#BJUBC2024

[wutbju]

A WutBJU reader wanted to be sure we called attention to Greg Mazak's falderal in the BJU Seminary CORE Conference. You can watch it here.

The most dramatic thing about Mazak's talk is that he's not a complete authoritarian. He's actually conceding that people might have a different view. It's kind of startling to hear him be . . . well, accommodating.

But you can't ignore the fact that he's still reduces everything he teaches to rhyming proverbs like:

Root determines fruit.

Yes, Jesus does say that every tree is known by its fruit. But, Greg, no tree bears fruit continuously. There are dormant seasons and even well, seasons where it looks like the tree is dead.

Take, for instance, my raspberry bed yesterday. It was a mess. I needed to do a spring clean-up. This is the time of year for pruning. And in the same bed, of course, are sawbriar plants with the raspberry. Both are vines. Both have thorns. Neither are blooming right now.

Now I can tell the difference between them. But it's not because of the fruit. If I were to cut off all the vines that weren't bearing fruit in March, I would be kind of a dingaling. Nothing has fruit in March.

There's a time to rest and a time to reap. A time to prune and a time to wait. That's what gardening is.

And remember, Greg, what the fruit of the spirit actually is:

Love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance.

Joy, there, is chara. If you dig into that, it sounds like Paul is saying that God will give you occasions to rejoice. It's not saying that you won't ever be sad or depressed or even hopeless. It's not saying that if God is not producing joy in you at this moment or all the time, the Spirit is not in you. Nor is it saying that if you feel sad or depressed you're not a Christian.

We know that's where you are headed.