Have you Not Read S2E9 - Ecumenical Endeavors

Welcome to Have You Not Read, a podcast seeking to answer questions from the text of scripture for the honor of Christ and the edification of the saints. Before we dig into our topic, we humbly ask you to rate, review, and share the podcast.

Thank you.

I'm Dylan Hamilton, and with me are.

Michael Durham.

David Chaston.

Chris Kessler.

Whether Christians May Pray With Those Who Worship a False Jesus

We have yet another question from one of our listeners. This time, I hope he doesn't mind me mentioning him, but Joe DeForest sent in a question. Should Christians enter into prayer with people who believe in slash worship of false Jesus, such as Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons?

Michael, would you like to start us off?

So I think a key term there is joining in, but then how are you joining in? Are you joining in with in prayer? Are you claiming some sort of common spiritual faith with one another because we are similar in certain areas?

We can appeal to God to be on our side this particular issue. Now, obviously, we need to make some distinctions. There are various ways to cooperate with people towards good ends, but how we do that matters a great deal.

So in regards to, let's say, a situation where there's a group of people outside of an abortion mill, okay, and let's say we have Roman Catholic, we say we have a, you know, this is gonna turn into a joke, a Roman Catholic, a Mormon, and a Baptist.

Outside of an abortion mill, wow.

Yeah, exactly, and then, of course, the charismatic comes up and says, we need to start this with prayer, let's go to war.

Or a shofar.

Yes, yes, and wants to start in this prayer meeting, and hopefully there's some consternation somewhere stirring in the heart of the Baptist who's present and says, I don't really think that we all believe the same way.

You know, that's the first thing the person is thinking, while at the same time, but we all believe that babies should not be killed here, and these beliefs are based out of religious convictions, but I don't believe in the same gospel as this Roman Catholic, and I know I definitely don't believe in the same God as this Mormon.

Yeah, it's the same gods as the Mormon, and I'm never quite sure what this charismatic believes, and so I don't know what to do. You know, does the Baptist say, excuse me, I have to go check my email, you know, and wander off while the charismatic leads the Mormon and the Roman Catholic to praise Jesus?

What do you do? Like, that's the practical situation. I've been in some situations that are not too dissimilar from that, if you're trying to cooperate with people that are in agreement with you concerning cultural issues, but have different beliefs about God, have different understandings of who Christ is.

So certainly, we need to think biblically about this situation. There are other situations besides the abortion, by the way. What other situations can we think of in our culture today wherein we may find ourselves on the same side with people who believe different things about God?

Well, you could say, you know, size, scope of government, you know, tax policy. So maybe you have someone who is diametrically opposed to you, let's say an atheist, and they do believe that government should be limited in scope and clearly defined.

I would agree that government should be limited in scope and clearly defined. You heathen?

I was a fair man.

So also, we see that expressed concerns from families at school board meetings concerning what is being taught in the schools, Muslim families, even pagan families who have a different set of values. You have these videos that we've seen of Muslim men and suburban women basically protesting the same types of abominations in their schools.

And if we sat down and interviewed these men and these women, we would discover that the Muslims believe in a God that is foreign to the scriptures, a false God. And we would discover that these suburban women also don't have any use for the God of the Bible either.

Right?

So what kind of participation would we see ourselves having? What kind of support would we offer? The church is the pillar and the ground of the truth. There is, we're to be the salt and light. And this does not mean, this does not mean that we pretend like we all worship the same God.

And this is the only way that we can unify and move forward. We need to be able to take advantage of the opportunity that's been afforded us. What a rich opportunity we have in front of us. Let's go back to the abortion bill.

We need to be able and be prepared to say, I don't really think that everybody here believes the same. I do believe in prayer, but we don't pray to the same God. I think it's fair to say that. And I would be disrespectful to my Mormon neighbor here if I pretended that he and I believed in the same God.

I would be disrespectful for him and putting words in his mouth. And that would be a lie.

Because that's exactly what you would be implying if you join hands with someone who is of a truly a different faith. Prayer, the implications that you're all praying basically to the same thing. You're all kind of one.

Right.

And I would also be disrespecting my Roman Catholic neighbor over here. Because whereas I believe that I am directly represented by Christ before the Father, my Roman Catholic neighbor over here does not have that direct representation before God.

So I would be disrespecting this person in terms of how they understand what prayer is. So I agree with the importance of prayer. And I agree that if this abortion bill is gonna be shut down, it's gonna be by the power of God.

So I'm in agreement with all that. But it's okay to acknowledge that we have differences here.

And just as an observation, over the past, I guess, 50 to 100 years, if you'd have a priest, a Mormon, and a Baptist pastor, they wouldn't have any problems understanding those distinctions 100 years ago, right?

We've given into the lie of this pluralism or neutrality on everybody's fronts. Like we, I think maybe the people sometimes who have the best understanding of distinctions that are left are Muslims that we see in our communities.

And they understand that there's those separations even though that it has infiltrated in that community as well. But we do see that confusion, whereas used to it was basically understood, hey, you're here trying to get to the same ends, but they wouldn't be praying together 100 years ago, would they?

No.

Now consider an example from the scriptures when Paul finds himself in a hostile situation for the sake of the gospel. He's been falsely accused, he's put on trial, he's been brought before a council of Jews, a ruling Jewish men.

And he is trying to stand up for the gospel. And he realizes all of a sudden in this room of people that they're all hostile to him, that there are Sadducees and Pharisees in the same room.

Here we go.

And he understands the differences of their beliefs. Now, Paul, of course, was a trained Pharisee, but he's no longer a Pharisee. Remember in Philippians how he has taken that designation, that credential and thrown it onto the pile of everything else that's just dung to him now because Christ is everything to him.

And so he's no longer a Pharisee. He's not claiming that, but he understands Pharisees and Sadducees. And he's in the middle of this hostile situation for the sake of the gospel. What does he do? Well, he says, brethren, I'm on trial today for the hope of the resurrection, which is true, which the Pharisees very much believed in and the Sadducees very much denied.

Now all of a sudden the Pharisees and the Sadducees are at each other. And in the chaos that erupts, Paul has an avenue out for the continued furtherance of the gospel. I find that very interesting.

He's for throwing spiritual Molotov cocktails.

Absolutely.

Philosophical grenades.

Yeah.

Yeah, so in this case, sometimes when we're in a situation, we need to recognize that Paul was willing to employ an affinity with the Pharisees. The Pharisees didn't have the gospel. Okay, they didn't.

But he was willing to employ an affinity with the Pharisees to further a cause, which was ultimately for him preaching the gospel. And so two groups that were in opposition to the gospel ultimately were all of a sudden set at odds for one another.

And the advance of the gospel was the outcome. In this situation, if we were at a school board meeting and there was a bunch of Muslims protesting against the abominations being taught in the schools, it might be helpful at some point to stand up and say something from Moses about sexual immorality, something from the Old Testament.

Which they would respect.

Yes, and maybe even say something about how the people on the school board and the teachers in the school system itself was trying to destroy Muslim culture. They're anti-Muslim. They hate Muslims, right?

Because they do, right? It's true, they do. And the fact that Muslims have these traditional morals and that the school is trying to completely undo all of it, that needs to be brought up. And it's one of those wonderful moments of confusion that happens over and over again where liberals have been taught they're supposed to be pro-Muslims.

And they try to be pro-Muslim and the Muslims are like, you guys are horrible. That happens more than once. But it's a wonderful opportunity for confusion. It's a blind spot. So as soon as you point out that they hate foreign cultures, that they're anti-immigrant, right?

This school board is anti-immigrant. They hate Muslims. They hate Muslim culture. That would be a moment to throw a Molotov cocktail into the midst of it. Why would that be legitimate to do in terms of destabilizing a pagan governmental education system?

Well, that is the good end. You do want to destabilize a pagan governmental institution because that allows for, as in Paul's case, the advancement of the gospel. It gives you an opportunity to fill that void.

That doesn't mean that you're trying to join in partnership with your Muslim neighbor as we have the same values, we don't. Are there aspects of that culture that we would disagree with and that we would undermine and that the gospel does undermine?

Well, yes. But family values is one of it. And it's an opportunity to say, look, we do share this, but it's okay to identify, and it's good to identify these distinctions because Paul does. And you even alluded to it.

It's actually quite respectful to these people. He says, not only do we acknowledge the differences, here's what they are. I know you and you know me. That's something that the liberal synergist just cannot understand.

It's all the same, and we need to make sure that it's just different flavors, but it's all ice cream. And I'll be really happy when it all kind of melts down and it is properly kept in its corner so the grownups can handle the real stuff of educating your children.

No.

Yeah, it's the lie of paganism is this great oneness where everything has to come together. We live in this pagan oneness type of culture. But time and again, when you're reading the scriptures, when God wants to take down the enemies of his people, what does he do?

He divides them against themselves, right? He divides them against themselves. And this is something where we see that God does this in his sovereignty. He's doing it with the feminists and the lesbians and the trans movements within the paganism of our day.

They're all at each other already. And it is not unchristian to simply point out those facts and say, you all hate each other. You all hate each other. This isn't working. So in that sense, honesty is a better policy than some sort of fake ecumenicalism where we're pretending we're all praying to the same God.

We need to acknowledge that there are differences, there are distinctions. That's half the battle, right? Acknowledging that there are distinctions. The reason why I'm here, okay, the reason why I'm here is because Christ is king, right?

I remember sitting with somebody who was very committed to social justice who would very much so think that there'd be no difference between generosity and justice, right? Doing anything kind for anybody was righteousness and justice.

So for them, they didn't wanna make any distinction between generosity and justice, Tim Keller style, to the point where they would define peacemaking, the blessing of the peacemakers. Peacemaking to them was visiting the elderly and giving food to the hungry.

This is where, again, your hermeneutic matters. All their concepts are just messed up. And I found myself in a position where I'm co-laboring with them on a project to be kind to people in the local area, okay?

I just straight up look at them and I tell them, look, we're not doing this in the name of justice. This is pure mercy. We just wanna be kind to people. Has nothing to do with justice. We just wanna let you know that.

Moving forward. Now we co-labor for a while until they find somebody who thinks more like they do. But the point is, look, I wanna help people. I wanna be generous to people. But this is not justice, folks.

This is grace. This is benevolence. This is mercy. And we just gotta be able to make those distinctions and say what's going on here. And that way we get to witness to Christ.

If only they knew the things that made for peace.

Yeah.

So one of the things I'm thinking about here, we're talking about two captured institutions. We're talking about two soul-destroying institutions.

Yes.

As some of the options or some of the counsel we can give to these people who are struggling with these things, hey, if you convince one of those girls not to go into that abortion mill and you don't have resources, send her to me.

If you don't want your kids continuing to go to this wretched institution, send them to me and I can teach them Beowulf, arithmetic, all these other things. So we can give these people options or we can create options for them whereas they don't really have to.

And we can save their kids from going to the slaughter, in a sense. Or these women from going to slaughter their own children if we provide other resources on the backside of that. And like you said, it's a mercy thing.

It's not a justice thing that we're looking to do either.

But every time you have this moment of, hey, let's all just come together and pray to the same God. Here's a Jew and a Muslim and a Christian and a Mormon and we're all gonna, let's all have our moment of praying to our creator God as a woman, amen.

Amen, all women.

Yeah, the whole ecumenical nonsense. In those moments, it is our duty to not be ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ, to not hide and cower, but to make that moment a clarifying moment.

One of the verses that comes to mind for me is friendship with the world is enmity towards Christ. It doesn't mean we can't be kind. It doesn't mean we can't be respectful. But ultimately we're betraying the one true God when we say these other gods have an equal place, that they're just as valid a way.

Yeah, in the paganism in which we live, there is this loss of language, the loss of distinctions. But the Bible gives us these wonderful terms. We're not supposed to be friends with the world, but we are neighbors with the world.

And how we treat a neighbor is different than how we treat a friend. In our world today, that almost sounds crazy. You know, everybody's supposed to be your friend. We probably have plenty of devotions on K-Fluff about that.

Everybody you meet is supposed to be your friend. Well, that's not the case. Friendship with the world is enmity with God. But we are to recognize everyone as our neighbor. Right, that is Christian. But we need to live with those distinctions.

And the wonderful thing about those distinctions is every time we have to say, actually, to be clear, and every one of those moments is an opportunity to testify to Christ.

Yeah.

Earlier in talking about this, Andrew had brought up 2 Corinthians 6 .14, do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers, for what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness, or what fellowship has light to do with darkness?

And I mean, several words stick out there, but unequally yoked. I mean, we've got the one true gospel, and they're coming with water pistols. What they're trying to do is not to get to the heart of the issue, but to deal with the symptoms.

Or in other words, the only way to truly live out the gospel is to use taxpayer money to fund projects, right? That would be unequally yoked with a pagan state, where, you know, really, you need that?

You know, actually, you don't need that, you know?

Yeah, I think it was James Madison who said that charity is not the duty of the legislative government. So somebody listening to this practically, one, understand those distinctions, and it is biblical to identify them.

Two, recognize that your goal is the advancement of the gospel. Everything that we're doing is for that, which means you do have to interact with people, but you don't compromise on the truth. But I'd like you to really work through those category distinctions.

In one case, we're partnering with prayer, giving the impression that we're all praying to the same God, which we are not. Well, you have prayer, but then you are partnering with someone closely on a joint project.

You might be able to, depending on the person, you might be able to do that. You might be able to say, look, we have a distinction here. This is mercy, this is not justice. We are extending mercy to our neighbors with the goal of advancing the gospel of Christ.

This is why we're here, which is, there's another category of, you just happen to be working in an office. Are you working towards the same goal of producing this widget? Well, yes. So those, I think, yes, you should understand the distinctions, and yes, you're trying to advance the gospel, but there are different categories in which you're working with people.

And I don't want to paint it with too broad a brush, but it does seem like prayer, close working partnership in a nonprofit, and then working in a large corporation or working in the grocery store. Those do tend to have some category distinction.

I want to make sure we flesh that out so people listening to this know in which category they're asking these questions.

Yes, so it comes down to, the people you're working with are made in God's image. So we're all made in God's image, and there are some things that you're gonna be involved with that, again, are you working and laboring, trying to earn the paycheck, support your family, and you have quality business that will last, so you're investing in that, and so on and so forth.

Working in a nonprofit or doing some sort of mercy mission to people who are in need. When you're out there laboring, made in God's image, redeemed by Christ, next to somebody who's made in God's image who doesn't know Christ, you are laboring together, but you have an additional layer of what's going on.

You're testifying to the kingship of Christ in what you do. You're showing them what it looks like to actually live a real human life, with real human values and desires and passions and joy, and when you go out and do anything with a fellow human being, you should be declaring what real humanity is in light of who Christ is.

You always have this compelling opportunity to speak to outsiders, your speech seasoned as though with grace, like with salt, so that you're continually calling people to the light of Christ through the way that you labor and through the way that you speak.

This is different, right? This is different than engaging in some kind of confessional worshiping act, because, for instance, our brother Tim Cassie, who went around for years and strengthened the churches on the front lines and did documentaries and shows the expansion of the kingdom of God in hard places, how did he get into all these restricted countries?

He was doing statistic research for the State Department because he had a friend who was a senator. That's how he got into those places. And yeah, he did his work, he did his labor, he collected data for the State Department, and then he went around to all the churches and visited the people and was encouraged by them and encouraged them and sent word back to us and other people about how God is spreading his church.

He was riding over there on the State Department's ticket. How many people in the State Department did Tim Cassie deal with and engage with as a Christian and influence them, but that was his vehicle over there?

How did Paul get to Rome?

He was a Roman citizen, used it.

Yeah, and he was escorted by Roman soldiers. And they were all on a ship one time and they were having some problems. And of course, they're all crying out to their false gods, but when it came time for Paul's moment to have a really big impact, he prayed not with them, but for them, didn't he?

And he told them the truth of God. He told them what was gonna happen. He told them nobody should abandon ship, right? Here's how it's gonna happen. See, there was his moment. They were all in the endeavor of surviving, right?

They were all in it together in that storm. They were all trying to get to Rome. They had all these different gods and different priorities, but there was a moment where Paul was able to pray for them and to lead them into the truth of who God is.

So we don't have to worry about those kinds of partnerships, right? Paul used Roman roads to get the gospel of Jesus Christ to the known world. And we can use Roman roads equivalent today.

The internet.

Yeah, we can use the internet. The internet's dirty and filthy. Well, so were Roman roads, but they are to be used for the glory of Christ. So that's a qualitative difference than standing alongside someone and pretending that we're all praying to the same God.

Like the difference between an open mic at a school board meeting where anyone can have your say, you don't have to denounce everything that was said before you because it puts you in partnership with them versus a organized event for some ecumenical project.

Yeah, so a school board meeting is in the World Council of Churches and being able to recognize that.

Closing Reflections and Thanksgivings

All right, well, I think that about wraps us up on that subject for the day. So Michael, what are we thankful for?

I am thankful for the energy to work. I'm thankful for energy, the inclination, and a mind to work. Thankful for the gift of work. So it's all from the Lord and just grateful for those opportunities.

I am thankful that I have just completed my time with my previous company. I am very thankful for that time and I'm in a little bit of a transition period until I can start up with my new job, which has given me a lot of time to catch up on other things, projects at home, work on the cars.

I'm getting antsy now and I wanna clean out the garage and all sorts of stuff. So it's a nice time of refreshment. I'm not working, I'm just doing those jobs that I really have been wanting to do but haven't had the time.

This is the satisfaction that comes with work and it is work for the family, it's work for the house. It's something that benefits those that are in my sphere and those that God has given to me, those I have responsibility for and I wanna make sure I use this transition time to be able to do those things.

So I'm very thankful for the time at home that I'll have before I start up my new job and I wanna use it well, that it's a time for good work.

Amen, Chris.

I'm thankful for co-laborers, Christian Brothers, which is like iron sharpening iron. It's nice to be in a group of men that are doing that and a church that's doing that and I'm thankful to see it even in other places, just having co-laborers that God has put in my path.

It's like, how did you even get here? But yeah, you're worshiping the same God, we have the same message, I'm glad you're here with me. So I'm grateful for those opportunities.

Amen, I'm gonna piggyback off of you and I'm thankful for that as well but that it's ever expanding right now. We're trying to get more guys in, we're trying to get more voices on, doing different things here with the podcast, trying to get some interviews but I'm glad that we're trying to expand as much as we can with the bounty of gifts that the Lord has given to us in this church at Sunnyside.

And that wraps it up for today. We are very thankful for our listeners and hope you will join us again as we meet to answer common questions and objections with Have You Not Read.