Andrew Sullivan quotes C.S. Lewis in defending the notion of staying in a church, even when the pulpit preaches falsely:

From C.S. Lewis

What He wants of the layman in church is an attitude which may, indeed, be critical in the sense of rejecting what is false or unhelpful, but which is wholly uncritical in the sense that it does not appraise - does not waste time in thinking about what it rejects, but lays itself open in uncommenting, humble receptivity to any nourishment that is going.   … There is hardly any sermon, or any book, which may not be dangerous to us if received in this temper."

Sullivan adds his own personal experience:  

God knows my own church has hurt me and others as deeply as anyone can be hurt. And I have felt very estranged and lost these past few years. But I cannot search for another church as if it were another club and I cannot and will not leave in my heart the church that taught me the greatest truths about human love and life, and that brought me the astonishing good news of Jesus. Church is like family. It heals and it wounds; goodness knows how it wounds. But it cannot and should not be disowned.

To be fair, Sullivan is talking about the Catholic Faith and not one specific church in general. I know a lot of people have left the City Church family, but still remain Christians.

However, it does beg the question, at what point do you disown a church? For me, it is when the church becomes nothing about Christ and everything about personal wealth. In my mind, a church that preaches wealth over compassion, deserves to be disowned.  But I wonder what it is for the rest of you? I know some people have remained at the City Churches in the hopes of creating change, and honestly, I understand that setiment.  I guess to each his own.

Well, I made it. 2 weeks since the last time I looked at this blog (or any other like it). 2 relaxing weeks…which have led to this extremely long post. In that time, I managed to come up with this defense of our blog. But before I get into that, I'd like to lay out a few disclaimers:

1. I believe that the Prosperity Doctrine which is taught by CBC, TCC, and many others is a false doctrine that is detrimental to the faith of those who attend. If I am wrong then I will be punished heavily (the Bible makes that very clear).
2. Gossip is wrong. There is no excuse for gossip. I will not attempt to defend a gossip blog.
3. If this blog is written out of anger, bitterness, or revenge than it is wrong. These are not the issues that I want to debate. The only way this blog works is if we are correct in the fact that CBC is harming the Gospel of Jesus through the false teachings from the pulpit. (I do not believe that everything taught at CBC is false, but there is enough there to make a strong case for __________….my lawyers advised that I remove this sentence. You get the point.)
4. Not everyone or everything at these churches is wrong or bad. There are plenty of good people doing good things. Its unfortunate that they don't get any help from the pulpit.
5. I didn't really spend that much time looking up a defense…more on that later.

So here it is; two weeks later this is what I came up with: 3 YouTube videos that are worth checking out:

The first is video montage called There's a sucker born every minute. It's funny for the first minute.

Then check out this completely unrelated parody of Lacey and Kameron's SYTYCD performance. It's only funny if you watch the show…which I do.

And finally watch this unfunny, but powerful video of John Piper on the Prosperity Doctrine.

Of course I didn't just use YouTube for my research, I also went to the Bible where I found out this:

Proverbs 13:5 "The righteous hate what is false"…

I am not going list every scripture that deals with false teachings, you should look them up for yourself, but the Bible is full of warnings against false prophets and teachings. That fact alone is reason enough for this blog, but lets continue.

I shall now read from Paul's 2^nd letter to the Corinthians:

I'm actually not going to, I just wanted to fit in a Wedding Crashers quote, but I urge you to read 2^nd Corinthians especially chapters 11 and 12 and this commentary on the same. Since you are not going to read it, I will sum up for you my understanding of these verses.

In 2^nd Corinthians Paul is addressing the Church of Corinth and the Christians throughout Achaia (2 Cor 1:1).The Corinthian church had been infiltrated by false teachers and Paul wanted to address these issues. When Paul speaks of these false teachers he uses rather harsh language (2 Cor 11:13-15) and even "biting sarcasm" (2 Cor 11:16-21).

Note that he does NOT send this letter to the false apostles directly. He does NOT take 2 or 3 witnesses. He does NOT just ignore the teaching and let God be the judge. Instead, he sends this letter to the church and the people of the area. Paul is not concerned that the "non-Christian" people living in Achaia might see this letter, he is more concerned with addressing these false "super-apostles"…and he is not nice about it.

Furthermore, these letters are then placed in the Book that we want all non-Christians to read (hint: the Bible) and we hope that after they read these letters that they then believe in Jesus. I found a number of examples like this in the Bible where members of the church were publicly rebuked for their false teachings. There is nothing wrong with public rebukes, IMHO. And, based on the little research I did, I would have to say that a blog is an excellent way to rebuke a church for leading it's members away from Jesus…but NONE of that is what I "received" during my hiatus.

Here is the conclusion I came to regarding this blog:

We spend way too much time focusing on the negative side of Christianity.

This is why I didn't spend much time researching a "blog defense"…I feel (hope) I've moved on.

Yes, the crap that is spewed by PF each Sunday is offensive. Yes, the fact that they want to continue to grow their church which will only lead to them corrupting the minds of others is disturbing. Yes, the fact that they trade the work of Jesus on the Cross for the American Dream is flat out wrong. But you know what?

The Bible is replete with scriptures that point away from what City Bible Church, The City Church and many others teach. In fact, while I was looking up scriptures about false teachers, I found so many examples that say "Watch out for the trap of Prosperity". It's all over the Bible. This led me to this conclusion: If anyone who attends one of these churches wants to find the truth, it's out there. In fact it's all over the place. Prosperity with a Purpose is not a Biblical doctrine. Its not. That is why you see these preachers taking parts of verses and pairing them up with parts of other verses as they try to weave their web.

All anyone has to do is stop making IDOLS out of their CHURCH, their PASTOR, their Life and they will find the truth. Let me list a couple of scriptures just to help make my point:

1 Timothy 6:6-9… 6But godliness with contentment is great gain. 7For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. 8But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. 9People who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction.

Matthew 19:21-23… 21Jesus answered, "If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me."

 22When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had great wealth.

 23Then Jesus said to his disciples, "I tell you the truth, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. 24Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God."

Believe me, there are plenty of others that say the same thing. So what's my point?

During my "fast", I stopped listening to sermons by Frank, Judah, and Wendell, but I still needed to get my weekly sermon fix, so I started listening to a number of sermons by John Piper. The difference was huge. I listened to an 8 sermon set of Piper's called Light & Heat in which he encouraged us to be happy and satisfied in Christ. John Piper refers to himself as a Christian Hedonist, which at first glance sounds awfully similar to the Prosperity Doctrine that we hate so much. However, instead of talking about personal growth and gain he made this point (over and over):

God is most glorified in us, when we are most satisfied in Him.

Yes, we should pursue happiness and joy, but we need to do so "in Christ". Happiness may be persecution; it may involve pain and hardship, but if we can begin to understand what we have in Christ, none of that will matter. We will still be happy, and God will get the glory for it.

Look at what the apostles went through; look at what Jesus went through. None of it involved "Personal Prosperity", but they understood that ETERNAL LIFE is far more valuable than anything that the world can do to us. How does the song go? "You're all I want, You're all I need, You're everything…everything."

If we really understood the value of Salvation, how would we live our lives? Would we pursue personal gain or would we spend our lives living for Christ?

Somewhere along the way I lost my joy. Christianity became a burden to me and I think it is all because I spent so much time focusing on the FALSE. False teachers, preachers, and doctrine. It weighed me down to the point that I wasn't able to enjoy Christ.

I want to give that side up. Feel free to carry on pointing out the sins of the church, but don't let it rob you like I let it rob me. I'm not quitting this blog, but I want to change the focus…which may result in quite a few less posts. I want to live a life that honors God. I no longer feel any responsibility to point out the errors of CBC…the Bible does that far better than I could ever do. I want my joy back. I want to show the world that I am satisfied in Christ so that He gets the glory.

John Piper read this quote from Blaise Pascal that really struck me:

Year of grace 1654, Monday 23 November, feast of St. Clement . . . from about half past ten at night to about half an hour after midnight, FIRE. God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, not of philosophers and scholars. Certitude, heartfelt joy, peace. God of Jesus Christ. God of Jesus Christ. "My God and your God." . . . Joy, Joy, Joy, tears of joy. . . Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ. May I never be separated from him.

I'm not there yet, but that is where I want to be. This is what I want my heart to feel…Joy, Joy, Joy, tears of joy… Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ. May I never be separated from him.

KariMichelle writes:

Well, JP maybe you need to take it to the next step. Bring all of us with you. I'd be happy to sign a petition or pen a letter asking Frank to meet with you and I'm sure everyone else here would too. You kind of represent all of us. If he is truly a man of God, I'm not sure how he could refuse. But if he did, then take it to the eldership. If they still refused, we could excommunicate THEM.

Unfortunately, I don't think he would meet with us, and since Frank's eldership is made up mostly of "yes men" I don't see that going anywhere. Of course the idea of trying to excommunicate THEM is hilarious…

Personally, I was quite shocked that he refused to meet just with me. I realize there might not be much to come out of our conversation, but Frank loses so much credibility by hiding from me. This is why I was so impressed with Howard Rachinski for taking the time to talk. He showed he wasn't hiding anything and that he wasn't scared of me. Frank is simply furthering his controlling stereotype.

The problem for them is this, by meeting with me they lend credibility to what we do and say here…and the second they do that their empire could crumble. Of course by refusing to meet, they go against everything the BIBLE says and teaches…clearly they are more concerned with their empire then the Bible…I think we've covered that in a few places on this blog.

For all you CBC faithful who read this blog, let this be a sign of where Frank's heart is really at. He's currently speaking on the importance of Community, talking about how we need to spend time with each other, loving each other, caring for each other…why then won't he commune with me? 

Is community supposed to be easy? Should you only care for those who are in agreement with you? Are his sermons only meant for those inside his church…should you ignore the rest of the world?

Here is a fitting comment from Tom Sparks in regard to CBC not wanting to meet or debate scripture with me:

He doesn't want to debate scriptures for two reasons.  1)  Because it is just too hard to biblically prove and support the doctrine they hold.  They know many great writers have written rebuttals to this approach they take, and they don't want to get into the debate.  2)  Because if they allow you to take them on in debate then they will feel they have to give the same treatment to everyone that comes along, and they know it would wear them out and distract them from the goals they have in ministry.  To one extent this is reasonable, but if they take this position then they must understand there will be those who censure them, both privately, and publicly on your blog.  They can't have it both ways.  If you reference in your blog comments that the things you write are not about a personal unresolved offense with Frank, but rather with the goal of helping folks get free from false doctrine and its effects, then they will have to just leave you alone, unless they desire to turn it into a formal debate, which they understand will play out on the blog before the watching world.  This would be problematic for them, since they are clear that they want to be able to do what they do inside their four walls, without censure and debate.  Sorry Frank, but you can't have it both ways…

Actually Tom, as long as they can convince people that CBC is THE SPIRITUAL AUTHORITY and "SPIRITUAL COVERING"…they can have whatever they want.

And on to the final section. The end of the debate:

In my humble opinion, God's word is very clear. We are expected to give and give generously and cheerfully. We should expect God to bless us in return. God expects us to invest what He has blessed us with into the lives of others and into the kingdom of God.

Hope this helps. Sorry about the lengthy email, but it should be some clarity as to the doctrine of sowing and reaping.

When I look at the words of Jesus on the Sermon on the Mount, I never read a word about tithing nor see Him supporting the sowing and reaping doctrine that I hear from you and Frank. As a matter of fact, what I understand Jesus to say is just the opposite of "if you sow money, then you'll reap more money," "if you sow a car, then you'll reap a car," etc.

Please read Matthew 6:25-34 and give me your application of these powerful words of Jesus.

25"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? 26Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life^[a]?

28"And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' 32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

When Jesus refers to the birds of the air and the lilies of the field, He makes it perfectly clear that they DO NOTHING TO EARN their Father's daily provision:

1- "they do NOT sow or reap" 

2- "they do NOT store away in barns…" 

3- "they do NOT work or make their own clothing" 

…and yet "your Heavenly Father takes care of them!" And, on top of that, He says, that His children are even more important to Him than the flowers of the field and the birds of the air, which He takes care of so automatically and seamlessly! When Jesus could have agreed with Frank's Law of Causation and told His followers that the way to get their material needs met was to tithe and give big offerings at the temple, instead He told them to seek His kingdom and his righteousness and, then, "all these things would be added". 

The main picture of God that Jesus brings to the world is that God is a good and generous Father who freely takes care not only of His children but also of all mankind, because of His great love He has for everyone. On the contrary, the main picture of God that you and Frank bring to the world is that God is an investment banker and a tax (tithe) collector, who sits every day in heaven and makes sure that He does not allow anyone to receive one blessing from His hand unless it has first been paid for in full through a tithe or a local church offering. There is no hesitation in my heart as to which picture of God I like more; neither do I doubt which one is more accurate to the true Gospel of Jesus Christ!

I hope you can understand where I am coming from. It is not my intention to "tear down" your church; in fact it is just the opposite. I would love to see your church grow and continue to help many more throughout the city. I do not, however, see that happening with truth and integrity under the current unbiblical teachings. 

Please understand that I have heard countless stories of people who felt abused under the CBC system. For some reason that I do not completely understand, I feel like I have been called to bring these abuses to your attention.

I admit that my tactics in the past have not been the best. By God's grace, I am still learning and growing. Nevertheless, I do not feel that my imperfect approaches should be an excuse to dismiss any or all of my valid concerns about how Frank is not accurately representing the Gospel of Jesus Christ and not correctly interpreting God's Word from the pulpit of such a great church as CBC. 

Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

-Johnpaul

 Ok, here is part 3 (of 4). In all honesty, I don't think my emails made him think one bit, but they really challenged me and caused me to grow a lot more confident in my belief that CBC's "give to get" Faith Harvest period (and their basic view on giving) is flat out wrong and deceitful.

7. Jesus himself said you should expect a return on your giving, "Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you."  This would be a tough one to refute. It is plain and simple. If you give, IT WILL COME BACK TO YOU. This applies to all areas of your life as we have discussed in the law of reaping and sowing, and again in context, will also apply to things you give materially.

Pastor X, you need to look at the context of this scripture. It is not talking about money. It is a context of his disciples paying the price of being prophets of the Gospel (vs. 23,26) who will suffer rejection from their enemies. But how are they to react to the persecution? By sacrificial love: Giving even to your enemies (v27) and "everyone who asks you" (v30) mercy, forgiveness and even food - and then, hopefully but not always, receiving back the same from them.

"Receiving back from them" is similar to Jesus words, "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy." (Matthew 5:7). Do merciful people always receive mercy in this life? No, but when will they receive it? The context implies in the next life (v23).

Also, as an interesting side note, in the same context he condemns the rich (v24) and well fed (v25).

8. All of the being said, THE MOST IMPORTANT POINT of all of this is to understand the motive of WHY we would want to be blessed. Paul made it clear that our motives should never be for selfish gain, but for blessing the Lord, others and extending the kingdom. AGAIN, please understand our heart and motive is to see people blessed SO THAT they can bless others and see the kingdom of God advanced. There is great honor and noble rewards to those that desire to see others who are need helped. God blesses us so that we can bless others. This truth applies from Genesis to Revelation.  We teach this biblical truth, so that we might have the resources to reach out to the thousands of people monthly that are less fortunate. God forbid that we, you, or any other Christian would teach that God blesses us to build a haven for ourselves on earth, but the kingdom of God. Hence, we are proud of both our teaching and motives in believing God for our finances.

Can you show me how you back this up?

I would like to challenge you in two ways:

1. If you all believe this so much, why don't you just encourage the saints at CBC to give their money directly to the needs of the community, instead of to CBC? They should still receive the return for their investment. If the principle is true it should work even if they don't give the money directly to the Church. (I have never heard anyone from your pulpit tell the congregation to just "give". It has always been in the context of "give money" and "to this local church".)

2. If CBC truly believes in the guaranteed results of the Law of Divine Retribution then they shouldn't have to put so much pressure on the congregation to fund their debts and programs. They should have the faith that after they have given what they have to give, God will automatically add it all back and then some.

I would have more confidence in your teachings if I saw you leading by example. Instead Frank says things like "If we don't have any money above the tithe we can't: help the community, open other campuses, give out food boxes. If we're poor how do we feed the poor? How can we do that if we don't have anything to give?" This is the exact opposite of what you teach your congregation to believe. Don't you feel this quote implies that you want to reach the lost after you help yourself? This example is not found anywhere in the Bible. As a matter of fact, the Bible says NOT to give money to the rich - those who already have it! "He who oppresses the poor to increase his wealth and he who gives gifts to the rich-both come to poverty." Proverbs 22:16

In my opinion, Frank should have his own "Faith to Receive" and have the attitude that says "We are just going to give the churches tithe and offering money to whatever cause and believe in God to bring in the funds". Then, if this principle works, you will have more than enough to "help the community, open other campuses, and give out food boxes… " Without that, it looks like a double standard. What do you see?

I know that CBC began by sowing a roughly $65,000 "seed", this is a great start and thank you for doing that (I am not trying to ignore the good that you do). The problem for me comes when Frank says that a lot of the Faith Harvest money you receive will go to CBC's personal needs. It seems to cheapen your "gift" when you know you will be receiving all that and more back from your own congregation. Does this make sense?

In my opinion it violates the "spirit" of sowing and reaping you proclaim so strongly to others. Jesus gave up everything for us, not so that we can have a "rich" life, (I know you never come out and say "give and you will be rich" but what else are we supposed to believe if, based on your thoughts here, we give money we will get more money back?) but Jesus sacrificed so that we can spend eternity together. There's your blessing.

Additionally, there are so many warnings throughout the Bible on riches; they are dangerous thing to "have". The more we have the less we will rely on God and that is a scary thought. I am not claiming that the Bible says "riches are inherently evil", but what I am saying is that as I read the NT most, if not all, of what I read are continuous warnings against greed, materialism and the love of money! Why is this Faith Harvest teaching appearing to me to be so different, as a whole, from the teachings of the New Testament?

Picking up where we left off… more sowing and more reaping: 

4. In spiritual things there is a correspondence between what is sown and what is reaped.

(a) Sowing to the flesh produces its own natural harvest-corruption. The mere animal life, the life of worldly interests, the life of the lower self, is itself a life of corruptible things. Its soil and nourishment are earthly and cannot outlast death. When the grave opens all is lost. Even before death thieves steal, and moth and rust eat into the treasures. The soul itself, too, is corrupted by such a life. Its faculties are dissipated and decay away. It descends to the evil state of moral rottenness and death. 

(b)Sowing to the Spirit produces its own harvest of eternal life. Spiritual things are eternal things. Treasures in heaven are beyond destroying influences. In proportion as the spiritual within us is cultivated we have what will outlast death and what no grave will ever claim. Already we have an eternal life in living in the things that are spiritual and therefore eternal. Money goes, but faith remains; the pleasures of the senses pall upon us, but the peace of God never fails; self-seeking leads to dissatisfaction, the love of God sustains us with undying interests. 

Again the problem is this: without acknowledging the cross you simply have what the Buddhists and Hindus call "Karma". Do good receive good, do bad receive bad. Thank God there is more to life than "Karma".

Yes, Luke 6:38 (which you quote later) says "Give and it will be given to you", but this context gives only ONE SIDE to divine and human reality… and it isn't talking about finances.

I think Paul understood that when he said, "7But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ" (Philippians 3:7). Does this sound like someone saying "sow money to reap money"? NO, he considered it all loss.

He goes on to say ‘live according to the pattern we gave you. (v17)" "…many live as enemies of the cross of Christ." (v18) "…Their mind is on earthly things." (v19). What is more earthly than money?

Scriptural Examples of sowing and reaping: the harvesting of grain. The term is used figuratively for the final judgment (Matt. 13:24-30, 36-43; Rev. 14:15-16), evangelism (Matt. 9:37-38; Luke 10:2; John 4:35-36; Rom. 1:13), and recompense for good (Hos. 10:12; 2 Cor. 9:6; Gal. 6:7-8) or evil (Job 4:8; Prov. 22:8; Hos. 8:7; 10:13; Gal. 6:7-8) 

To me, all these scriptures in the list above help to show why Gen 8:22 cannot be applied as Frank uses it. Sowing/Reaping is used in so many different metaphors; you simply cannot say it always applies to giving and receiving financially or any other single way for that matter.

III. APPLICATION OF THIS PRINCIPLE

5.   As this law applies to all of life, it must also apply to every area specifically, this includes finances. If you plant wheat seed in the ground, you expect an abundance of wheat to be harvested. I know of no farmer that would plant and not expect a return. You invest in a 401k with the complete expectation of seeing a return. You give of your time at a job expecting a paycheck and hopefully a promotion. PLEASE remember that the context of 2 Cor. 9:6 is giving of MONEY, "Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously." Paul is making it very clear that there should be an expectation to receive directly proportionate to what you give. I don't think you can translate this any other way. This is a great scripture to validate the point that if you give of your money sparingly, you will reap a minimal harvest!

Paul's focus is clearly on the "sowing" and not the "reaping" as you and Frank would suggest. Does God bless those who give? Yes, but we can't and shouldn't say how or when or what.

Is every rich drug dealer or porn star wealthy because they have obeyed this principle? Of course not. Did Jesus say that the widow who gave her last two mites was now going to become rich? Of course not. In my opinion, the problem is that you take the "sometimes" and turn it into an "always" in order to inspire the investors to invest. Everyone likes a guaranteed investment, but as I read the Gospels, I do not find that becoming rich is what following Jesus is all about. The fact is that the majority of texts concerning wealth in the New Testament are warnings about the dangers of having riches - not ways to get more of it by sowing and reaping financial seeds.

I believe we should give because God has blessed you with the only thing you really need, salvation. At the end of 2 Cor. 9, Paul states:

14And in their prayers for you their hearts will go out to you, because of the surpassing grace God has given you. 15Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!

That gift, of course, is salvation. I believe that should be at the heart of every sermon preached, whether the message is about money or anything else. Verse 15 should help us keep a proper perspective toward money and possessions.

6. Here is another scripture that pertains to reaping and sowing in the financial arena, 1 Cor. 9:10-12, "Surely he says this for us, doesn't he? Yes, this was written for us, because when the plowman plows and the thresher threshes, they ought to do so in the hope of sharing in the harvest. If we have sown spiritual seed among you, is it too much if we reap a material harvest from you?. If others have this right of support from you, shouldn't we have it all the more?" Again context is important. There is both a spiritual and natural context here, and also a financial one as it pertains to material harvest. There is an emphasis here of a hope of receiving something from the sowing of the same kind. You should plow in "hope of sharing" in the harvest… including a material harvest as stated.

This contradicts your previous statements of "what you sow you reap" (need a house, sow a house payment etc.). If the Law of Devine Retribution is always true, how could Paul and the rest of the apostles sow spiritual seed among the Corinthians, and then expect a material harvest?

According to what you said previously, they would need to sow material seed to reap material harvest and it would not be possible any other way.

 My Original response which includes a point by point discussion of this pastors comments were 9 pages long. I don't think anyone wants to read all 9 pages at once (if you do email me and I'll be happy to send it to you). I've decided to break it down into sections to make it easier. Here is part 1.

I. IT IS A LAW OF NATURE THAT THE REAPING SHALL CORRESPOND TO THE SOWING.  

This is part of the general law that, other things being equal, the same cause always produces the same effect. There is no known exception to the law of causation; there is no possible evasion of it. We see it plainly working in human affairs. The eternal constancy of nature assures us that the consequences of which certain conduct is known to be the cause will undoubtedly follow (sin, relationships, health, career, finances).

My initial concern is that you start out by relying on an observation of nature rather than the Bible. I would like to believe that we should start with a Biblical foundation and move on from there. Wouldn't you agree?

Although there are many metaphors we can take out of the Old Testament I do not believe it is proper hermeneutics to form a whole doctrine on them without having Jesus or the Apostles make the point somewhere in the New Testament as well.

The special law of sowing and reaping is that the product of the harvest will be the same in kind as the seed sown. Tares will never produce wheat, nor wheat tares. But each seed reproduces its own kind. This is seen in human affairs. Commercial industry tends to commercial wealth, intellectual study to a state of intellectual culture, etc. It is vain to think that money will buy refinement or that learning is the road to wealth. Each pursuit has its own consequences in accordance with its own nature; finances are included in this principle both naturally and spiritually.

I have to stop and ask a question at this point. What is your definition of grace? I believe you would say it is "unmerited favor", correct me if I am wrong. I bring this up for obvious reasons:

Romans 6:23 "For the wages of sin is death…" (i.e. when you "sow" sin "you" reap death), "…but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."

Ephesians 2:8-9 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith-and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God- not by works, so that no one can boast. (i.e. we sow sin yet reap life).

How do you see these verses in relation to the "Law of Causation"?

The way I see it, these two scriptures alone refute that "law" and also show the beauty of Christ's message. We must rely on God to save us, despite what we sow. You can sow all the goodness, kindness, finances, time, love, joy, whatever and in the end you will reap death… unless Christ saves you. Isn't this the essence of the Gospel of Jesus Christ in which we both strongly believe?

II. THIS LAW APPLIES TO SPIRITUAL SOWING AND REAPING.

1. Here the future depends on the past and present by a certain law of causation. No words could more plainly assert that our conduct is shaping our own fate; and these are not the words of James, but of the Apostle Paul, and they occur, of all places, in the Epistle to the Galatians, where the doctrine of justification by, faith is most vehemently asserted! Moreover, they are not addressed to Jews still under the Law, nor to heathen who have not yet availed themselves of the privileges of the gospel, but to Christians who have come into the justification by faith, as it is to Christians that St. Paul says elsewhere, "We shall all stand before the judgment-seat of God" (Rom. 14:10). We are here reminded that the future consequences of conduct are natural, not adventitious-that they are caused by what we are and do, that they flow of their own accord from our lives, and are not assigned from without by any arbitrary decree. We simply reap what our own sowing has produced for us.

Another scripture to look at:

Romans 3:23for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.

Justified freely, I love to hear those words; they tell me the gift is free. Christ, through his work of grace on the cross, has overcome both the laws of nature and the law of causation.

You can also look at it from the other side. Christ "sowed" a perfect life and yet he "reaped" death, mocking, and torture. This should also show that while the "law of sowing and reaping" may be a natural principle, those that believe in Christ are not necessarily bound by "the natural". Actually, salvation and our walk of faith with Christ is a supernatural life from beginning to end.

Also, look at the lives of the apostles. Many went through all kinds of trials and tribulations, despite sowing all kinds of wonderful seeds… why do you think God put them through this?

These are all exceptions to your Rule of Causation and, in my opinion, this Biblical thinking of God's grace through the cross destroys the seemingly airtight logic of "Tares will never produce wheat or wheat tares but each seed reproduces its own kind". Was the rejected, beaten, and crucified Jesus, therefore, a "tare" because He reaped suffering and death? 

When we look at it closely, the Law of Causation is actually rooted in pagan religious thought that knows nothing of the reality of the grace of God!  It is because the pagan world is under such naturalistic thinking that Christians need to take the Gospel of grace to the ends of the earth.

  I spent some time emailing a CBC pastor about their Faith Harvest time and Frank's use of Scripture during it. When all was said and done we had gathered about 30 pages of emails and failed to change eachothers mind. He did however help me better understand their "case" in defending this line of thinking.

 Here is an article sent to me by a CBC pastor attempting to explain the "Faith Harvest" / "Law of Causation" / "Sowing and Reaping" Doctrine. I may post my response to him later, but for now…

Reaping & Sowing:

I. IT IS A LAW OF NATURE THAT THE REAPING SHALL CORRESPOND TO THE SOWING.

This is part of the general law that, other things being equal, the same cause always produces the same effect. There is no known exception to the law of causation; there is no possible evasion of it. We see it plainly working in human affairs. The eternal constancy of nature assures us that the consequences of which certain conduct is known to be the cause will undoubtedly follow (sin, relationships, health, career, finances).

1. The special law of sowing and reaping is that the product of the harvest will be the same in kind as the seed sown. Tares will never produce wheat, nor wheat tares. But each seed reproduces its own kind. This is seen in human affairs. Commercial industry tends to commercial wealth, intellectual study to a state of intellectual culture, etc. It is vain to think that money will buy refinement or that learning is the road to wealth. Each pursuit has its own consequences in accordance with its own nature, finances are included in this principle both naturally and spiritually.

II. THIS LAW APPLIES TO SPIRITUAL SOWING AND REAPING.

1. Here the future depends on the past and present by a certain law of causation. No words could more plainly assert that our conduct is shaping our own fate; and these are not the words of James, but of the ApostlePaul, and they occur, of all places, in the Epistle to the Galatians, where the doctrine of justification by, faith is most vehemently asserted! Moreover, they are not addressed to Jews still under the Law, nor to heathen who have not yet availed themselves of the privileges of the gospel, but to Christians who have come into the justification by faith, as it is to Christians that St. Paul says elsewhere, "We shall all stand before the judgment-seat of God" (Rom. 14:10). We are here reminded that the future consequences of conduct are natural, not adventitious-that they are caused by what we are and do, that they flow of their own accord from our lives, and are not assigned from without by any arbitrary decree. We simply reap what our own sowing has produced for us.

1. 2.In spiritual things there is a correspondence between what is sown and what is reaped.

(a) Sowing to the flesh produces its own natural harvest-corruption. The mere animal life, the life of worldly interests, the life of the lower self, is itself a life of corruptible things. Its soil and nourishment are earthly and cannot outlast death. When the grave opens all is lost. Even before death thieves steal, and moth and rust eat into the treasures. The soul itself, too, is corrupted by such a life. Its faculties are dissipated and decay away. It descends to the evil state of moral rottenness and death. 

(b)Sowing to the Spirit produces its own harvest of eternal life. Spiritual things are eternal things. Treasures in heaven are beyond destroying influences. In proportion as the spiritual within us is cultivated we have what will outlast death and what no grave will ever claim. Already we have an eternal life in living in the things that are spiritual and therefore eternal. Money goes, but faith remains; the pleasures of the senses pall upon us, but the peace of God never fails; self-seeking leads to dissatisfaction, the love of God sustains us with undying interests. 

Scriptural Examples of sowing and reaping: the harvesting of grain. The term is used figuratively for the final judgment (Matt. 13:24-30, 36-43; Rev. 14:15-16), evangelism (Matt. 9:37-38; Luke 10:2; John 4:35-36; Rom. 1:13), and recompense for good (Hos. 10:12; 2 Cor. 9:6; Gal. 6:7-8) or evil (Job 4:8; Prov. 22:8; Hos. 8:7; 10:13; Gal. 6:7-8) 

III. APPLICATION OF THIS PRINCIPLE

1. As this law applies to all of life, it must also apply to every area specifically, this includes finances. If you plant wheat seed in the ground, you expect an abundance of wheat to be harvested. I know of no farmer that would plant and not expect a return. You invest in a 401k with the complete expectation of seeing a return. You give of your time at a job expecting a paycheck and hopefully a promotion. PLEASE remember that the context of 2 Cor. 9:6 is giving of MONEY, "Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously." Paul is making it very clear that there should be an expectation to receive directly proportinate to what you give. I don't think you can translate this any other way. This is a great scripture to validate the point that if you give of your money sparingly, you will reap a minimal harvest!

1. Here is another scripture that pertains to reaping and sowing in the financial arena, 1 Cor. 9:10-12, "Surely he says this for us, doesn't he? Yes, this was written for us, because when the plowman plows and the thresher threshes, they ought to do so in the hope of sharing in the harvest. If we have sown spiritual seed among you, is it too much if we reap a material harvest from you? If others have this right of support from you, shouldn't we have it all the more?" Again context is important. There is both a spiritual and natural context here, and also a financial one as it pertains to material harvest. There is an emphasis here of a hope of receiving something from the sowing of the same kind. You should plow in "hope of sharing" in the harvest… including a material harvest as stated.

1. Jesus himself said you should expect a return on your giving, "Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you."  This would be a tough one to refute. It is plain and simple. If you give, IT WILL COME BACK TO YOU. This applies to all areas of your life as we have discussed in the law of reaping and sowing, and again in context, will also apply to things you give materially.

1. All of the being said, THE MOST IMPORTANT POINT of all of this is to understand the motive of WHY we would want to be blessed. Paul made it clear that our motives should never be for selfish gain, but for blessing the Lord, others and extending the kingdom. AGAIN, please understand our heart and motive is to see people blessed SO THAT they can bless others and see the kingdom of God advanced. There is great honor and noble rewards to those that desire to see others who are need helped. God blesses us so that we can bless others. This truth applies from Genesis to Revelation.  We teach this biblical truth, so that we might have the resources to reach out to the thousands of people monthly that are less fortunate. God fobid that we, you, or any other Christian would teach that God blesses us to build a haven for ourselves on earth, but the kingdom of God. Hence, we are proud of both our teaching and motives in believing God for our finances.

In my humble opinion, God's word is very clear. We are expected to give and give generously and cheerfully. We should expect God to bless us in return. God expects us to invest what He has blessed us with into the lives of others and into the kingdom of God.

I'm not sure what textbook this comes from so if anyone recognizes it I'd love to know.

There is a sickness in the American Church and that sickness is SELF. I was recently reading the story of The Sheep and the Goats (Matthew 25:31-46) and it suddenly struck me… this is what God would have us do.

Help Others.

I mean, REALLY help others. Not just around the holidays, not just by giving some money, or donating old items to Good Will, but daily, through relationships.

It's a difficult teaching to receive, but one that is all too important. It hurts when you realize that you are a GOAT and hurts worse when you realize that you go to a GOAT church and live in a GOAT country.

Here is what I think the Christian Church looks like to the outside world:

A dark, empty, house.

We think the prettier our house is the more we will be able to help people. So we raise all kinds of money to make things look nice. Then we go and unlock the door and consider that "evangelism". Of course, whenever we see someone walking down the street towards us, we quickly shut out the lights and go hide in the basement.

Sure, we all want to help people, right? All they have to do is come into our home, turn on our lights, walk down to our basement, and find us. Should anyone be willing to do those things then by all means, we are going to help them. Praise God.

And the church wants to think the world hates Christians, but quite frankly, I don't really think they do. I think they find us to be complete hypocrites, who aren't worth hating. I'll bet the world barely knows we exist. In fact the only time they seem to notice us is around elections…AND THEY THINK WE ARE ALL REPUBLICANS.

We waste so much time at the church helping people in the church, preparing them to face the world?  Cell Groups, Bible Studies, Interest Groups, Leadership Training, Membership Classes… Blah, blah, blah, it's all a waste of time.

IF WE AREN'T OUT HELPING THOSE IN NEED IT IS ALL A HUGE WASTE OF TIME.

We need to spend more (a lot more) time working on living out Matthew 25. I would love to see a church known for feeding the hungry, clothing and sheltering the homeless, caring for the sick, reaching out to those in prison, but where do most churches end up spending their time? IN CHURCH.

Jesus said "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance". He came to save the lost, not to set up a study group for every Tuesday night. "Sinners" aren't likely to come find you hiding in the basement, you need to go find them and guess what??? Some of them might be living with AIDS or worse yet some might actually be living a homosexual lifestyle? OMG.

Remember when Jesus got in trouble with the religious leaders for going to dinner with the homosexual? You don't… oh, that's because back then homosexuals were called "tax collectors".

Can you imagine a world where Christians were calling out to each other saying "You need to stop spending so much time helping others and get back into church for some Bible teaching"? How would that world look? Pretty damn nice, I'd say.

Christ died to give us everything and we want to make it all about ourselves.

Shame on us. Shame on me.

I'm one of those crazy liberals who thinks that women should be elders in the church. However, after reading this recent confessional from Eileen Button, a Pastor's wife in Michigan, I've decided that women should be pastors. And if Ms. Button ever starts a church in DC, I'll attend.

Here Eileen discusses the stereotypes associated with being a pastor's wife:

For those who suppose they have me pegged, I'd like to dispel a few stereotypes. I don't believe Jesus would be a Republican or a Democrat. I am suspicious of our presence in Iraq and mourn the loss of lives there. I applaud those who may not be churchgoers but whose actions and generosity reflect Christ more than the lifestyles of many professing Christians. I believe God wants for us to prosper, but not necessarily in the way our American culture dictates, and certainly not just for personal benefit.

By the way, I don't wear stockings, pumps or flowered dresses with lace collars. Nor do I don Tammy Faye-style false eyelashes, wigs or sequins. I prefer jeans, khakis and classic T shirts. I don't volunteer in the nursery or children's church (I've had three children of my own; that was more than enough). I don't perform with the music team. With a voice like mine, no one will let me on, and the only song I know how to play on the piano is "Chopsticks."

However, I try to use the gifts I have been given in the church and community as a teacher, writer and friend.

This is the kind of honesty I would like to see from all Pastors. I know Pastors are not perfect, and it would be great if they would stop acting like it.