I have never read a commentator like this guy.
Vincent Cheung isn't afraid to tell you what he thinks. Reacting to the notion that some unbelievers might not come to faith in Christ because of the hypocrisy of professing Christians, Cheung wrote the following:
To reject the gospel message or to apostatize from the faith because of hypocrites or church scandals is completely irrational. Perhaps those hypocrites have never been true Christians, or perhaps they have temporarily stumbled. And if you reject the gospel or apostatize because of them, then perhaps you are among the reprobates or false converts as well. What we can say for certain is that you are stupid.
Commenting on Philippians 2:14-15,
Philippians 2:14 Do all things without grumbling or questioning, 15 that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world,
Cheung writes-
Paul calls his generation of non-Christians crooked and depraved. Our own generation wants to be perceived as enlightened, liberated, open-minded, inclusive, and tolerant; however, the truth is that, like every generation of unbelievers, it is sinful, perverse,blind, indecisive, irrational, and stupid. It is not straight in its thinking and its behavior; the only solution is for us to hold forth the straight, rigid, narrow, exclusive, inflexible, and "intolerant" truth of God's word. God has no interest in "tolerating" your beliefs; rather, he commands you to repent and believe his message, and turn away from your non-Christian lifestyle and religion.
5 comments:
I believe there's a number of us who comment regularly on this blog who would speak like Mr. Cheung, except that: a.) It's not always expedient to speak like that; and b.) I don't think you would post our "regular guy" comments, pastor, for whatever reason. I can't speak for anyone else, but I know there were at least of couple of times that I sent you comments more from the heart, which were probably misunderstood by you, because you didn't post them.
BT,I post a whole lot of "regular guy" comments here. I don't reject too much, so I'm not all together sure of which you speak.
I like I said, maybe you'd just misunderstood me. Keep up the good work.
Bet ya Cheung wouldn’t get along very well with the pastor at the mega church where Baker, Nagel and Woodrow used to attend?
I teaching the youth this week’s SS lesson on the Apostle John, the Apostle whom Jesus loved. I made this observation known to the kids.
“With John’s passion for truth, the Lord was finally able to mold his overzealousness into teaching John to love Christ’s way. This was a major turning point in John’s life and his thinking. He was beginning to understand the necessary balance between truth and love.
God needs men of courage, ambition, zeal and passion, men who stand for truth. But believers who stand for truth at all costs, must be tempered in Christ’s AGAPE love. Because if you can’t speak words of truth in love, then you shouldn’t speak words at all. Truth without love has no decency; it’s just brutality. On the other hand, words without truth have no character, it’s just hypocrisy.
In today’s “feel-good” church movement there is a plenty of talk about love and tolerance, acceptance and understanding, but with all these flowery words, if they lack concern for truth they mean nothing. Words of love without truth are just a loud gongs! When you love people you tell them the truth!
God wants His followers to cultivate both virtues, love spoken in truth and truth spoken in love.
The Woodyism of the day! Words of Love verses words of Truth:
“I spoke words of truth, that begin the bruise; the words were clear but brought forth fear; they tore with pain and the hurt remained; It was a chore but I won the war; with no surprise I spoke no lies, but the pain remained until I proclaimed, words that shove never speak love; so think as you speak and love while you reach; so don’t be a cheat, with words you repeat; words that retreat will bring you defeat.”
"Let us assume for the moment that although all are spiritually dead, some would in fact respond to the gospel in faith by themselves. But this would mean that spiritually dead people require no special grace from God to make the most important spiritual decision in their lives. How then do we explain why one spiritually dead person would accept Christ, while another spiritually dead person fails to do the same? Does it not follow that those who are able to make the positive spiritual decision are more righteous than those who do not? If so, then we will have to say that Christ came to save only the relatively righteous individuals, and not the relatively sinful ones. However, this contradicts the premise of the whole gospel." Vincent Cheung
However, perhaps in this context what Cheung does not mention here is that apart from God's Grace and the Holy Spirit regenerating us to faith in Christ alone, we are just that stupid.
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