The complete series of articles is available here. The series was released in late May and early June, 2021.
From part 3:
Let us always beware of any teaching which either directly or indirectly obscures justification by faith. All religious systems which put anything between the heavy laden sinner and Jesus Christ the Savior, except simple faith, are dangerous and unscriptural. All systems which make out faith to be anything complicated, anything but a simple, childlike dependence, — the hand which receives the soul’s medicine from the physician, — are unsafe and poisonous systems.
—J. C. Ryle, in his book Warnings to the Churches—
Key point: Southern Baptists, the gospel is being misrepresented and distorted within your own ranks, among your own paid leaders! [In particular, NAMB and SEND Network employees are departing from the path of the pure gospel.] Stand on and for biblical truth, and make sure you have leaders who willingly and readily do the same.
In our last two posts we became acquainted with Kyle Whitt, a young man who for the past two years has been involved in church planting in Washington State where he grew up. He has been partnering with the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) through its North American Mission Board (NAMB) and the SEND Network, NAMB’s church planting arm. As he went through the application process and became involved in the work, Kyle learned what NAMB and the SEND Network are expecting church planters to teach — and alarmingly, he saw a disconnect between the teachings NAMB was advocating and the Bible. Kyle sought clarification, but the responses he received only intensified his concerns.
In this final article in our series, we will explore additional evidence that Kyle’s concerns are totally valid. Further, we will highlight three conclusions he has reached in the journey that brought him to a point of publicly voicing his objections in a video he released on You Tube.
Here are brief summaries of the topics before us. As we cover them, I’ll rely on Kyle himself to present much of the content. After all, this series has been written to showcase (and to make even more understandable and accessible) the objections he has raised and the warnings he has presented. I pray Southern Baptists will carefully listen to and heed what this upcoming Christian leader is saying. Again, the topics before us are these:
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- NAMB’s claim that the gospel includes “The Great Requirement”
- Need #1: A Sense of Urgency
- Need #2: Discernment
- Need #3: Accountability
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NAMB’s claim that the gospel includes “The Great Requirement”
In light of numerous statements in the the North American Mission Board’s SEND Values booklet, the charge that NAMB is adding a requirement of works to the gospel is impossible to deny. Here we see a clear departure from the path of authentic biblical teaching, a road Southern Baptists must avoid taking. Listen to Kyle as he explains.
NAMB’s claim that the gospel includes “The Great Requirement” represents a clear departure from the path of clear biblical teaching.
This is from SEND Network’s Values Statement. It’s a booklet. It’s freely available; from Chapter 7, “RESTORATION THROUGH THE GREAT REQUIREMENT.” [A PDF file of the booklet is available from NAMB here. A PDF file of the following graphic is available here.]
Have you ever heard the saying, “Save the soul, and the rest will follow”? This unfortunately characterizes the historic actions of many American evangelicals. We’ve reduced the gospel to the Great Commission, “Go therefore and make disciples,” and the Great Commandment, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength…and love your neighbor as yourself.” Yet, in all our evangelistic zeal, we have tragically missed a key component of the gospel: restoration through the Great Requirement.
We see the Great Requirement in Micah 6:8:
Mankind, he has told each of you what is good and what it is the Lord requires of you:
to act justly,
to love faithfulness,
and to walk humbly with your God.
God requires us to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with Him. The Great Requirement does not happen separately from our commission and commandment.
I hope you can see how especially why I wanted to start with talking about Philippians, because that’s what these teachers were doing. They were bringing in the law back into the gospel. And this Values booklet — though there’s lots of true things said — in this section
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- it assumes that the Great Commandment (to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength … and love your neighbor as yourself) it assumes these [divine directives] are a part of the gospel itself. It does not say “consequence of gospel,” it does not say result of gospel.” It does not say “commandment of Christ.” But it clarifies, “the gospel” [and] “a key component of the gospel.”
- And [it] adds this “Great Requirement,” which, like the Greatest Commandments are a summation of the law.
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So we have two summations of the law added in as key components of the gospel — that the gospel does not happen [without them].
And here’s where I want to make it clear: That language — “key component of the gospel” — to attach it to that, it means the gospel does not happen without them. We’re being told that, “Oh, well, salvation of man’s souls is only a part of the gospel, is a partial gospel.” They’re making clear they’re adding these works to it.
From part 2:
Kyle has not misunderstood what the leaders at the SEND Network told him, [or what the NAMB’s SEND Network materials say]. In fact, Dhati Lewis himself (president of NAMB’s SEND Network) says the very same thing in this four-minute video.
The problem here is that NAMB, the SEND Network, and Dhati Lewis are adding to the gospel, just as Kyle Whitt has described.
Returning to part 3:
But wait! someone may object.
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- Doesn’t Micah himself, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, use a Hebrew word for require?
- Isn’t the greatest commandment to love God with all one’s being, and the second greatest commandment to love one’s neighbor as oneself, commandments — actions God expects of people?
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The answer to both of these questions is yes. Among the definitions for the Hebrew word translated require is this one: “to ask for, require, demand.” Here is the Greek word translated commandment in Mark 12:28-31, where Jesus spoke about the two greatest of all divine directives.
All of this notwithstanding, these aren’t the questions we ought to be asking. Instead, we should be asking, “Are
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- the requirements of Micah 6:8 and
- the expectations highlighted in the two greatest commands
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presented in the entirety of Scripture as a part of the gospel?” The answer to these questions clearly is No! While an individual coming to Christ naturally would love God as a part of his or her surrender to Christ, the Bible is clear that God’s conditions for being made right with Him involve recognizing who Jesus is, believing that His death is sufficient to pay for human sin, and relying on Him for forgiveness and eternal life. Other than that, no human works are involved — none.
Need #1: A Sense of Urgency
People desperately need to hear the gospel, for “it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek.” Hear that, and understand it! The good news about salvation in Christ is God’s power, not our own. We cannot, we must not, add to the simple message of the gospel, for if or when we do, we rob it of its power. Kyle explains:
Living up here in Washington State, living in an area where ten percent or less of people even claim to be some form of protestant evangelical Christian, to live in an area that, based on every statistic [is characterized by] the shrinking of the church here and the growth of the LGBT community — they’ll be more people, a higher percentage of people that identify as LGBT in my area than identify as Christian in the next ten years. No work we can do is going to change that. They’re seeking their restoration somewhere else. Nothing you can do is going to compete with that. You can’t outcompete their community.
But what you can do is give them Christ! You can show them how Christ commands us to show them that we are His disciples, and that’s [with] our love for one another within the body. We show them authentic, real community in our churches. We need to have better discipleship. We need to have better preaching and teaching.
Instead, what we’re doing right now, what we’re being taught to teach is to get in our nice boat that we have in a flood. The water is rising. People are on their roofs. They need saving, and you go around, and you’re passing out food, and you’re passing out blankets, and you’re passing out cell phones, and entertainment, and media. You’re passing out access to education and different restoration, and you’re passing out all these things. And you go, OK, you’re good now! Bye! And you sail off in your boat. Your love is hatred! Because you didn’t give them the one thing that can save them. Maybe you talk about that. Maybe you talk about how they could be saved, but then you just pile them on with stuff.
Do you love someone enough to give them the only thing — unadulterated, unconfused, unattached to other works or ideas or teachings — to give them the gospel that says that Christ, our God, came down to this earth to die on a cross, to die the death that we could not die, to pay the punishment that we could not, so that we could be restored to God for all eternity that we would not suffer in hell for all eternity for the sins that we’ve committed, the right and just punishment we deserve, but we could have it paid for? Only that can transform people.
Need #2: Discernment
J. C. Ryle, who wrote the statement presented at the top of this article, also said this:
Does any one ask me, What is the best safeguard against false doctrine? – I answer in one word, “The Bible: the Bible regularly read, regularly prayed over, regularly studied.” We must go back to the old prescription of our Master: “Search the Scriptures.” (John 5:39) If we want a weapon to wield against the devices of Satan, there is nothing like “the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God.” But to wield it successfully, we must read it habitually, diligently, intelligently, and prayerfully. This is a point on which, I fear, many fail. In an age of hurry and bustle, few read their Bibles as much as they should. More books perhaps are read than ever, but less of the one Book which makes man wise unto salvation.…A Bible-reading laity is the strength of a Church.
In the following clip, it is obvious that Kyle’s plea for discernment among Christians is rooted in Scripture, not in cultural narratives or politically correct thinking.
It shocks me. It shocks me how we switch from Hey, let’s give people that thing that literally saves them — eternally. That you’re either going to be eternally separated from God in hell, or you’re going to be eternally restored to God with Him. Instead [we say], No, that’s not big enough for me. I need these restorations here and now. I don’t think society will come to a gospel that reconciles them to God. They need to know that we’re about reconciling them emotionally, and economically.1
I don’t even know what that means. What does that mean to “restore them”? What does that mean to…? How can they be restored to anything without Christ? And once they come to Christ, what restoration is there left for us to do? Yes, we can always do a better job about building up the church, building up the community of Christ. But what “restoration” can we accomplish in our own power?
Need #3: Accountability
Finally, Southern Baptists must demand accountability of their leaders. It is unconscionable that a NAMB missionary told Kyle that NAMB had “no responsibility to be transparent,” in addition to giving him several other unacceptable responses.
In the SBC, we need to call things to account. We need to not have answers given like, Well, NAMB has no reason to be accountable to you. NAMB has no reason to answer your questions. And yes, Mr. [Dhati] Lewis was generous enough to answer some of my questions, but what he gave me was adding things to the gospel that aren’t supposed to be there.
I’ve asked questions of people in charge. I’ve sought things out. But now we need to call out these public teachings. I need to call out the public teachings in public so people know what’s going on [and] how their church planters are being trained so that we might see restoration — the restoration we actually need, which is a return to God’s Word and the gospel. And that is what I’m encouraging.
Thank you, Kyle Whitt, for sounding the alarm. May Southern Baptists listen, pray, and take appropriate action. The future of the SBC — and the rest of evangelicalism as well, for that matter — is at stake.
May God give us the courage to stand.
Here is Kyle’s video:
Copyright © 2021 by B. Nathaniel Sullivan. All rights reserved.
top image credit: Photo by Photo by Arnold N-chris on Unsplash
Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture has been taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Note:
1Emotional, economic, and social restoration are emphasized in “Restoration and the 3 Circles,” a SEND Network publication. We offered a detailed discussion about the problems with this in part 2.