Viewpoint Brief Bible Study #73 |
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JESUS calls US to be |
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The Christian religion is the worship and service of Jesus Christ. It’s not Mary we worship, but her Son. We worship neither saints, angels, a law code, nor even God’s Spirit. It’s JESUS who is to be honored. The Bible is our guide. |
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Responses to Promise Keepers Remarks
Including Thoughts of Bill, Bob, and Jack (Prepared in August 1997) and in September, links to comments by Charles Dailey, and others, October.Others Answer the Questions --
Is Promise Keepers Good?
Is It Bad? Should We Support It?Response 1 --
Thanks Ray for this tidbit. I have been talking to my brethren here in Charles County about this very issue. As Paul so courageously said, I do what I do not want to do but do it anyway -- it's not me but the sin in me. We could not say it any better. We have to become responsible for our sins by first recognizing that they are sins, not by justifying them.
I attend yearly PK conferences in whatever part of the country I may be in at the time due to traveling. This is the one area that they have changed my life -- they have made me accountable for my actions. The speakers point to this and a penitent heart strips away all the denial and avoidance of responsibility.
I have become more transparent and in that comes mercy from our God. Then we can share our lives with others in sexual, moral and utmost purity. Men need to face the music, women tend to do this naturally, men have to be pushed with a pitchfork, so to speak, but when they are they weep for mercy that the Lord will provide.
God Bless You brother, it is good to find others that are on the same wavelength. Peace - Bill
Response 2 --
I consider your comments on Promise Keepers "right on." I attended the gathering in Knoxville, TN last June and was blessed by it. True, I did not agree with everything I heard and saw. But those incidences were perhaps 1% of the total experience. The other 99% fed me, strengthened me, and caused my soul to rejoice in the wonderful grace of Jesus. (Those, as a matter of fact, are the approximate percentages of agreement/disagreement in most services I attend in Christian Churches/Churches of Christ).
Those things upon which we agree as followers of Christ can serve as a basis for further investigation of those matters on which we do not agree. “The more we think together, the more apt we are to think alike” -- especially if we agree that the Bible is the only infallible standard of truth.
Response 3
I transported your e-mail on Promise Keepers to my Promise Keeper’s file so I could read and study it later. I have done that this morning. I was pleasantly surprised at your answer to your inquirer’s letter. I would like to share with you some of my observations. I would like to do so a little at a time and have your response in each case. Okay? [YES, O.K., so long as the response is less than 500 words in total...(just kidding)].
Promise Keepers
{Observations - Impressions - Evaluations} by An Ohio BrotherOne could not help but be impressed to see such a gathering of men-only in the Pontiac Silverdome for the Detroit, Michigan, Promise Keepers' Conference, May 10-11, 1996. The only women present were those working behind the scenes to help keep the conference on course to serve its purpose. The Sunday Oakland {County} Press reported that there were 69,519 men in attendance. However, a notice on the Press Section bulletin board reported a total of 70,490 in attendance. That's a lot of men! Of that number, 55,000 were from the state of Michigan.
Of that number, 3,000 were young men who met in a separate building on Saturday morning for special messages adapted to their age level. These boys were called to come in and to the front of the Stadium to be recognized with the request that their fathers commit themselves to pray for their sons. These young men then went to be seated with their fathers and to become a part of that mammoth gathering in the stadium of the Silverdome.
The music was very upbeat. It demonstrated the influence of the black culture. [This observer says the influence was from those of a different skin color -- I suspect the influence is more from a different preference in styles of music, and am less willing to accept it as being the best style -- Ray). Some of us of the white culture -- with me definitely included -- did not know the songs nor the beat, could not keep up but could appreciate the energetic and enthusiastic spirit of it. Some of us are just slow on the pickup, but if our caring brothers will just be patient with us, we may learn and join in!
As a special guest of a Promise Keepers’ staff member (an active member of the Littleton CO Christian Church), I was privileged to be seated in the Press Section of the Silverdome where I could see all of the action from an observers perspective! What a view! What a perspective! Over 70,000 men and boys singing praises to God; clapping and lifting up their hands; the applause; and shouting praises to our God! The building vibrated with the sound of their voices! What an awesome assemblage! Human words are inadequate to describe such a scene!
Because of traffic back up, the likes of which I have never seen, caused by so many trying to get to the Silverdome, I did not make it in time to go to the Friday evening session. The distance we would normally drive in 30 minutes or less, it took us 1-1/2 hours to get to our daughter's home!
Bishop George McKinney's message in the Saturday morning session on “Going all out in love for your wife” really touched me. Especially so, the illustration of the husband who gave up his position and work to give his wife of many years, who had suffered a disabling stroke, his undivided attention and care. Genuine love is demonstrated in the action of meeting all the needs of the one loved!
It was most interesting to observe on the monitor a live discussion and view the assembly of approximately 50,000 Promise Keepers gathered in the Minneapolis Metrodome for a simultaneous Promise Keepers’ Conference. Wow! 120,000 + men gathered at the same time in two different places, seeking to learn how to make a difference with their lives in a world so desperately in need of something different!
One man, at the conclusion of Dr. Glenn Wagner’s message on a plea for unity, came forward to the platform confessing his sin of participation and promotion of disunity, led about 4,000 to 5,000 other men to come forward and bow before God on their knees! Men humbling themselves before men and God; confessing their sins to God and praying for one another! My impression? I saw 4,000 to 5,000 men coming for something -- Only God knows what was on the mind of each person who came -- but the fact that they came and humbled themselves by kneeling before men and God indicated to me a searching heart.
What did their search bring them? Here again, only God knows! Searching is commendable, but, Oh, the tremendous responsibility of those who endeavor to give direction for the answer to the search! My personal commitment, in response to Dr. Wagner’s challenge, is to come to the place in my thinking that I will allow God to decide who is a Christian, while I make it my business to faithfully teach His word as to how to be a Christian as I honestly understand it!
I genuinely appreciated his challenge for all of Christ’s followers to recognize that it is not the form of unity but rather the function of unity that is essential. And the fact that unity is reflected in a Godly life style. This unplanned, unexpected, spontaneous response to Dr. Wagner's challenge displaced Dr. Raleigh Washington's place on the afternoon program!
It was pleasantly interesting to see how the Program Director and his staff re-arranged the schedule to get Dr. Washington into the later segment of the program to present his message calling for a Radical Message for Radical (Racial?) Reconciliation.
The Conference came to a close as Promise Keepers' Founder, Mr. Bill "Coach" McCartney, issued a call for commitment to prayer that will result in a commitment to action with our lives. At the close of his message, he asked for all the ministers present to come to the front of the platform to be recognized for their leadership and to ask the Promise Keepers to commit themselves to pray for their ministers. Approximately 5,000 ministers responded to this invitation.
Personal Observations of PK
By This ObserverI was reminded of the statement I first heard from Carl Ketcherside that: “Association is not endorsement!” I did not agree with everything I heard and saw. I am confident that most of those attending this conference would not agree with me in much of what I teach and practice!
The Promise Keepers organization or movement is doing something that needs to be done and I know of no other such movement in action in our day. As one of the speakers put it {and I paraphrase as I understood it} “What our age needs is not men who are wise in the ways of the world -- not even men who are wise in the ways of the church, but men who are wise in the ways of God -- God-wise!”
If the Promise Keepers’ organization or movement can stir enough men to be “God-wise,” we could see a mighty reformation in ethics and morality and the return of a Godly nation. And out of this movement may come a renewal of interest in the restoration movement such as was witnessed in the early and Mid-1800s. How I long and pray for a generation of young men to rise up and do what my generation has not been able to do, or has been unwilling to do!
Just reciting “The Seven Promises of a Promise Keeper” does not make a man a Promise Keeper. I like and appreciate what one of the Promise Keeper’s program booklets says, "We understand that this kind of change is a process, and that we need the grace and strength of the Holy Spirit. Before a man becomes a "promise keeper," he must be a “promise seeker.” The seeking process leads a man to God Himself, thus encountering the promises of God. At this point a man must become a “promise receiver.” Embracing and owning the promises of God provides a foundation for a man to make promises, a “promise maker.” Consequently, “promise keeping” is a process, vitally connected to a man’s relationship with Jesus Christ.
I am firmly convinced that God wants and the church needs a host of men to become “Promise Makers” and “Promise Keepers.”
I could wish that the Promise Keeper organization’s “Statement of Faith” had left out the word “alone” in the fifth article of that statement. I guess the term faith alone in that article may be subject to personal interpretation. I know of no honest-hearted God-fearing Bible-believer who even questions the fact that a man is justified by faith.
But there are some of the more traditional among us who believe that this faith cannot be separated from what this faith motivates the believer to do. We believe that faith comes by hearing, and hearing from the word of Christ, and that such faith leads a persons to the state where they decide to change their way of thinking. They repent, making Christ Lord of their lives. Then they submit to His Lordship by obeying His command to be immersed in water. There (and not before) they receive God’s promised forgiveness of sins, and there also they receive the “gift” of the indwelling Holy Spirit.
Many years of diligent study of the scriptures has led me to the honest conclusion that God saves those who have the kind of faith which leads them to repent and to be immersed in water. I appreciate the way Richard Kaffarnus said it in the March-April issue of The Sentinel, of Central Christian College of the Bible: “Baptism is not the cause of forgiveness of a person's sins. Forgiveness is caused by God's grace. Baptism is ’the time or occasion of receiving forgiveness.’”
While some of my more traditional brethren may want to censure me for participation in such as this Promise Keepers’ Conference, they would probably consider me as extreme when I share that my study has led me to the honest conviction that, while God may make exceptions and let some into Heaven who have not been baptized, He has not said He would do so. Nor has He authorized anyone to promise that He would do so! God is God, and He will do what He decides regardless of what I may say or think -- and that will be good!
I hear PK speakers often referring to God's “unconditional” love. I am not sure just what is meant by the use of this term. I do not find the term used in the Scriptures. God’s love is great, incomparable, beyond human comprehension, unfailing, but, it is NOT “unconditional.”
The value of -- the benefits of, God’s love is conditioned upon a person’s acceptance of Jesus Christ, the unique Son of God, as his or her Lord and Savior. The availability of the amazing grace of God is conditioned upon a person’s acceptance of Jesus Christ, for God has chosen “to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ” (Ephesians 1:10).
Jack's Concluding Thoughts About PK
The whole conference emphasized relationships and reconciliation. While race relationships was very definitely included, there were many other kinds of relationships considered. Man to man relationships; husband and wife relationships; father to son relationships; “Builder-Buster-Boomer” relationships; and relationship to God and the Lord Jesus Christ. Relationships need to be adjusted and reconciliations made. All of us need to be open and honest about our relationships, and seek to be reconciled.
I believe the Promise Keepers movement is being used by God to serve His purpose of challenging men to rise up and seek His will for their lives. God does not have to approve of everything a man does to use him to serve His purpose. If He did, He wouldn’t use me nor you because I am sure that He does not approve of everything we do, yet, we would like to believe He is using us in some way to accomplish His will and work! The Bible is very clear that God used even ungodly men sometimes to serve His eternal purpose!
I would like to encourage as many men as I may to take the time and spend the money it takes to be a participant in a “Promise Keepers” conference. I am convinced that doing so will make a helpful difference in your relationship with other men; with your wife; with your children; and in your relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ.
Would I go again? Definitely YES! If and when it comes to Detroit next year, I will very likely be participating.
For a differing view, Paul Moreland thinks we should
consider a 1995 “open letter”. And with it, I’ve now added other comments.
Brief Bible Study #73 from Ray Downen. Go to TOP. To go back to Viewpoint’s first page, click < here. Or here to go on to Viewpoint Study 74. For Ray’s concluding remarks, click HERE.
