Deconstruction I found this online is a process by which a person critically dismantles the beliefs they once held as part of the Christian faith , often driven by personal experience , cultural influence or offense , typically leading to a rejection or redefinition of core biblical doctrines such as the authority of scripture , the exclusivity of Christ or the nature of sin and salvation , and I like this note here . This is distinct from healthy spiritual growth or theological refinement , because deconstruction often begins with the self as the authority rather than scripture . What do you think , oscar ? Does that kind of sum it up ?
Speaker 2I like that phrase theological refinement . I think there's something healthy and beautiful when someone begins to really dive into the scriptures and distinguish the difference from what I call Hobby Lobby Christianity and what the scriptures actually say Christianity is . And unfortunately , what happens a lot of the times is people end up throwing the baby out of the bathwater . And you're exactly right . I've seen it happen over and over again . It starts with frustration about a cultural issue and then it turns to the inerrancy of scripture and then it becomes quickly about frustrations with scripture's view on sexuality . And all of this . You hit it perfectly . All of this . If we approach it from I am the source of truth and authority . I will determine for myself what is true and what is false . Then , ultimately , what you've done is made yourself your God and you start from that premise . And anytime you start with yourself as God , of course you're going to reject the one true God , because you can only have one God , and if you're Him , then you're going to end up moving away from your creator .
We've got this little story about two men on a plane . If someone wants to deconstruct , the question to ask them is why did you put the parachute on ? There you go . It's as simple as that . If they say , for the jump I've got to take , I've got to jump out of this plane , nothing will get it off their back . But if they've put it on for better flight , when the flight gets bumpy they'll have some excuse . Someone's kicked the back of my seat and taken this off . So it comes back to motive . If you came to Christ fleeing from the wrath to come , you'll continue to know there's wrath to come and you'll cling to him because he's your life . Richest prophet , not on the day of wrath , but righteousness delivers from death . So you hold the righteousness of Christ , which is your life .
Speaker 4There's nothing wrong with examining what you believe . We should that , right , paul Little . He wrote a book called Know what you Believe . And then he wrote a book Know why you Believe what you Believe . There's nothing wrong with saying is's what I believe true and accurate .
Speaker 4Remember when Jesus was talking to the apostles ? He said the disciples , why do you reason amongst yourselves ? And that's where they went wrong . They're reasoning amongst themselves without a foundation of truth , right ? And Isaiah says come , let us reason together . So if you're going to reason , reason with a foundation of truth . That foundation of truth leads you to more truth . And when you remove God from the equation , you're removing truth from the equation , right ?
Speaker 4So deconstruction is not the same as honest
doubt . You can have doubt , but what is that doubt about ? You say I don't know about this . So you open up the Word of God to find the answer . That's what you do . You don't go to the world's methods and the world's philosophies to try to understand something that is transcendent . You still have the same questions that I have , but now you don't have a foundation for truth .
Speaker 4Somebody said you can't search for truth while you sit in darkness and you're comfortable to be there , right ? So what do we do ? James 1.6, . Let him ask in faith , with no doubting . For the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea . Right , you're tossed to and fro right . Biblical doubt says help me believe I believe . Help my unbelief right . It's who we are asking to and we are expecting an answer . You want knowledge Go to school . You want wisdom you get on your knees . So we want a greater understanding of God about the purpose of man . Why am I here ? How did I get here ? What's going to happen to me after I die ? When you're left to yourself in a corner in the dark asking these questions without including God in the equation , well then , every man's going to do that which seems right in his own eyes . Biblical doubt says help my belief . Deconstruction says help me leave .
Speaker 1Who would really , in an objective or in a concrete way , say oh , I'm God . But that's the deception , right With Adam , or with Eve rather , and by extension , adam , satan's temptation was you will be like God , knowing good from evil . In other words , really you'll be the arbiter of what's good and evil . You'll be the one to make the call on what is good and what is evil , and in essence , that's what's happening . We're just removing God from the equation , we're removing the authority of Scripture and now we're becoming the authority , which means we're usurping God's throne and man . That's destructive . Ray , I want to ask you this you often will pinpoint with atheists what their true motivation is , and that is you just want to look at pornography , sleep with your girlfriend , indulge in the pleasures of sin . What role do you think this plays in those who are deconstructing versus atheists , where people say I'm a Christian , but I don't hold to this anymore
?
Speaker 3And that's why I love saying to someone who says I doubt this , I doubt that , say look , it's not God's existence we're talking about . You're having sex with your gorgeous girlfriend , aren't you ? And up goes the mouth , the corner mouth and the edges , and I've had so many people say you're right .
Speaker 1Ray's become a body language expert , Seriously from witnessing . Oh , it's just wonderful .
Speaker 3I mean , if someone goes , hmm , pulls in their lips , they're going to get angry . Any pulls in their lips , they're going to get angry any minute . I saw a lady do it the other day . I thought she's going to walk off and she did . Within two minutes she walked off and she was angry and those lips showed me where she was going . But yeah , men love darkness rather than light , because their deeds are evil and that's usually the problem .
Speaker 3How can anyone doubt the existence of God ? To think that all we look at happened because of an explosion of nothing caused by nothing ? It's just insane . Just take one part of god's creation hummingbirds . Just say the word hummingbird to yourself and watch it flap its wing what ? 50 times a second , and look how far . I mean , when I see a hummingbird I get real excited , but I can't watch them for more than two seconds because they're off , they go and they're gone and there's no helicopter that can do anything like what the hummingbird does flies backwards all over the place . So we see the genius of God's creative hand in his creation and so we can have doubts when we go through a Job experience that's legitimate . You know , where is God in this ? I can't see it . You've got a friend that just lost his wife and a horrific thing . We pray for him and his family every day because he went through
such a terrible experience and I can imagine doubts coming to him , not doubting God's existence or what Jesus did on the cross , but just why did this ?
Speaker 3happen and that's understandable and people like we need to weep with them .
Speaker 2Yeah , like so often , what happens is we're walking around in our Christian faith and this moment of doubt comes up . We're like what about my friend who just died of cancer ? You know what ? I'm not even going to think about that right now . I'm just going to put that question away and come back to it later . Huh , I wonder what is up with the authority of scripture . You know what ? I'm going to put that one away . Huh , I wonder what is up with the relationship between slavery and the Bible . You know what ? I'm going to put that one away and think about that one later . And what ends up happening ? What ends up happening is that we walk away from the faith not because we think too much , but because we think too little about it . So many of us have unanswered questions about the faith that we end up abandoning the faith to go find something new . We end up abandoning the faith to go find something new , but again , you're walking away , not because you thought too much , but because you were thinking too little about the faith . Oh yeah amen .
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