So, What Went Wrong?
Topic: Faith
In our “Faith” studies we’ve been hammering away on the goodness of all the “stuff” of creation. Christianity is not a gnostic religion. Are you familiar with gnosticism?
Gnosticism was an early heresy that denied the fundamental goodness of creation. The gnostics taught that this world was not created by the Supreme Good God, but by an evil, rebellious, “lesser” deity. And so the world that this “lesser” god made was an evil place… a prison from which we need to be rescued.
For the gnostics, salvation consisted of withdrawing and detaching one’s self from this evil world. And if you withdraw and detach yourself sufficiently from the “stuff” of this world, then you can achieve a sort of mystical/spiritual union with the Supreme Good God. And that’s how you achieve salvation.
As I said — heresy. This teaching declares outright war on everything that the Bible has to say about this life and this world.
Consider what Paul says in 1 Timothy 4.1–5. He says that it is a departure from the Christian faith (in fact, he says it’s the teaching of deceitful demons!) to withdraw and detach one’s self from a world “that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth.”
And then he says this: (Someone once called it a “manifesto.”) “For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, for it is made holy by the word of God and prayer.”
And then in verse 6 Paul tells Timothy that IF he drives this particular point home to the believers whom he serves (as their pastor), THEN he “will be a good servant of Christ Jesus, being trained in the words of the faith and of the good doctrine that you have followed.”
It’s very plain. False teachers accuse / malign / incriminate / denounce / blame / besmirch God’s creation (or some parts of God’s creation). Faithful believers declare the GOODNESS of God’s creation.
In fact, right here we find one of the great reminders of the world of difference between Christianity and every other religion, worldview, opinion, or philosophy that you could line up against it.
