Josh Benner

Category: Commentary

  • Proverbs: we can never be right when we disagree with God

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    No wisdom, no understanding, no counsel
        can avail against the Lord.
    -Proverbs 21:30 

    God created all things and he knows all things. All truth is God’s truth. God is a God of truth. In the gospels, Jesus is THE truth (John 14:6). God’s word is truth (John 17:17). The Psalmist said, “The sum of your word is truth,and every one of your righteous rules endures forever” (Psalm 119:60). 

    We can never be right when we disagree with God, when we go against God, when we decide we don’t like a teaching that the Bible makes. There is no “agree to disagree” with an all-knowing, holy, righteous God. God is not our peer, he’s not our college. Our views of morality, salvation, the world, and reality are not equally valid to God’s truth.

    There will be teachings or situations in the Bible where our initial reaction is to not like them or to disapprove. Because we’re sinful, because it might be exposing an area of sin in our own heart. Or we might disagree with God’s righteous application of justice. But because we’re sinful people, it makes sense that we’d have times where we disapprove or disagree. Tim Keller says, “If your God never disagrees with you, you might just be worshipping an idealized version of yourself.”

    We must approach the Word of God with humility. Maybe we have something in our life that we’re doing and the Bible commands otherwise. Conversely, maybe we have something that we’re not doing and the Bible teaches that we should. In either case, follow God’s way. No wisdom, no understanding, no counsel can avail against the Lord.

    Thanks for reading! I’d love to hear what you think, and don’t forget to subscribe! 

    Josh Benner is the associate pastor at Cornerstone Evangelical Free Church in Fergus Falls, Minnesota and has a Master of Divinity from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He enjoys writing about faith and culture. He lives with his wife Kari in Minnesota.

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  • Survey reveals pervasive heretical beliefs among American Christians

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    Working with Lifeway Research, Ligonier Ministries recently released the third installment of their “State of Theology” survey.

    Part of the goal is to find out what American Chrstians “believe about God, salvation, ethics, and the Bible.” Lifeway polled 3,000 Americans in the survey.

    The results were troubling.

    Many people in the poll have unbiblical views on moral issues. For instance, 46% of people ages 18-34 believe that gender is a matter of personal choice. 38% disagreed that abortion is a sin.

    But what is even more concerning than views on moral issues is views which are heretical. For the question, “Jesus is the first and greatest being created by God.” 78% agreed with that statement.

    The problem?

    Jesus isn’t a created being! The heresy that Jesus is a lesser being than God the Father is a heresy that is essentially as old as Christianity.

    Other key doctrines where people disagreed with Biblical teachings included undermining that humans have a sinful nature. 53% of respondents agreed with the statement “Everyone sins a little, but most people are good by nature.”

    51% of respondents believed that a person can be saved who follows a religion besides Christianity. 58% believed that “worshipping alone or with one’s family is a valid replacement for regularly attending church.”

    Churches must be committed to teaching sound biblical doctrine. We too often shy away from sound doctrine because we’re afraid it’ll be too advanced for people in a culture that is often not well versed in the Bible.

    But there are catechisms for little kids. Surely adults can learn basic Biblical teachings, such as that Jesus is not a created being.

    But I’ll also say that it’s not all on churches either. A person can be taught correct doctrine but choose to believe that which is unbiblical. I especially think of this in terms of beliefs that water down the penalty of sin or that try to find backdoors for people to get into heaven without having faith in the gospel.

    We must take the word of God seriously.

    Thanks for reading! I’d love to hear what you think, and don’t forget to subscribe! 

    Josh Benner is the associate pastor at Cornerstone Evangelical Free Church in Fergus Falls, Minnesota and has a Master of Divinity from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He enjoys writing about faith and culture. He lives with his wife Kari in Minnesota.

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  • Faith that works

    Originally published January 4, 2017

    The Bible is clear that we are justified by faith. Jesus died on the cross. Jesus’ life was enough, his death was enough, the blood that he spilled was enough, his body that was broken was enough, the life he was resurrected to was enough. We could not earn God, we could not be Godly, and from his mercy and goodness, Jesus came for us, to live for us, to die for us, to save us from our sins. And all you have to do is to trust in that, to have faith in that.

    And when you do, God gives you his Spirit. Like the Apostle Paul said in Galatians 2:20, “It is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” (more…)

  • New movie looks into Kermit Gosnell and his house of horrors abortion clinic

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    I saw the new movie “Gosnell: The Trial of America’s Biggest Serial Killer” about former Philadelphia abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell who was sentenced to three life sentences for delivering live babies and then murdering them.

    For starters, I think it’s a movie that a pro-life person (such as myself) will like. And I think pro-choice people will sit this one out. I don’t know if I really see minds getting changed as a result of this movie.

    Given Gosnell’s low budget, I thought it was very well done. And while it’ll undoubtedly cater to a largely Christian audience, it’s not a family film (it’s rated PG-13). And the subject matter is difficult as it talks about abortion and Gosnell’s lack of regard for the lives of the babies he murdered.

    You have a man arrested for running an abortion clinic despite the fact that he wasn’t board certified, he had staff doing medical procedures who hadn’t been properly trained. He was working in squalid conditions. The end credits show a picture from the initial law enforcement raid with a stray cat inside the clinic. One of the first scenes of the movie features the investigators going through the clinic and finding body parts of babies discarded in various places, such as refrigerators.

    The man was a butcher. Late term abortions. Doing procedures in an unsanitary environment. Inducing labor and then murdering babies who were born.

    One of the things the movie tries to do is capture the inattention from the media regarding the story at the time. Ironically, that is also true of the movie. It’s not like Gosnell was operating 90 years ago. His clinic was raided in 2011 and he was convicted in 2013.

    Writing for the DailyWire, Matt Walsh points out that Rotten Tomatoes has just six reviews of Gosnell. Walsh offers a key reason as to the lack of attention to Gosnell’s story:

    Any case of illegal abortion will inevitably lead to difficult questions about legal abortion. After all, what is the substantive difference between killing a baby moments after it leaves the birth canal and killing it moments before? How can an advocate of unrestricted abortion become an opponent of infanticide? Any argument offered to justify late-term abortion must also apply to post-term abortion.

    -Matt Walsh, DailyWire

    I think Walsh is right on this point.

    How do we view what Gosnell was doing?

    Was he a crusader who was trying to help women in a poor community? That was part of his defense.

    Or was he a murderer?

    Was what he did technically illegal? Delivering baby and using scissors to snap their necks. Was it technically illegal but not really that different from aborting a baby a few inches further into the birth canal?

    Or is it murder?

    I believe that answer is clear.

    It’s a difficult issue within our larger society. When does one have a right to life? It’s a pretty fundamental question.

    I understand that many people are pro-choice but don’t support late term abortion (although it is legal in some states). But I think the distinctions people try to make are arbitrary. That a baby has a right to life once there’s a heartbeat or once the baby is viable and could survive outside the womb.

    What is it about those stages that inherently confers a right to life?

    From the moment of conception, a baby is distinct from both of the parents and a separate life.

    Gosnell did a little over a million dollars in this opening weekend. I would think the audience was overwhelmingly people who are pro-life. As the Los Angles Times movie review said “The film never loses sight of the choir to which it is plainly preaching.”

    Will this movie be a turning point in the national conversation on abortion? I doubt it.

    But it is a movie that shows these abortions for what they were: murder.

    Thanks for reading! I’d love to hear what you think, and don’t forget to subscribe! 

    Josh Benner is the associate pastor at Cornerstone Evangelical Free Church in Fergus Falls, Minnesota and has a Master of Divinity from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He enjoys writing about faith and culture. He lives with his wife Kari in Minnesota.

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  • Young Sheldon episode tackles struggles in faith

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    While it’s a comedy about a boy-genius, CBS’s “Young Sheldon” took up some heavy theological topics in last weeks episodes titled “A crisis of faith and octopus aliens.”

    The show is a spin off of the Big Bang Theory where Iian Armitage plays Big Bang Theory character Sheldon Cooper as a child. It’s a comedy featuring this boy who’s incredibly brilliant in a family that’s pretty ordinary. His mother Mary (played by Zoe Perry) is an Evangelical Christian.

    In this episode,  a family friend passes away and Mary’s character is thrown into a Spiritual crisis.

    Her pastor tries to help by saying what works for him (serving others). Serving others is great. Serving others is healthy and it can be helpful to some people in a time of depression, because it shifts your focus onto others and their needs. In the episode, Mary attempts to throw her into service, church activity, Bible studies, plants a new garden. Yet she still can’t get over her sadness.

    She turns to drinking and withdrawing from faith, stops saying grace and doesn’t go to church one weekend. Sheldon notices the changes in her behavior and reaches out in his concern.

    “Faith means believing in something you can’t know for sure is real, and right now I am struggling with that,” Mary says.

    Sheldon doesn’t believe in God, but throws in an apologetic for his struggling mother:

    “Did you know that if gravity was slightly more powerful the universe would collapse into a ball? Also if gravity was slightly less powerful the universe would fly apart and there’s be no star or planets,”

    “Gravity is precisely as strong as it needs to be and if the ratio of the electromagnetic force to the strong force wasn’t one percent, life wouldn’t exist, what are the odds that would happen all by itself?”

    -Young Sheldon

    When his mom question points out that Sheldon doesn’t even believe in God, he says he doesn’t, “but the precision of the universe at least makes it logical to conclude there’s a creator.”

    I really thought it was a great episode. I appreciate how it dealt with the subject of a person hitting a Spiritual wall. Because a significant part of Mary’s character both on Young Sheldon (and the same character on Big Bang Theory) is that she’s an Evangelical Christian. I didn’t think the episode was making fun of faith, rather I thought it was a sincere look into real struggles.

    The road of faith is not without its twists and turns, not without its bumps. It’s not without construction and slow downs.

    The temptation can be to want to make ourselves busy. That’s what Mary’s character initially does. But in the face of tragedy, in a world where people sin and where death is a result of that sin and where death is a consequence of the fallen world that all will face, to take that to God, and to lament the death that is in the world. It was not the original creation for the world, and it goes against our natural inclinations. Lament is a common practice in the Bible. It’s a practice that I think the modern American church (especially WASPs often overlook).

    Lament is an expression of grief and sorrow. Lament is based in the reality of who God is. Lament is based in a high view of the goodness of God in a fallen world.

    I think it’s important to be humble and to recognize that God is God and we are not. That God is sovereign.

    I think it’s important for Christians to remember the promises of God. And to remember them for what they are, not as caricatures or distortions. God doesn’t promise that life will be without pain (he promises the opposite). God doesn’t promise life will be without loss (he promises the opposite). God doesn’t promise that we’ll always be happy with our situations, or that things should be easy, or that we’ll be free of suffering. He promises the opposite.

    Sometimes our major misgivings with God come from a faulty understanding of who God is or what he has promised. Life is hard. The Bible doesn’t hide from that reality. Some churches can create this pressure that everything should always be ok, or that if you have enough faith, you should always be happy. Those aren’t Biblical views.

    The promises that God does make are that those who mourn can be blessed, for they shall be comforted (Matthew 5:4). That everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved (Romans 10:13). That nothing can separate us from the Lord of God (Romans 8:38). That there is grace and redemption for sin and that God has given us every Spiritual blessing (Ephesians 1:3). That God hears the prayers of his people (1 Peter 3:12). And so many more promises the Bible makes.

    Sadly, many people turn away in times of despair.

    Where is your hope?

    People put hope in a lot of different things. For some, they put hope not in God but in the Church. The Church is great, but that is not our hope. For some, people put their hope in their efforts, their pursuits, their activities. That too will inevitably fail you. Our hope must be in the good, loving, and eternal God of the universe.

    Spiritual depression is common in the Christian life. Some of the greatest leaders in the history of the Church struggled with it. Because, as Mary said in the show, faith is believing in something you can’t know for sure. And when that is coupled with our sin, with our unfulfilled hopes, and with the sin that is in the world, sometimes there are struggles. There can hopefully be solace in knowing that. You’re not alone.

    And while we change, God is unchanging. And God continues to invite us into life through his son Jesus.

    Thanks for reading! I’d love to hear what you think, and don’t forget to subscribe! 

    Josh Benner is the associate pastor at Cornerstone Evangelical Free Church in Fergus Falls, Minnesota and has a Master of Divinity from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He enjoys writing about faith and culture. He lives with his wife Kari in Minnesota.

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