What Is The Ancient-Future?

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Welcome to Search the Scriptures Daily, a radio ministry of The Berean Call featuring Dave Hunt and T. A. McMahon.     I’m Gary Carmichael, thanks for joining.   Coming up today’s broadcast in our Understanding the Scriptures segment, Dave and Tom will conclude their in-depth study of the Book of Acts, and “Paul Continues His Ministry to the Gentiles.”   In Religion in the News: “Navigating the Road Map to Peace.” We’ll take a look at that story and examine the question:   “What is the Most Amazing Thing about God?” We hope you can stay tuned. Our ministry, The Berean Call, offers a wide variety of teaching materials, including books, tracts, audio and video disks, and copies of our weekly broadcast on compact disk or DVD.   You may also subscribe to our monthly newsletter, which we offer free of charge.   We’ll let you know how to order later in the program.   Now, this week’s Cover Article.   Tom and Dave continue their new series of programs addressing the spiritual movement known as “The Emerging Church.”   This week we focus on the question, “What Is the Ancient Future?”   Along with Dave Hunt, here’s T. A. McMahon.

Tom:

Thanks, Gary .   You’re listening to Search the Scriptures Daily, a program in which we encourage everyone who desires to know God’s truth to look to God’s Word for all that is essential for salvation and living one’s life in a way that is pleasing to Him.   We have for a number of weeks now in this first segment of our program been discussing the Emerging Church Movement, and as we noted, it’s had a phenomenal influence among both conservative and liberal churches here and abroad and particularly among young adults.   One of our chief concerns has been its treatment of the scriptures which it aggressively undermines regarding inerrancy, its complete sufficiency and its authority.   And, last week we went over ways in which the subversion of the Bible is taking place in this movement and other developments in the Church that are very much connected to it.   How we’re told that “thus saith the Lord,” or the words of God, are a collection of myths gleaned from pagan nations and presented in the Book of Genesis, or how God’s instructions have been denigrated by promoting it as a book of spiritual and poetic platitudes that one can take or leave, depending on how he or she feels about any particular verse.   Or….

            Dave:

Tom, you’re saying that evangelicals, or people who call themselves evangelicals, are taking this attitude toward the Bible?

            Tom:

Dave, we gave the quotes, people can check the programs, our past programs, this is unbelievable but it’s true!

            Dave:

Wow, of course I know this, but Tom, when you say it again it just—well, it’s worse than bad, it’s horrible!   What does this do to the faith of the young person growing up in these fellowships?   Tom, you have often quoted, “to the law and to the testimony, if they speak not according to this Word there is no light in them” and of course, this is Isaiah:8:20To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them..   So, where do we go?   We call this program, “Search the scriptures daily.” What’s the point of searching the scriptures if these are just ancient myths that have been doctored up?   And yet we’ve mentioned, this is in the Renovaré Spiritual Formation Bible, this is what Eugene Peterson has done in his so-called The Message and it is widely promoted throughout the so-called evangelical church now.

            Tom:

Exactly!   Now Dave, it is shocking to me—I spent 30 years as a Roman Catholic, and there were some Evangelicals who challenged me in terms of my beliefs.   And now I’ve become, I’m set free from the bondage of Rome , and I’m given the Word of God, and encouraged by evangelicals to “get into the Word, study the Word” and I do.   And now I find, and we’re going to see this with regard to, not only The Emerging Church—jumping ahead of myself—but something called, “ancient future faiths” we’re going to see how that directs evangelicals back to Rome .   It’s unbelievable!   But just a point that you made last week about prophecies—Dave.   Prophecies now, you know how important prophecies are, I mean, you probably have spoken more about that than anything with regard to your ministry, how important prophecy is.   As I said, we spoke about it last week, but now prophecies are not what you think, Dave, not what you’ve been teaching about.   They have nothing to do with future events, we are told, they need to be seen in a cultural context of the time when the prophecies were given.   And now, we look, for example, the Book of Revelation, those prophecies—95% of the Book of Revelation have to do with prophecies, future prophecies, things yet to be fulfilled.   Yet, we are to see that as just kind of spiritual ideas that we apply to our lives today, and so on.   So they are denigrating, they are destroying, for many people out there, their faith in the Word of God.  

            Dave:

Tom, let me put it like this, and I’ve said it many times but it’s worth saying again.   The proof that God gives us for his existence and that the Bible is his Word is prophecy.   Christians, creationists debating evolutionists—I have never yet heard a Christian give THE proof that God gives.   Isaiah:46:9Remember the former things of old: for I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like me, and 10 for example, God says, just paraphrasing it:   I will tell you what’s going to happen before it happens, and I’ll watch over history to make certain that it does, and when it does you will have to acknowledge that I am God, and that this Book is my Word!   Or if you want to look at Isaiah:48:5I have even from the beginning declared it to thee; before it came to pass I shewed it thee: lest thou shouldest say, Mine idol hath done them, and my graven image, and my molten image, hath commanded them., God said, basically, I am just paraphrasing it now:   I’m not gong to let you give credit to your idols, they can’t tell the future—I will tell you the future.   Tom, it is all through the Bible.   Israel is God’s sign.   Everything that is happening in the Middle East today, and is going to happen over there, and we know where it’s going because of what God has said, it is all foretold in the Bible.   And in Isaiah:43:10Ye are my witnesses, saith the LORD, and my servant whom I have chosen: that ye may know and believe me, and understand that I am he: before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me., God says to Israel :   You are my witnesses, to yourselves and to the world that I am God.   Okay, and Tom, not only the Emerging Church that we are talking about, and some of these horrible, so-called translations of the Bible, but let me just give one example.   We have the Calvinists, and I won’t launch off on to Calvinists, but we have the Reformed churches, Reformed Theology, and they say that all of this prophecy has already been fulfilled.   For example, they go so far as to say that all of the promises given to Israel pertaining to the land and so forth, God never promised Israel a piece of land over there anyway, but if he did, all of the promises were fulfilled in the days of Joshua.   Okay, let me just give you one quick quote:   Jeremiah:23:7Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that they shall no more say, The LORD liveth, which brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt;, God says:   The day is coming when it will no longer be said: Blessed be the Lord who brought forth his people out of Egypt, but blessed be the Lord who brought back his people from all the nations whither he had scattered them.   Now what are you going to do with that?   They hadn’t been scattered anywhere in Joshua’s day.   Brought them back?   No, that did not happen in Joshua’s day.   What did happen in Joshua’s day they came out of Egypt into this Promised Land.   And what does that tell us?   We’ve got Israel today, brought back into their land from more than 100 nations where they had been scattered.   Is that not a proof that God is the God of prophecy and that the Bible is his Word?   And I could give you dozens of such prophecies.   And these people say oh, this is just poetic.

            Tom:

Right.   Dave, when we know, with regard to Calvinism, some Calvinists, they have a different eschatology, not all would be replacement theologists or amillenialists and so on.   But let me give you another example of what we are talking about with regard to prophecy, our theme verse for this ministry, Acts:17:11These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so..   Here you have the Bereans, those in the Greek city of Berea , the apostle comes to them.   What message did Paul have for these Bereans and these Jews in the synagogue in the Greek city of Berea ?   Well, he’s preaching the Messiah.   He’s telling them that Jesus is the fulfillment of prophecy.   And what does it say about these Bereans?   It says they search the scriptures daily to see if what he was saying was true.   So, prophecy is critical across the board for evangelizing, for ministering, for teaching, for preaching, and so on.   Yet, it’s being dumped, basically.

            Dave:

Tom, let me just go over it very quickly again.   Romans chapter 1, Paul says, “I’m an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God.”   How do we know it’s the gospel of God?   He says it very clearly, “Which he promised afore by his prophets in the Holy Scriptures.”   Now, you’re going to throw out prophet—well, I guess the gospel is just kind of poetic, we couldn’t really be sure!   Tom, this is trashing the Bible, this is pulling the rug out from under the greatest proof that God gives us that He exists.

            Tom:  

You know, Dave, a number of these Emerging Church pastors have bought into this stuff in seminary.   They have learned a particular way of understanding or interpreting the Bible, it’s called, “contextual theology.”   Now let me give you a definition by one of the leading proponents of this.   He says it’s a way of doing theology….   I’ll give this quote, and I want you to comment on it:   “It’s a way of doing theology in which one takes into account the spirit and message of the gospel, the tradition of the Christian people, the culture in which one is theologizing and social change in that culture, whether brought about by Western technological process or the grass root struggle for equality, justice and liberation.”

            Dave:

Now tell me, Tom, just go through that list of things again.

            Tom:

Okay, “the spirit and message of the gospel.”

            Dave:

That’s okay.

            Tom:

“The tradition of the Christian people, the culture in which one is theologizing, and social change in that culture, whether brought about by Western technological process or grass root struggle for equality, justice—“   In other words, sociological things that are taking place.   In other words, we need to know the cultural situation of each episode the Bible presents in order to truly understand the meanings of what’s written.

            Dave:

Well, just tell me, what does culture and tradition and changes brought about in it by Western technology, or whatever it may be, what does that have to do with what God has said for all time?   Jesus said, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.”   Now, we’re going to change the gospel?   That’s what they are doing, Tom, tragically.   Context?   I’m sure that I’ve quoted this before, you may have quoted it, Tom, it’s an old, old saying.   I remember it from when I was a child:   “A text without a context is a pretext.”   Now, what were they talking about?   What was the context they were talking about?   The Scriptures, all around it, what are the verses that went before?   What are the verses that went after?   This is what the Bible means by a “context” this is what Christians have always meant.   But now, no, the context is the culture of the people, and its change and tradition, and so forth.

            Tom:

So, God had to be sort of dependent upon cultural changes and then the saints in later centuries adjusting what He wrote, “Thus saith the Lord” the “Word of the Lord came to me” we have to adjust that now to a situation for today.

            Dave:

Tom, that’s the whole idea, and I don’t want to paint with too broad a brush, but we’ve got a lot of paraphrases out there.   Why are you paraphrasing something?   Well, it’s too hard to understand, and we’ve got to bring it down to the level of the average reader.   Really!   I suppose God didn’t have the average reader in mind!   Yes, I think he did!   Furthermore, Peter, talking about Paul, he says: “In which are things hard to be understood,—he’s talking about what Paul is teaching—which the unlearned and unstable twist as they do the other Scriptures to their own destruction.”   Now these men are twisting the Scriptures to their own destruction.   But—“hard to be understood?”   Oh, well, we’re going to paraphrase it so there won’t be anything there that’s hard to be understood—somehow, we’re going explain it and we’re going to change it.   That’s what they are doing, and Tom, they are tampering with the Word of God, and it really angers me, and I hate to say that but God’s Word is being trampled under their feet!

            Tom:

And Dave, this is condemned by God.   They are adding to or taking away from Scripture.   If you’re looking to culture and you’re trying to find liturgies and traditions, how they went about this ritual and that ritual, you can’t find that in the Word of God.   You have to look to history, so-called, and then you’re really speculating about what men did in the past.

            Dave:

Eugene Peterson calls his, The Message a translation of the Bible, and he changes it.   What is he saying, what is he thinking?   Well, the Holy Spirit, I mean, you know, he didn’t quite have the right idea—I’m going to improve it.   So these people think they are improving the Word of God, and Tom, I just couldn’t have enough contempt for that idea.

            Tom:

Hold on, Dave, we’re going to get into this a little deeper because, as you will see, and you mentioned earlier, this is pervasive in the evangelical church, and I’m going to prove that in just a minute.   But first of all, let me recap.   So, you have the idea that things that went on in the past, within the cultural framework of the past, that we can look to 1 ^st century, maybe the Middle Ages, Medieval church, whatever it might be, the church fathers, we’ve going to look to them to find these nuggets in which to now apply to today’s evangelical approach to this generation, whether it be called the Post Modern Generation, and so on.    Well, this concept is called the “Ancient Future” approach.   Now let me give you a little background.   First of all, the term is credited to a man named Robert Webber, who died last year, and who for a number of years taught at Wheaton College before founding his own Institute of Worship Studies .   Worship was really his thing, and Weber taught what the church needs is to search out what he calls, “Classical Christianity” which is a style or practice of Christianity that was effective in a pagan, or relativistic world of centuries ago.   And then you need to represent it to our postmodern world of today.   He says that, as the church went through different historical cultural errors it had to change to be successful.   And those in leadership who did not change ceased to be effective for the gospel.   So we are told we need to find a model situation of old that reflects our current generation, a culture that post moderns can identify with and then glean how the Christians of that era handled it.   Get it?   Ancient—we go back to the ancient times, pick out what we like, what we think would be effective, and then apply it to the future or to this generation.

            Dave:

Well, Tom, I’ve got a suggestion for them:   To the law and to the testimony, we already quoted that, “search the scriptures daily.”   They searched the Scriptures to check Paul out; they checked Paul out from the Scriptures.   And this is what we are supposed to do, not matter where we are in history.   The Bible does not change, truth does not change!   I would venture to say, Tom, now it may be a radical idea, of course, but I think people haven’t changed.   I think people are still selfish, they still have the same vices and ambitions and misunderstandings and the Bible is written to straighten all that out.   So, again, let me quote it—

            Tom:

Go ahead, but it’s not enough, and I’m going to prove it to you.  

            Dave:

Let me quote it again.   Paul writes to Timothy, 2 Timothy chapter 4:   “Preach the Word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long-suffering and doctrine.   For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine.”   And that’s where we are, Tom.

            Tom:

I was going to say, and not only that’s where we are.   I’m holding here the latest issue, the February 2008 issue of Christianity Today .   The title of the cover article is, “Lost Secrets of the Ancient Church :   How Evangelicals Started Looking Backward to Move Forward.”   Now let me just read—this is from the inside Christianity Today , so this is what the editors say you are to look forward to.   “You might say that a number of CT editors have a vested interest in this issue’s cover story.   David Neff, Ted Olsen, Tim Morgan, and I have been doing the ancient-future thing for many years, at Episcopal and/or Anglican parishes.   And if this were not enough immersion in the topic, in his spare time, David Neff heads up the Robert E. Webber—(I just mentioned him) Center for an Ancient Evangelical Future, founded by the father of the ancient-future movement.”   Again David Weber:   “In light of all this interest it may be surprising that our inherent bias didn’t produce the cover story the future lies in the past much sooner.” “While the ancient church has captivated the evangelical imagination for some time, it hasn’t been until recently it has become an accepted fixture of the evangelical landscape, and this is for the good.” So this is not just Christianity Today’s viewpoint, but as we’ve been saying, this is in the Emerging Church, this is in Renovaré, Richard Foster, I mean, we could go on and on and on, the Lord willing.   We only have about 3 minutes left, but next week I’m going to quote from this article, and we’ll comment on it.

            Dave:

Well, Tom, many verses come to my mind:   “I the Lord change not—Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today and forever!”   This is the eternal God who gave us his Word, who sent His Son to die for our sins, who rose from the dead for our justification as proof that His sacrifice was accepted of the Father.   This is the gospel, it does not change, but the gospel changes lives.   The Bible is supposed to change us; we are not supposed to change the Bible.   We’re not the editors of the Bible.   We don’t go to the Bible and say, God I think you make a mistake here—I think this culture has a pretty good idea of how to handle this stuff, and maybe we’ll emulate them.   Never, ever once, I challenge these men, find me one place in the Bible where it says you are to look to some culture, or look to some experts, look to some group of theologians to help you understand!   Tom, I’ll go fast—we have said this many times.   Let’s take Deuteronomy Chapter 8, God says:   “I led you through the wilderness to prove what was in your heart, and to teach you that man does not live, (not a Rabbi, not a theologian) man does not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God!”   Psalm 1, “Blessed is the man (not a Rabbi, not somebody who has been schooled in theology) blessed is the man who, (and you know what it says) man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly” and so forth.   But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in his law doth he meditate day and night.   My goodness!    Psalm:119:9Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? by taking heed thereto according to thy word., “Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way?   By taking heed thereto according to thy word.”   So, a young man could read it and understand it.   2 Timothy:3:15And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus., speaking to Timothy, “And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.”   So, it seems to me, the Bible says a child, anybody can understand God’s Word and that is to whom it was written.   And all this other stuff, Tom, is to just pull the rug out from under what God has given us.

            Tom:

And Dave, it’s scary because it’s couched in spiritual experiences; it’s couched in mysticism, in mystery, in liturgy, in rituals and so on.   And the view of these men we are going to talk about next week is that this creates a richness that the church needs for today.

            Dave:

I’ll tell you what it creates, Tom, just one final word; it creates a further rift between the intelligencia in the church—oh, we have studied this, we know other cultures—we know these ancient languages and we are the ones who will tell you—you will let us do your thinking for you.   That is not what the Bible says!   We are all indwelt by the Holy Spirit, and in fact the scripture says—

            Tom:

That is, if we have Christ.

            Dave:

You need not that any men teach you, but you are taught.   This is what the Bible says you are taught of the Holy Spirit, okay!