Sola Sisters: Why We Contend

Posted by Christine Pack

My sister and I have often lamented the fact that we have had friends separate from us over what they perceive to be as an unloving and judgmental attitude that we have about false teaching/false teachers. Our opinion? These precious (but undiscerning) women who have children who are growing up (as we do), will in all likelihood have children who go off to college, get handed a Rob Bell book by one of their "Christian" friends, and these young men/women who have been given NO doctrinal training about what false teaching is (but have instead been given a strong dose of "Judge not!") will come home at Thanksgiving break as Universalists. And their horrified mothers (our former friends) will wonder how on earth this could have happened. Well, we could solve that mystery for them! But unfortunately, they're no longer speaking to us.

"Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds; tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up." Deut 11:18-19

Friends, do you not realize that it is a war out there? It's a spiritual battle, and we need to be suited up. Spiritual warfare is not puffing up your chest, and claiming the ability to name and rebuke demons (the "demon of fear," the "demon of unbelief," etc.) No, true spiritual warfare is fighting with biblical truth against these false and worldly ideologies that are just waiting to take your children's minds captive when they go out into the world.

I was a sitting duck when I went off to just a normal, run-of-the mill liberal arts college in a sleepy college town in the Bible Belt. These worldly ideologies are EVERYWHERE. On the first day of freshman Biology class, my professor had everyone in the class who identified themselves as "Christian" to stand up. After they did so, he said, "You won't be by the end of this semester." Obviously, his implication was that sure, they may have had their heads filled by their parents or churches with mushy, sentimental religious superstitions, but now, here, they would learn Truth.

"Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and clever in their own sight." Isaiah 5:21

"For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, 'I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.' Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe." 1 Cor 1:18-21

"Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you thinks that he is wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is folly with God. For it is written, 'He catches the wise in their craftiness,' and again, 'The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile.'" 1 Cor 3:18-20

"We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ." 2 Cor 10:5

"Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming." Eph 4:14

"See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ." Col 2:8

I absolutely know that some of these former friends of mine who have separated from me are born again believers. Now, I'm talking about the parents here. What they don't recognize is how vulnerable their children are if they are not getting deep, doctrinal teaching. It's not enough just to teach children moral virtues and topical studies. They need deep teaching, and they also need to know at least some of the names and specific teachings out there that are popular among teenagers/young adults (like Rob Bell's "Christian Universalism").

Parents, if you have not prepared your children to fight back with the only weapons the Bible tells us we have - and that is Biblical truth - your children will come home on break as evolutionary closet Universalists. Start now. Before your children leave your home, get a catechism study going, do a Read-The-Bible-In-A-Year study, do a Precepts study, train your children in obedience to God's command that we train them as spiritual warriors to be able to answer back to the lies of the world with the truth of God's Word.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

Books

Bibles/Bible Study

The Stranger on the Road to Emmaus
The Stranger on the Road to Emmaus - Workbook
The Stranger on the Road to Emmaus - DVD Videobook
Lord, Teach Me to Study the Bible in 28 Days
Herein Is Love, Vol. 1: Genesis

Thursday, January 3, 2013

Why We Contend