The Offense and the Astonishment
Son, and Holy Spirit; concerning sin and salvation; concerning the return of Christ and the resurrection of the body. A confessing church is a protected church.
Third, correction. The church must practice the kind of love that tells the truth. Titus 1:9 is not only for theological lectures. It is for living rooms. We exhort one another. We refute contradiction gently, but firmly. We do not allow yeast to spread because we are afraid of seeming ungracious. Grace never leaves a brother in error. Grace goes after him.
Fourth, consecration. The church must embody the doctrine it proclaims.
The world is weary of slogans. It is waiting for sermons with skin. When the watching world sees a people who love their enemies, tell the truth under pressure, flee sexual immorality, care for the poor, and speak of judgment and mercy in the same breath, they are seeing the didaché made visible. The doctrine that ends all others is not just spoken. It is shown.
The Offense and the Astonishment We began with a premise: the didaché of Christ still astonishes, still offends, still saves. It astonishes because it announces that God became man and bore our sin. It offends because it insists that we cannot bear it ourselves. It saves because the Man who bore it rose from the dead and is
Lord of all.
Every generation attempts to file down the offense. We are tempted to offer a Christ who is only example and not atonement, only teacher and not Lord, only love and not holiness. But a Christ who does not offend cannot save.
He can only affirm. And affirmation is not salvation when we are wrong.
The true doctrine names the wrong, names the cross, and names the crown.
It tells us we are worse than we think and more loved than we know, and it does not let us choose between those truths.
To preach the doctrine that ends all others is to risk the world's applause.
Balaam gathered a crowd. Jezebel gained influence. The Nicolaitans likely branded themselves as the sophisticated party. But Jesus, looking at the seven churches, was not measuring crowds. He was measuring faithfulness.
"To the one who conquers." "Hold fast." "Repent." These are the words of