In the Book of Acts, Luke recorded Paul’s farewell message to the elders of the church at Ephesus. Paul had spent three years in Ephesus and had developed very tight bonds with the leaders in the church there. Paul shared with them that he would not see them again this side of heaven. There were, of course, tears and emotional embraces as Paul sailed away. In his final words, Paul declared, “Therefore, I declare to you today that I am innocent of the blood of any of you. For I have not hesitated to proclaim to you the whole will of God” (Acts 20:26-27, emphasis added). The ESV translates the passage as the whole council of God.
We live in a day when not every church peaches the whole counsel of God. They preach part of his counsel…usually the parts that put no demand on the believer. They may preach consistently on the blessings of being a follower, but skirt the promises of persecution and suffering that are also attached to following Jesus. They may preach on heaven but rarely, if ever, mention hell. They may preach on God’s abundant grace for all sinners, but never mention his commands to live holy and righteous lives, They may teach on prosperity but avoid the passages that warn about the danger of riches and the demand for generosity from those who have been entrusted with much. They may preach on love and acceptance and fly a rainbow flag, but fail to mention the biblical truth that adulterers, fornicators, and practicing homosexuals will not enter the kingdom. As the old axiom goes, we should love the sinner, but hate the sin. If we leave one side of that proposition out, we are missing the mark.
Of course, a hundred years ago, many churches preached fire and brimstone and said little about grace. They preached right actions but neglected having a right heart. Any one at any time can focus on one narrow truth in scripture while neglecting the rest.When I first became a believer in my early twenties, I was part of a very conservative, Bible believing fellowship. They placed a huge emphasis on right doctrine and questioned whether you could be saved unless all your doctrinal ducks were in a row. Under their influence, I believed that the danger was only on the left or “liberal” part of the road.
Later, I recognized there is a ditch on both sides of the highway. Too far to the left can lead to disastrous outcomes, but so can going too far to the right. On the left, we may find rejection of biblical doctrines, compromise with the culture, and doubts about the resurrection. On the right, we can fall into a modern-day Pharisee-ism that demands perfection and promotes spiritual pride. Either way, we can wander from the truth of God’s word to a point that it may place our souls in danger. We are all prone to wander because we are imperfect people. Knowing our propensity to do so, we should put up some spiritual guardrails to, at least, keep us on the pavement. One of those guardrails is teaching and preaching the whole counsel of God.
If I preach on heaven, I need to also preach on hell. If I preach love and tolerance, I also need to preach righteous living and to call those who are living outside the lines to repentance for their soul’s sake. If I preach on having a positive self-image, I also need to preach that my value comes from Jesus, not all my own amazing qualities.
In Paul’s first letter to Timothy, he warned, “The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron” (1 Tim. 4:1-2). The warning is that demons will influence teachers in the church to proclaim and preach things that lead people away from Christ instead of drawing them near. One of the most effective tools in the enemy’s belt is teaching part of the truth without preaching the rest. Remember, a ditch lies on both sides of the road.
Does God want us to value ourselves? Of course, he does. We are made in his image. Christ died for us. We are the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. He loves us immeasurably. But that is not an invitation to put ourselves and our needs before everyone else under the banner of, “I have to love myself, before I can love others.” That is true, but only to a point. The guardrail is the other passages that call on us to place the needs of others before our own, be the servant of all, and avoid pride at all costs.
Another reason the whole counsel of God is important is because there is often tension between two truths that keep us centered. Susan and I have a late model Highlander with computerized functions for keeping us in the center of a lane by the steering tugging us back to the middle if we wander or notifying us with an annoying beep if we begin to wander into another lane. Those functions have been added because staying centered is important to our safety and the safety of others.Sometimes there seems to be tension between grace which covers our sins and the demands of scripture to be holy as He is holy. In speaking about grace, Paul asked, “Should we sin all the more that grace may abound?” His rhetorical response was, “By no means.” On the one hand, the blood of Christ covers our sins, yet God disciplines those he loves who are wallowing in sin. On one side, we are to love the sinner and judge not. On the other side, we are to stand up for God’s standards of righteousness and condemn sin. These biblical positions and others, create a tension that keeps us centered if we are aware of and committed to the whole counsel of God.
We are all created to be unique and we are all wired in different ways. Because of that, we are drawn to different aspects of the gospel. Some of us view life through a black and white lens, while others see shades of gray. The black and white believer will be drawn to the prophetic injunction, “This sayeth the Lord! Turn or burn!” The shades of gray folks will be drawn to, “judge not lest ye be judged.” Some think with their heads, while others think with their hearts. Both are valid perspectives created by God, but both need to be informed by the whole counsel of God. There is a time to strongly condemn, as Jesus did with the Pharisees, and a time to pour out grace as he did with the woman caught in adultery.
Many times, people find a scripture that appeals to their personal world view and that becomes their theological guidepost. For instance, Jesus said, “Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours” (Mk. 11:24). If you take that as your standard of prayer, that seems to place God under your control as he is required to give you anything you want, if you just have enough faith. But if we consider the whole counsel of God on prayer, we discover, “This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us” (1 Jn. 5:14 -15, emphasis added). The whole counsel of God informs us that when we ask, it must be according to God’s will or consistent with God’s will, if we are to expect to receive what we are asking for.
I knew a young Christian single woman years ago who was involved with a married man. She was praying that the man would leave his wife and children for her and did not understand why her prayer wasn’t being answered. She was angry with God for not meeting her demand of faith. I asked her why she thought God would answer that prayer. Her response was, “Because God wants me to be happy, and that would make me happy.” However, her prayer was not consistent with God’s will on several levels. Does God want his children to be happy? Yes, but he also wants us to be holy and true happiness is only found in holiness.
It is important in our personal study to seek to know everything God has said about a certain topic or issue before deciding where we will stand. It is important to be part of a church that preaches and teaches the whole counsel of God rather than ignoring huge patches of scripture because they don’t fit our personal leanings or preconceptions about God.There are churches that believe God only speaks through his written word. Little is said about the Holy Spirit or hearing from God through his Spirit, although the scriptures from Genesis to Revelation reveal God speaking to his people directly, through dreams and vision, and even via angels, apart from the written Word. They have a preconceived view about how God operates in the modern world that seems to filter out or explain away all scriptures to the contrary, They miss out on all the Spirit, the leading of the Spirit, and the power of the Spirit have to offer.
Other churches, are so focused on the Spirit that personal experiences carry more weight than the Word of God. The Holy Spirit is honored much more than Jesus, even though Jesus said the Spirit would come to testify about Jesus (Jn. 15:26). A Spirit emphasis without a Word emphasis often leads to a weirdness that makes Jesus unattractive to unbelievers.
Healthy churches maintain a balance between Word and Spirit and get there by teaching the whole counsel of God. I personally like textual sermons and studies because they take whole books and go through them verse by verse rather than “cherry picking” things from scripture they already agree with. In that way, they are sure to encounter the whole counsel of God. That is not the only way to preach or study, but we need to be careful to present all that God has to say about topics or issues we are addressing.
Satan loves to lie and a half truth is a lie. I don’t think most preachers and teachers do that with intent, but we are all prone to promote the part of a truth we are most comfortable with. Doctrine does matter. What we believe to be true shapes our world and even filters out other truth if we believe we already know all of God’s will. God’s word is truth – all of God’s word – and should be the basis of our personal world view and our approach to the throne of God. In extreme cases, our eternal destiny will be determined by what we believe, even as followers of Jesus.
The church in Jerusalem had Jewish Christians who still taught and believed that a person could not be saved unless they were circumcised according to the Law of Moses. For them, salvation consisted of Jesus + circumcision. Paul declared that their “gospel” was another “gospel,” because it added circumcision to grace and implied that the blood of Jesus was not enough to save. Paul, in his usual tactful way, declared that anyone who preached any other gospel than the one he had declared in Galatia should be “eternally damned” (Gal. 1:6-9).
I am not saying we all have to be in lock step with one another about everything scripture says. There are going to be some matters we disagree on and Paul says that is fine (See Romans 14). There are scriptural views that are not salvation issues…end times, worship styles, whether to celebrate Christmas or not, etc. However, doctrines about Christ…his deity, his sinless life, his death, his resurrection, and salvation by grace rather than any works are salvation issues that must be informed by the whole counsel of God.
I just want to encourage you today to look for all God has to say about any issue. Be part of a church or group that does the same. Remember, there is a ditch on both sides of the road and some of those ditches are deep.
