word for the author to claim that we can’t know what we know unless we
follow some Emmaus-Way down the garden path into a false gospel!
BJ’s
Claim: “The annual calendar is like an auger that cycles deeper and deeper
through the clay to access the pure springs of a deep faith” (p. 96).
Monte’s
Reply: No, any rituals added to the new covenant are a poison that seeps
deeper and deeper into the heart of the people to steal, kill, and destroy. Or,
as Paul said, to lead us away from our “sincere and pure devotion to Christ”
that is NOT corrupted by rituals, rules, and repeated regulations.
What
the author has tried (and failed) to describe there is what belongs to the
Scriptures, not to manmade traditions or adding aspects of the old covenant to
the new. If we “let the word of Christ dwell in us richly,” an authorized
apostle wrote, it will result in us “teaching and admonishing one another in
all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in
your hearts to God” (Colossians 3:16). Notice how clear that is. The “word of
Christ” is what we have in the Scriptures. THAT is what must “dwell in us
richly”. Adding things that contradict and replace the authority of the “word of Christ” does
not lead people into some “pure springs of a deep faith”, but steals, kills,
and destroys the beautiful simplicity of the new covenant in leading us as the
righteous who live by faith.
As I
have arrived at the next heading, and this is already a day’s journal journey,
let me conclude with a picture of the Bereans and how they responded to hearing
things from the apostles they had never heard before. After reading in Acts 17
of how Paul and Silas got kicked out of Thessalonica, their ministry in Berea
resulted in quite a different response. “Now these Jews were more noble than
those in Thessalonica; they received the word with all eagerness, examining the
Scriptures daily to see if these things were so” (vs 11).
When
we follow this example with BJ’s book, and we examine the Scriptures to see if
what he is saying about cycles of feasts, liturgies, and his Emmaus-Way “were
so”, the answer is, absolutely not! This is why the author keeps steering us
away from the Scriptures as “the final authority in all matters of faith and
practice” among God’s children while we wait for Jesus’ return. He gives that
authority instead to his description of the church, his “another Jesus”, his
“different spirit”, and his “different gospel”. And we know this because when
we search and examine the Scriptures, what he keeps telling us is not there.
But
what is there in the Scriptures is the beauty and glory of the word of God that
we can truly receive “with all eagerness” because when we examine the
Scriptures daily to see what they say, we keep finding the “living and active”
word of God speaking into our hearts and souls and minds the glorious "mind of Christ", the "Word" of God. And we will not leave the Scriptures that bring us to Christ in
exchange for an Emmaus-Way that gives us “another Jesus”, a “different spirit”,
and a “different gospel”. What we have in Christ the Word, and in the word of Christ,
is enough. We have nowhere else to go for the words of eternal life.
© 2024
Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8
Email: in2freedom@gmail.com
Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the
English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text
Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of
Good News Publishers.)
A More Christlike Word © 2021 by Bradley Jersak Whitaker House 1030 Hunt
Valley Circle • New Kensington, PA 15068 www.whitakerhouse.com
Jersak, Bradley. A More Christlike Word: Reading Scripture the
Emmaus Way. Whitaker House. Kindle Edition.
Definitions from the Bible Sense Lexicon (BSL) in Logos Bible
Systems
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