Christ the Teacher, from deesis mosaic, Hagia Sophia Please read Minimizing the Bible and the Glory of Jesus Christ, by John Piper, at One Place.
"I have no desire to naively equate the cultural conglomerate of western Christianity with the true, spiritual body of Christ. I can appreciate avoiding the word "Christian" in a missions context where it signifies: degenerate, materialistic, immodest western religion. And I realize that most of the ways we "do church" are culture specific rather than biblically mandated. But there are other questions that trouble me:
"1) Are the essentials of biblical faith embraced by new converts to Christ, and do they make them known in love to others? For example, do they embrace and make known that the Bible is the only inspired and infallible written revelation of God, and that Christ is God and was crucified for sin and raised from the dead above all authority?
"2) Are the former religious behaviors of converts to Christ, which they may retain, communicating regularly a falsehood about what the convert means and believes?
"3) Are words being used by converts that mislead people rather than make the truth plain? Are missionaries and converts following Paul's commitment to candor:
but we have renounced the things hidden because of shame, not walking in craftiness or adulterating the word of God, but by the manifestation of truth commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God.
2 Corinthians 4:2
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