DO "MINOR" HERESIES MATTER?

There is no such thing as a "minor" heresy. Something is either true or it is not. If it is not true, it is a heresy.

I heard a preacher say that "one sinner" could keep God from what He wants to do in a church. He repeated it, this time using the phrase, "one sin."

What??

Is God so powerless that one sin or sinner can keep Him from doing what He wants to do? What God is that?  Is He so manipulable and weak that one person can stop Him? If that is true, no church could continue to exist or function. That is certainly not MY God. My God is all powerful He is not going to be thwarted by one person or one person's sin in the church or anywhere else.

The idea that one person can stop God is pure heresy.

Another preacher I heard proclaimed that since society has changed, God's methods have changed. His point seemed to be that "some want what we've always done," and that doing what we've always done is somehow evil.

Actually that's a half-truth. A half-truth is still a lie.

The fact is, times HAVE changed. Principles, however, have never changed and we must beware of trying to change them. Changing God's principles is dangerous and CAN affect the church.

The principles of God's omnipotence, His omnipresence and His omniscience will never change. His love for His creation and His plan for its redemption will never change. God's message of salvation through Christ will never change.

The methods we use to worship God and praise God certainly can and should change, so long as those changes don't result in diminishing our reverence for and awe of God. (If you don't know the difference between worship and praise, you need to sue your seminary for failing to teach you correctly).

There is an inherent danger in changing things just to become more appealing to the masses. Jesus' message is not that appealing to many, no matter how it is cloaked.  If Jesus is not attractive to people in-and-of Himself, no amount of modernism will attract people to Him. It might attract people to entertainment, excitement and novelty, but it will not attract them to Jesus.

There are a few people who, by virtue of their charisma, can build and hold a large church build on the worship service itself. But they are the overwhelming exception and few of them stay focused on the message of God's salvation in Christ.

Healthy, growing churches use the principles God laid down at the formation of the world as revealed in Genesis; the same principles He used at the building of the temple, the rebuilding of the wall of Jerusalem and the principles He used in organizing Israel in Numbers, chapter two.

Some preachers claim to hear God telling them to do things contrary to those principles. That is heresy.

When a pastor resists doing things God's way, or has some vain imagination that God has visited him with some special revelation about which way His people should go, he is acting our heresy.

Except for those cases that involve a preacher of special charisma, falsely thinking one is "hearing from God" to do one thing or the other is heresy and that can be seen in the results of that action.

Churches all over the country have tried to be more relevant by turning from the basic principles of God in a vain effort to be attractive. Their behavioral heresy has resulted in chaos and disappointment, as the overwhelming majority of those churches have encountered more trouble than they bargained for and most are not growing, they are splitting and/or disappearing.

Change, for the sake of change, is a form of heresy. Change in accordance with God's word is righteous.

Under the New Covenant, Christians are priests. They have all of the authority of priests and all of the purposes of priests. There is no hierarchy in God's Kingdom. Pastors are not more priestly than lay persons. Lay persons are just as much priests as pastors. Lay persons have nobody to whom they must turn for access to God except our High Priest, who is Jesus. Any other approach is heresy.

Getting sloppy with the truth because we are too lazy, too uneducated, too self-centered, too inconsistent, or too poorly trained is never productive for God and never results in healthy church growth. It can only lead to failure.

In the end, there are no "minor" heresies. What Christians need (both laymen and leaders) is to strive to do,
be and say what is true and stop trying to bend truth to fit their own personal ideas or inadequacies.

(If you want to read more about heresies in the church, my favorite source is HERE. Scroll down for periodic articles about Random Apostasies and Heresies).