Do Not Tell Anyone

Newsletter article for March 2004

© 2004, 2009 by Rev. Paul A. Wolff

Jesus “warned His disciples not to tell anyone that He was the Christ.” (Matthew 16:20) This seems a strange admonition, especially to us who live in an age where mission statements are quite a persistent fad. (The newsletter in which this article was originally published contained the congregation’s flawed mission statement.) Mission statements can be useful to give businesses a sense of purpose and direction, but it does tend to emphasize the wrong thing where the church is concerned. If we are to be a true church of Jesus Christ then we need to truly understand the teachings of Jesus in the many passages which He forbids evangelism.

In a quick search of the Scriptures I found about ten Bible verses where Jesus tells people not to tell anyone about Him. A few of these cases are easily understandable, but most deserve a little more study. In Mark 3:12 Jesus warned the demons not to tell who He was. This is very understandable because to the demons Jesus is only their judge and tormentor. There is no salvation for the demons, and though they brought their suffering and torment on themselves Jesus doesn’t want their witness to be what leads people to Him. Jesus doesn’t want to threaten people in order to draw them to Him. It is true that God is the one who judges and condemns the unbelievers, but God is primarily a God of mercy and love and He draws people to Himself through love and forgiveness. No one is going to be saved through coercion or force, but through faith in the forgiveness we receive through Jesus Christ. So the demons are silenced.

But why, then, does Jesus treat His disciples like the demons in Matt. 16? Peter had just confessed that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God, and Jesus had told him that this confession came from God the Father Himself! Why then does Jesus treat Peter and the rest of the disciples no better than demons? The answer comes in what follows in Matt. 16. Jesus goes on to describe what it means that He is the Christ. The Christ is the one who must suffer and die at the hands of sinners. Peter, full of love for his friend, and having just witnessed the power of Jesus in the feeding of the four thousand people, said, “This shall never happen to you.” Upon hearing this Jesus comes right out and calls Peter “Satan” because these are the words of Satan. Only the devil and His followers don’t want Jesus to suffer and die on the cross. Those who love Jesus are actually relying on it. The suffering and death of Jesus is our only hope for salvation. If Jesus had listened to Peter (and to Satan when he said the same thing in Matt. 4:8-9) then there would be no salvation for any of us and the devil would have succeeded in destroying all whom God loves.

This passage helps us to understand why Jesus would tell His disciples not to tell anyone who He is. He forbids them from telling this because they have a false idea of who He is. They know that Jesus is the Christ, but they refuse recognize a “weak” Christ who permits himself to suffer and die at the hands of sinners. Because His innocent suffering and death is the very purpose for His being here, Jesus forbids them from telling others so that they are not led astray by some false impression of Jesus. Jesus sends them out only when the disciples have finished their training, have seen Him dead on the cross, seen Him alive after His resurrection, AND then on Pentecost received the Holy Spirit who Jesus said will “teach you all things and remind you of everything I have said to you” (John 14:26). Only then does Jesus send them out on the mission.

In the other cases where Jesus tells folks not to say anything it is usually because they exhibit a more subtle denial of Jesus. Some people say that when Jesus told people not to tell anyone about Him that He really wanted people to tell about Him. We can easily dismiss that as being false because that would make Jesus a manipulative liar. Although people then (and now) did frequently disregard His word and tell anyway, Jesus didn’t really want them to tell. Although Jesus was (and is) very generous in using His power to heal, He doesn’t want people to see Him only as a healer or miracle worker. Whether Jesus heals you or not is, in the end, irrelevant to your salvation. No one is in heaven today because Jesus is a miracle worker. Every person in heaven today is there because Jesus saved them from their sins through His obedient, innocent suffering and death.

People need to know what Jesus has done for their salvation, and that is exactly why God has provided pastors and teachers and evangelists. Without someone to tell us the good news of our forgiveness and salvation in Christ we would not be saved (Romans 10). God does equip and send these people throughout the world so that people everywhere can hear the message and be saved through faith. St. Paul tells us in Ephesians 4, “It was [Christ] who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers” so that the body of Christ could be built up and God’s people prepared for doing His good works. Not all people are called to be pastors, teachers, or evangelists. Paul notes in I Corinthians 12:29 that not all people have these God-given callings. Scripture is very clear that not everyone is a minister, despite what you may have heard elsewhere. Peter encourages his readers (I Peter 3:15) to “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have,” but he was writing to Christians who were being persecuted for their belief in Christ. The gift of Martyrdom is another gift that God does not give to everyone, but only to those whom He equips for that task also.

Although the task of evangelism is not something that God gives to all Christians, there is one “task” that God does give to all His people. Jesus says in John 6:29, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one He has sent.” This is not a work as we understand works. Saving faith is a gift of God (Eph. 2:8-9). It isn’t miracles which save us. It isn’t good works that save us, except for the works that Jesus did on our behalf in His life and death. All Christians believe that Jesus is our only savior from the punishment for our sin, as Jesus tells us, “Whoever believes in [God’s Son] is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.” (John 3:18)

Are you upset that your pastor has treated you like the devil? If he did this because you had a false impression about Jesus and His work or ministry then take heart and understand that Jesus did the same thing to the disciples whom He loved. The pastor should understand that, like Peter, not all of God’s children have a proper understanding of what Jesus is all about, and, like Peter, it sometimes takes some harsh words to teach God’s people. It took him a while, but Peter repented and allowed Jesus to teach him. Peter became a great Apostle and missionary because Jesus prepared him for the mission and didn’t allow him to go until he was properly equipped for the mission. “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few” not just because there is so much unbelief in the world (though that is a major cause), but also because there must be the proper training involved, and not all Christians are called by God for this service. Whatever your role in the body of Christ trust in Christ and in His forgiveness and salvation. That is all that really matters. That is who Christ is.

Generic Christianity?

Newsletter article for June 2003

© 2003 by Rev. Paul A. Wolff

“Am I now trying to win the approval of men, or of God? Or am I trying to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ.” (Galatians 1:10)

There is a tendency in America to reduce the Christian faith to a “generic Christianity.” I am not sure if this originates within the church. It may come from our ignorant and illiterate society’s desire to fit everything into simplified categories that are easy to understand, and easier to ignore, but I have seen this idea beginning to make its way into churches and into the minds of Christians. (Actually I can’t see into the minds of others, but I can recognize this when it comes out of their mouths.) This tendency may also come from an overwhelming desire to avoid conflict so it avoids issues that may cause conflict or division, and reduces the Christian faith to some simplified, lowest common denominator. Jesus Himself didn’t do this. He recognized the divisive nature of His message when He said in Matthew 10:34, “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword”

This simplification of the Gospel message is not something that Christians ought to be doing. The message of the Gospel can be simplified for children and others into a message that can be as simple as “Jesus loves you” we ought not stop there as if that were sufficient. Although this simple message is the most important truth of the Gospel (and is enough to bring eternal salvation), there is much more to the Christian faith than just that. Just as babies grow from only needing a diet of milk to a gradually more complex and varied diet, so Christians need to grow from this simple message of the Gospel to a more detailed and mature understanding of God’s Word. We can’t remain “baby Christians” for an extended period of time any more than we can live our whole lives on a diet of only milk. We must either grow or die. The trouble with a simplified, generic Christianity is that something important is lost in the transition.

What is lost in generic Christianity is the specific details which make Jesus real to us, and show us that He is the true source of life and salvation for all who believe in Him. If Jesus is generalized or simplified to the point of abstraction then to our minds He becomes just that, abstract, and with abstraction He then becomes unreal to us. I think in some cases this is the intended effect. When, for example, feminists attempt to de-masculinize the Bible they are making God’s Word into something generic, and then (and only then) is it possible to dismiss it as something irrelevant and out of date. The same thing happens when fundamentalists attempt to determine which parts of the Bible are important, and which are not, or even when well intentioned evangelists try to cater to special interests in order to try to make the Bible less offensive to certain people. But even though God’s Word may offend some, God still intends us to preach and teach it in all its truth and purity, because that is the best way to bring salvation to those who do not yet have it.

Jesus is a specific man, an Israelite, a descendent of King David of the tribe of Judah (a Jew). He was born sometime around 4 B.C. (even though this seems to make no sense it results from some kind of addition error when the Gregorian calendar was first developed) in Bethlehem. Jesus is the only begotten son of God, and the firstborn son of a woman named Mary. After fleeing to Egypt to escape the murderous insanity of King Herod, His family settled in Nazareth, where Jesus grew up and lived a mostly unremarkable life. At around age thirty Jesus called twelve disciples to follow Him and He began a three year ministry during which He demonstrated His divine power through teaching and miracles. Although Jesus demonstrated great power and an ability to do whatever He wanted, He allowed Himself to be arrested, charged with false accusations, and condemned to die by crucifixion. He died and was buried, and on the third day after His death He rose to life again. After forty days He ascended into heaven where He rules over all creation at the right hand of God the Father. All this was done for us and for our salvation. We know all this (and much more details of Jesus’ life and mission) only from the Holy Scriptures which, from Genesis through Revelation, is the true Word of God.

The specific details of the life and mission of Jesus are offensive to sinful human beings like us. In Galatians 5:11, St. Paul complains that if he is preaching anything other than the truth of God’s Word then “the offense of the cross has been abolished.” The specificity of God’s Word, though it may offend us from time to time, should really be a comfort to us. The details of our own lives are of great concern to each of us. It ought to be a tremendous comfort to know that our Lord and Savior, Jesus, also had to deal with the same specifics in His life. Hebrews 4:15 shows us that our Savior can sympathize with the details of our lives because He was “tempted in every way just as we are – yet was without sin.” His sinlessness, although foreign to us, is what qualifies Jesus (and no one else) to save us from the consequences of the guilt of our own sin.

Therefore we should avoid this generic Christianity. But the only way we can avoid it is if we are well taught in the truth of God’s Word and in the specifics of Holy Scripture. We all need to be in Church to worship every week, and those of us who are confirmed ought to receive the Lord’s Supper frequently. We all need to study the Bible frequently, at least once a week, although every day would be much better. As we do this Jesus will become a more important part of our lives and we will appreciate Him for who He is. Jesus is our one and only Lord and Savior. There is no one else like Him.

Gospel Reductionism

Newsletter article for February 2003

© 2003 by Rev. Paul A. Wolff

When is the Gospel a bad thing? This ought to be a trick question, but more and more the Gospel is being used to rationalize all kinds of things which God describes as sin in His Word. In this article I wish to teach you a new phrase which I think faithful Lutheran Christians will (regretfully) soon be hearing more often. The term is “Gospel Reductionism” and in learning what it means you will learn that the answer to the question above is that the Gospel is a bad thing only when it is misused.

The term “Gospel Reductionism” refers to a method of Biblical interpretation which ignores God’s Law and places the sole authority in the Gospel for theology and practice. I believe that this idea is peculiar to Lutheranism because only Lutheran theology has made such a sharp distinction between the Biblical doctrines of Law and Gospel. Lutherans have long known that in Christian preaching and teaching the Gospel must predominate, because although God’s Law and Gospel work together for our salvation, only the Gospel really can save us. The trouble with Gospel Reductionism is that it goes a step or two further, and is in reality a new teaching.

Now, when I say it is a new teaching I don’t mean that it is “new and improved.” In theology “new” is ALWAYS a bad thing. Any “new” teaching is false teaching because it is man-made, and not from God. The Holy Scriptures warn God’s people about the false teachings of men (see Mark 7:6-7) and it warns that the time will come when people will not put up with good, sound doctrine, but instead will gather around them teachers who will tell them only what they want to hear (2 Timothy 4:3-5). There is something about Gospel Reductionism which is attractive to many pastors, teachers and lay-people in the LCMS. I believe that I myself may have been influenced by it in ways I am only beginning to understand. As I write this I have been studying this for about a month, and I know it is not Biblical, and therefore wrong, but I caught myself giving a reductionistic answer in a recent Sunday Bible study, and I had to correct myself when I realized what I was doing.

The trouble with Gospel Reductionism is that it makes the Gospel the only authoritative part of Scripture. This wouldn’t be so bad except that God gave us His Word as both Law and Gospel. Both teachings are authoritative as God’s Word, but the reductionists dismiss the Law as something useless, or even harmful. What is more, the reductionists also broaden their definition of the Gospel to include anything which might possibly be construed as beneficial — even things the Bible says is harmful and sinful. The proponents of Gospel Reductionism claim that they are faithful to God and to the Gospel, but in truth they are faithful to neither. God gave us both Law and Gospel so that we might be saved, and if we ignore either one of those teachings then we disobey God and are in danger of being eternally lost.

There is a tension between Law and Gospel which must be maintained always in our teachings. If we lost the Gospel then we would either despair of salvation because God’s Law accuses and condemns our sin, or we would become complacent and self-righteous thinking that we could gain salvation by obeying the Law in some minimal way. On the other hand, if we don’t acknowledge the authority of the Law then we won’t see a need for a savior and so Jesus becomes meaningless to us and we will grow to despise Him.

You can identify Gospel Reductionists these days because they are the ones complaining most often about “legalism” in the Synod. True “Legalism” is a valid danger and concern, and we ought to avoid it. Legalism is the result of a kind of “Law Reductionism” where the Gospel is dismissed as authoritative in place of the Law. However the Gospel Reductionists cry “legalism” about any application of the Law, including many good God-given ways of disciplining sinners and calling them to repentance. This is actually quite clever (in a Satanic sort of way) if you can get away with it. If you don’t acknowledge God’s Law (or even a part of it) then you can do whatever you want to do and nobody can say anything contrary because that would be considered legalistic or irrelevant. The trouble with this is that although you might be able to get away with this for a little while, you won’t get very far trying to convince God about the benefits of this, and everyone will have to answer to God some day.

Lutherans have a great blessing in our traditional doctrine of the dynamic working of God’s Law and Gospel. If we would ever truly put our trust in God’s Word and use it the way He intended then there would be no stopping the Lutheran Church, though many would try. Many well-intentioned people have been led astray by this “Gospel Reductionism.” People have been complacent in their sins because they do not acknowledge the Law of God and His Word which calls on them to repent. God’s Law is a good thing, but although no one likes to be reminded of sin, it is a necessary part of the Christian life. Only in using the Law properly can we truly appreciate the salvation we have in Jesus.

Reformation Day 1996

Newsletter article for October 1996

© 1996 by Rev. Paul A. Wolff

At the end of this month we will celebrate a very special holiday. October 31 isn’t just Halloween (All Hallow’s Eve), it is also the 479th anniversary of the start of the Reformation. This is a great day in the history of the Christian Church, although it is understandable that it is not celebrated with such vigor in the Roman Catholic Church (to say the least). However, we celebrate Reformation Day because it is the day that Dr. Martin Luther brought the Gospel back to its rightful place in the Church.

On October 31, 1517, Martin Luther, an Augustinian Monk and Bible Scholar, posted a sheet of paper on the door of the Church in Wittenberg, Germany. On the paper was printed 95 “Theses” about what Luther felt were unscriptural and anti-Christian practices in the Catholic Church. He wanted the local Church leaders and Biblical Scholars to study each thesis on the basis of Holy Scripture so that they could stop doing things which were spiritually harmful for the members of the Church, and they could have a better understanding what Scripture taught.

Luther’s 95 Theses were not received kindly by the leaders of the Catholic Church, even though the members of the Church were generally excited that someone in the Church was addressing the problems in the Church of that time. Even though printed Bibles were rare, the people knew enough about Christianity and about the Bible to know that some of the practices of the Church of that time were wrong. However, because of greed, and pride, and sin in general, the leaders of the Church were unwilling to admit any errors, and they tried to get Martin Luther to recant his position that the Church was in error. In a dramatic and famous scene from history, Luther stood in front of the emperor, who had put Luther on trial, and he told the emperor that unless it could be proven from Holy Scripture that he was wrong he could not recant what he had written because it was the truth of God’s word.

Martin Luther had come a long way in his life to get to this point. He was raised a good Catholic, and felt so strongly about the Church that he devoted his life to service in the Church by becoming a monk in the Augustinian order. However, as he tried to live out his faith, he grew increasingly unsure about the forgiveness of his sins, and even his own salvation. The problem was that the Church had a system of penance where a person would have to do a good work before receiving forgiveness from the priest (and presumably, God). Instead of reassuring Luther (and no doubt others, too) that his sins were forgiven, this only raised doubts in his mind whether he had done enough penance, or whether he was sorry enough for his sins. Luther even began to doubt whether God could forgive him at all for his sins.

The answer to this dilemma came when Luther was reading the Book of Romans where it says, “A man is justified by faith apart from observing the law.” And also in Ephesians where it says, “For it is by faith that you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.” It was these passages, and others like them which reassured Luther of God’s love and forgiveness in Christ. This was such a relief to Luther’s conscience that he began to reread the Bible to learn if there were more passages like this. To his great surprise he found that there were passages like this throughout the whole Bible. In fact, he learned that the whole Bible was about what God has done to save us from our sins (the Gospel). The answer was always there, right under his nose, but he had overlooked it until this point. From then on he looked at everything the Church did in terms of the Gospel. This is what led him to post the 95 Theses.

This also explains why we hold Luther in such high regard in the Lutheran Church. Luther was not a perfect man. He did not do miracles (although several times God protected him in nearly miraculous ways). He did not even devise a clever system of theology like some later reformers. Martin Luther simply read God’s Word and discovered the Gospel of Salvation through faith in Jesus, and he tried to return the Gospel to its proper place in Worship, and in the Church. This is why we in the Lutheran Church place great importance on Holy Scripture and the Church’s doctrine. Since Scripture is God’s Word, it is the basis for all the teachings in our Church. God gave us His Word so that we can put our faith in Jesus to save us from our sins. Luther didn’t teach us anything new, but we thank God for sending Luther to remind us that Jesus is our only savior from sin, and that the only way we can be saved is through faith in Jesus Christ. We should keep this in mind this month during our times of Bible study. Whether you are at Church, or at home in your personal Bible study, remember that the Bible is about Jesus and what he has done to save you from your sins and give you eternal salvation.

May God bless your worship and Bible Study this month (and always),

Pastor Wolff