Pastor Mike Dedera recently was officially ordained as a minister of the gospel by our church as a member of the Conservative Baptist Association of Churches. There were 5 other pastors, an official from the Conservative Baptist office, 4 JBC Elders and an Elders wife on the panel that examined Mike. By examine, I don’t mean like a doctor’s visit, but for 3 hours on 4 different nights the panel asked Mike all kinds of questions about his theology. When he would give an answer they would ask a follow up question, and really made him squirm and sweat, all that was missing was the bright light in his eyes. As he was grilled about what he believed I thought, every serious Christian ought to go through this. The truth is most Christians would totally fall apart and probably start crying, even the men, trying to explain what they believe and why.
The Bible prophecies that as we get closer to the end the proliferation of weird doctrines will increase dramatically and many believers who don’t know what they believe will get sucked into these false doctrines.
1 Timothy 4:1 But the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons,
Ephesians 4:14 As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine,
2 Timothy 4:3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires,
In my 8:00 am class this year I am going to teach on basic doctrines of the Bible and we will talk about systematic theology. As a result of the class you will know what you believe to be true about God, about Jesus, about the Holy Spirit, and you will know how to explain the inspiration of scripture. We will talk about spiritual gifts, about healing, the “voice of God”, and many other topics.
The class will start on my birthday, October 27, if you want you can bring me a birthday present😀
Almost every week someone will correct my grammar or spelling in my blog. I appreciate it because I want to get better at writing and grammar and spelling is a key part of communicating accurately to others. I wish that I could remember each week what I am corrected on so I didn’t have to keep learning it.
Hermeneutics is the system that we use to determine what someone meant by what they wrote. It isn’t easy with the Bible because of the time difference, of almost several thousand years at the shortest to approximately 3500 years to the longest between us who read today and those who wrote the various books in the Bible. That means many things are different, way different between the writers and the readers culture and understanding of words and their meanings. We understand that the writers were “inspired” by God through the Holy Spirit leading and prompting the various writers, and that today the Holy Spirit helps us to understand the supernatural book of the Bible, but that doesn’t negate good scholarship, study, and thought in arriving at our theology and doctrine. Our system of hermeneuticsacknowledges that the authors of the various books of the Bible didn’t write in a vacuum, but that they had a history and a culture, and wrote out of that experience from the past and present.
One of my favorite verses when it comes to interpreting the Bible is Proverbs 25:2 “It is the glory of God to conceal a matter, but the glory of kings is to search out a matter.”
In a conversation in writing with a person they asked, “where does Jesus teach about this particular topic?” and I answered, “He doesn’t“. “Well, how can it be true then?” I responded by writing, “Where does Moses teach on that subject?” They accurately responded, “I don’t think he does”. I wrote, “You are right, he doesn’t, so how can it be true then?” Their response was right on, “I don’t think Moses had to have written about a topic for it to be true”. And my response was, “ So if Moses didn’t need to teach about a topic for it to be true, why did Jesus?” I went on to write, “If you study the teaching of Jesus you will find most of it already written somewhere in the Old Testament, He was teaching what He had been taught as He grew up, an example being Jesus telling a parable in Luke 14 about not picking out a seat of honor at a banquet, which is very close to the proverb in chapter 25 of Proverbs. But did Jesus teach some brand new, never before revealed truth? Sure he did! lots of it! How about the Apostle Paul, did he teach some stuff that he had learned as a student of the Old Testament, yes he did, a lot. But did he teach some brand new, never before revealed truth as well, yes he did. You see, the Bible was written progressively, and you have to interpret it in the direction it was written.
So now we have a simple rule of hermeneutics that gets violated all of the time, “Use scripture to interpret scripture, but don’t do it backwards”, which simply means, Genesis was written before Revelations, interpret it that way.
I am teaching a class this Fall on Theology, Doctrine, and How to Rightly interpret the Bible. It starts on October 27th, will meet at 8:00 am on Sunday morning at JBC in the Discipleship Center, upstairs in room 201. You all are invited.
Because of our radio program I get a lot of questions emailed to me about the Bible and about what is taught today on the radio, television, and by various groups and churches. One of the “signs of the times” is that what is taught as Biblical Truth will get farther and farther away from the truth, but more and more attractive to the average Christian and even non-Christian.
1 Timothy 4:1 says, “But the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons,”
“Doctrines of demons”, that is an interesting phrase, meaning that demons through their influence in the lives of people get doctrines established and that many will believe them. A doctrine is a basic truth that is important, some being important enough to be required for our salvation from Hell to heaven. “Jesus is God, without beginning or ending, eternal, always has been and always will be,” is such a doctrine, but I hear teaching constantly that would teach as doctrine stuff that doesn’t agree with that at all, and people are believing it.
The Apostle Paul instructed his student, Timothy to correct those were teaching “strange doctrines” in 1 Timothy 1:3. “As I urged you upon my departure for Macedonia, remain on at Ephesus so that you may instruct certain men not to teach strange doctrines,” I hear so much taught as truth today that is “strange”, “weird”, and even “crazy”.
Ephesians 4:14 As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming;
As we grow more mature in our faith we ought to have a right, a true, and a Biblical theology or collection of doctrines that we live by and relate to God by.
I have become so concerned about the increase in weird doctrines and people’s gullibility in believing them that I am going to teach a basic doctrines class. It will be on Sunday mornings at 8:00 am at JBC in the “Discipleship Center”, upstairs in room 201. You all are invited to attend. It will start on my birthday, October 27th.
I got up at 6:00 am and walked the 50 yards up the road to the campground pit toilet. It is a pretty nice one in that the camp host keeps it clean with plenty of toilet paper. When I came out there were 3 does and 2 bucks standing 20 yards away looking at me. They didn’t get to excited, just continued to feed and walk along. I quickly walked to camp, got my bow, and binoculars and walked through the sage brush towards where I thought they would be. I spotted them about 100 yards away heading down Fish Creek, I thought for a minute about trying to get close enough for a shot, but decided that a cup of coffee, breakfast, and packing up and heading home was a better idea. We were at the Steen’s 12 days camping, and had a wonderful time. It was our celebration event for 50 years of being married, and it was a great time, just the 2 of us living in a tent. We did a lot of reading and talking, I did a lot of fishing and a little hunting, and we both are ready for another 25 years of being married together, or whatever the Lord chooses to give us.
I was on the lake in my boat when it was still pitch dark, in the perfect place on the lake to see the whole hillside coming down to the lake. I was pretty sure that the big bucks that were there the morning before would show again, and I would row over within 40 yards and get me a nice buck deer with my bow. There is a hiking trail all around the lake and just at the time I was expecting the deer to show a couple from the campground decided to have an early morning walk together around the lake, holding hands, and talking loudly. So, I did what any highly intelligent hunter would do, I started fishing, and I caught a lot of trout. The forecast is for a thunder storm here tomorrow at 11:00 am, and Thunderstorms in the Steen’s at 8,000 plus feet can be major gully washers, in fact there was a weather alert warning that showed up on my phone for the Steen’s, so we are going to get up early and be all packed and headed home by 10:30 am.
This morning I decided to get up before day light to fish on “Fish Lake” in the Steen’s Mountains. We are camped right next to it and my 10 foot pram is always in the lake ready to go when I want to fish. This morning the lake was so beautiful as I could barely see across it before the sun came up. I was doing a slow troll with a wet fly and I saw a beaver swimming across the lake and followed it with my eye as it headed to a big beaver lodge on the side of the lake. As I watched the beaver I saw two really big bucks drinking from the lake, I could hardly believe my eyes. I have been hiking all over trying to find a buck to shoot with my bow and here are 2 monsters less than 200 yards from my tent. I slowly rowed my boat towards them, and they hardly paid any attention to me, I think they thought I was a big beaver. I got within 33 yards according to my range finder and attempted a shot, but I have never shot a bow sitting down out of a boat, a very little boat before. I missed so badly he only took a few steps and stopped and I got a second shot, same story. So, I did some practicing today, and I am ready for those bucks. I plan on being on the lake in my boat at 5:30 am, I am going to have my binoculars, and I am going to glass the hill above the lake and when they head down I will be there waiting for them. Great plan! 😬😬😬😬 I am so nervous that something is going to go wrong! I will let you know tomorrow how it all turns out😳😳
Yesterday I snuck up on 5 different deer and got within 10 yards of 2, 20 yards on 2, and 40 yards on the 5th one. All of those are really good shooting distances with a bow, and I could have easily shot any one of them but I couldn’t get any of them to grow horns as hard as I tried. In the Steen’s it is bucks only so I could see and sneak up on lots of does and not come home with any meat. Even though I didn’t shoot my bow I had lots of fun with the challenge of getting close to each of the deer without them seeing, smelling, or hearing me. I was constantly checking wind direction, and looking for bushes, rocks, and trees to walk behind. One of the reasons I have hunted archery primarily for the last 55 years is because of this added challenge of getting close. I am not always as successful as I was yesterday, in fact the stories of just, almost getting close enough for a shot and having the deer or elk spook is my normal story over the years. I don’t have to catch fish to enjoy fishing, and I don’t have to kill something to enjoy hunting, which in the hunting department, is a good thing or I would have quit hunting years ago! This trip has been particularly enjoyable because of the camping being just Patty and I, the fishing has been incredible, the scenery is beautiful, the weather has been sunny but not to hot at 8,000 feet elevation, I have seen deer every time I have gone out, though just does, and I have had lots of reading, writing, and praying time. I am thinking that I will see a buck or elk this evening, maybe, you never know, we will see, I hope so, don’t you love it! It is just like life! Maybe we will, maybe we won’t, but you always keep trying, keep setting the goals and having the dreams.
This is Blitzen Gorge. I hunt on the top on the left side of the picture.
A hunter fell today in this canyon and was killed.
