vincentcheungteam

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Faith Thrives on Clarity

May 3, 2025

Arden Dray

Faith is not complicated. The truth is not hidden behind layers of abstraction or reserved for the gifted few. God speaks plainly, and his word is clear to those who believe. This clarity is not anti-intellectual. It is rational, forceful, and consistent with the mind of God.

Simplicity is not weakness. It is not ignorance or naivety. It is the power to see what matters most and hold it without confusion. A simple faith is not shallow. It is direct. It looks at Christ, hears his word, and says yes. The world calls this foolishness, but the world has never known what wisdom is. True simplicity is sharper than the world’s confusion. It is not the absence of thought but the triumph of clear thought.

Some believers grow weak because they allow the truth to be buried beneath too many human theories and traditions. They hear the gospel, but they add layers of analysis and interpretation until the message becomes vague and distant, and in the end, they begin to doubt what they once believed. Faith cannot breathe in that atmosphere. It thrives in clarity. It rises when the mind is unburdened by needless complexity, not by discarding reason, but by refusing distortion.

God does not bless confusion. He blesses those who hear and believe. The greatest expressions of faith in Scripture are not always found in the most visibly educated men, but in those whose minds were ruled by God’s word. This is not a dismissal of knowledge, but a rebuke of false sophistication. Real theology does not obscure the truth but declares it. True doctrine does not weaken faith but strengthens it with clarity and force.

To grow in faith is not to climb into greater complexity, but to return to simplicity with greater strength. The strength of faith often begins with a simple word from God, although not every act of trust waits for an explicit promise. Many in Scripture believed without one, and God honored their faith. Yet wherever faith appears, it stands on something God has said or revealed about himself, or something positive that a person assumes about him. When the word is heard more plainly, faith rises more clearly. There is no replacement for this, and no improvement on it.

If your faith feels weak, do not search for something deeper. Search for something clearer. Return to what God has already said. Let it be simple again. Let it be strong again.

[vincentcheungteam]

Without Permission, Faith Grows

May 2, 2025

Arden Dray

Faith is not retreating. It remains, and it continues to spread.

Though the world swells with noise and disbelief, though many boast of progress while hollowing out the soul, the seed of faith is spreading across the earth. The words of God, once scattered like grain on uncertain ground, are taking root in places long thought barren. Without permission, faith grows.

Some measure spiritual strength by headlines and polls, but God does not ask for headlines. He sends his word into cities and villages, into schools and prisons, into families and foreign tongues. In places where governments have tried to silence the gospel, it speaks more loudly than before. In churches that have grown cold, voices arise in revolt against unbelief. In nations distracted by pleasure and pride, new believers are born, learning the truth before the lies can harden.

Faith continues not because of human effort, but because Christ reigns. He cannot be unseated, and his voice cannot be buried beneath culture or history. What he began in the first century did not pause at the fall of Rome. He speaks, and the world must listen.

Every generation has its deniers. But every generation also has its witnesses, its prophets, its healers, its people who carry the living truth with strength and joy. You are not part of a shrinking faith. You are part of a living kingdom, one that still moves, still reaches, and cannot be shaken.

[vincentcheungteam]

Every Locus Broken

May 1, 2025

Arden Dray

Cessationism corrupts the entire Christian system of truth, and the entire Christian way of life. It attacks everything about the Christian faith, leaving nothing untouched. It is a complete apostasy from the Christian faith. It is a comprehensive defection from the gospel of Jesus Christ. The result is a different religion from what the Scripture teaches. — Vincent Cheung

Systematic Divergence

To depart from the word of God on a single point of major doctrine is already to fall into false religion. To contradict what God has revealed about himself, or about his gospel, or about the nature and purpose of his church, is not a small mistake within Christianity. It is a declaration of independence from it. The Christian faith is not a loose collection of preferences or denominational instincts. It is a body of truth revealed by God and binding on all people. Any system that distorts or denies this truth, even at a single structural point, ceases to be Christian in substance, no matter how loudly it claims the name.

But cessationism is not a minor deviation. It is not even a localized heresy. It is a system-wide redefinition of Christianity that alters nearly every doctrine and collapses every structure built on the foundation of divine power. It does not merely add confusion to the gospel. It builds a replacement religion around a dead gospel. It reshapes the nature of God, empties the work of Christ, suppresses the Spirit, neutralizes faith, and severs the church from the very power that defines its identity. It is not an accidental overcorrection or a cautious reaction. It is a total betrayal that moves the entire system of belief from one category to another. It moves from Christian to anti-Christian.

There is a level of corruption at which a system must no longer be critiqued as flawed Christianity, but identified as something else entirely. Cessationism crosses that line. It does not qualify as Christianity in error. It functions as a counterfeit Christianity. And when the counterfeit is given the name of the real, the real is emptied of its meaning. A false religion that contradicts every essential part of the true one does not belong inside the circle. To keep it there is not generosity. It is apostasy.

Comprehensive Faithlessness

Cessationism begins by silencing the Spirit, but it does not end there. It continues by redefining the character of God into something static, silent, and non-intervening. It redefines the work of Christ into a completed transaction that no longer applies power to the present. It redefines the gospel into a theological framework devoid of demonstration. It redefines the church into an academic society that assembles to study what used to be true. Nothing essential is left untouched. The system must be called what it is: a faithless religion dressed in biblical language.

The God of the Bible is alive, and he acts. The cessationist god is frozen in history. The Christ of Scripture is exalted, reigning, and working in the world through his word and Spirit. The cessationist christ is a memory, a doctrine, and a name attached to sermons. The Spirit in the New Testament fills, baptizes, empowers, speaks, reveals, and heals. The cessationist spirit whispers through insights and disappears into moral strength. The church in Acts was a supernatural community. The cessationist church is a weekly classroom. Every claim to believe in the Bible is invalidated by the refusal to accept what the Bible actually describes.

This is what happens when unbelief takes on a systematic form. It builds itself a theology. It protects itself with credentials. It calls itself sound doctrine. But it is not Christian doctrine. It is the religion of absence, shaped by the presumption that God no longer works as he promised. The faithless build their churches on this foundation, and then wonder why the world laughs, the church decays, and their people are powerless. What they call maturity is just decay with a dress code. What they call reverence is just unbelief that has been trained not to raise its voice.

Truth Proclaimed

That said, we do not exist to answer cessationism. Cessationism exists to be answered by the word of God. The mission of the church is not to chase error, but to declare truth. Christ does not send his people to correct every lie. He sends them to announce what is real. False systems fall only because the truth is spoken.

The gospel does not rise in response to heresy. It stands on its own terms, by the power of its own voice. It existed before the error and will endure long after it is gone. If we speak with power, it is not because we react forcefully, but because we say what God has said. The Bible does not thunder in reply to man. It thunders because it is the breath of God.

This means we are not ministers of critique. We are ministers of revelation. We do not carry a message defined by opposition, but by origin. Our gospel comes from heaven. Our doctrine begins with God. Our words are not the counterpoint to another religion. They are the overflow of the one true faith. It is not the existence of cessationism that explains our clarity. It is the existence of Scripture.

So while we will refute error when necessary, we do not live by it. We live by the truth. The gospel does not depend on faithless systems to give it context. It is light whether or not the room is dark. And when we preach it clearly, the darkness proves itself. We do not adjust for the opposition. We increase the volume of the truth. If the counterfeit shouts louder, the original must become unmistakable.

Faith Alive

If you believe what God has said, you are not alone. If you still expect him to act, you are not wrong. If you still see what the Bible shows, then you still see clearly. The world has lost its mind. The church has lost its memory. But the Spirit has not lost his power. And the gospel has not lost its meaning.

There are many who feel the strain of walking by faith in a generation that mocks it. They know the power of God, but live surrounded by those who deny it. They feel isolated in churches that claim to believe the Bible, but stare blankly when God does what it says. They are told to doubt their own gospel and reinterpret their own faith. But they are not the ones who have departed. They are the ones who remain.

Do not trade what is living for what is acceptable. Do not lower your expectations to match the culture of a powerless church. If Christ is risen, then everything he said is still true. If the Spirit was poured out, then the same Spirit still speaks, empowers, and heals. If the name of Jesus had power, it still has power now. Refuse to explain away what God has revealed. Refuse to apologize for believing him.

The world will grow darker. The church may grow stranger. But those who hold to the word will shine. And those who listen for his voice will hear it. And those who follow Christ will never find themselves trapped in a religion of silence again.

[vincentcheungteam]

The Bears are Coming

April 29, 2025

Vincent Cheung

When Elisha passed through Bethel, a mob of young men came out of the city and mocked him, saying, “Go up, you baldhead!” They mocked the ascension of Elijah, and they mocked the prophetic mantle that now rested on Elisha. Their jeers were not harmless jokes, but a public rejection of God’s power, God’s messenger, and God’s right to rule. Elisha turned, cursed them in the name of the Lord, and two bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of them. It was not personal vengeance. It was divine judgment (2 Kings 2:23–25).

This is no obscure episode tucked away for scholars to puzzle over. It is a public judicial execution, demonstrating that to despise God’s work is to invite death. Those who sneer at the supernatural vindication of God’s servants are not merely foolish. They are rebels marked for destruction (2 Chronicles 36:16).

Today’s faithless, especially the cessationists, follow the same path. They mock the works of Christ and the power of the Spirit. They deny miracles, healings, and prophecies, as if it were a mark of sophistication to call God’s present activity a fraud. They ridicule those who believe that Jesus Christ still exercises his authority through his people. They are the spiritual heirs of the rabble of Bethel.

Scripture does not suggest that such rebellion is neutral or inconsequential. It shows that God responds to such defiance with lethal force. If the Lord sent bears to tear apart those who mocked Elisha, how much greater is the judgment stored up for those who scorn the living Christ? Hebrews warns that anyone who outrages the Spirit of grace deserves a far worse punishment than death by animals (Hebrews 10:29).

The message is not complicated. To mock the power of God is to declare war against him. It is a war they will lose. Their mouths are full of contempt now, but their judgment does not slumber. The bears have already been sent. They are coming for them.

[vincentcheungteam]

The Cessationist Blues

A meditation on the sad, pathetic life of a cessationist — a corpse propped up by lies, hating the truth that exposes him, rotting slowly in his own filth.

April 28, 2025

Vincent Cheung

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The Beauty of Clear Thinking

April 28, 2025

Arden Dray

Clear thinking is a beauty that the world overlooks, but heaven prizes. In an age when people reward confusion with praise, and admire obscurity as if it were brilliance, much of the church also overlooks this beauty, mistaking tangled theology for signs of depth when they are really signs of blindness. Against this background, to understand what God has said, to confess it with simplicity and strength, and to refuse the broken ways of thinking that dominate both the world and the church, is one of the purest forms of worship.

God does not endorse confusion. His speech is light, and his truth brings peace. Every word he has spoken reflects the order and majesty of his mind, without distortion or contradiction. His word shines with a clarity that no darkness can overcome. When we train ourselves to think clearly according to Scripture, we are not just becoming better thinkers. We are conforming to the pattern of truth itself, aligning our thoughts with the very mind of Christ.

Clear thinking is an adornment of the soul. It honors God by refusing to twist his words. It protects faith from the slow decay of doubt. It builds wisdom that can nourish others. It strengthens courage to stand firm when the world demands compromise. It sharpens the joy that comes from knowing that truth is not a riddle to be solved, but a treasure already given. There is no shame in plain words, and no vanity in straightforward truth. Plain thinking is the mark of a mind that has been set free to walk in the light of God.

[vincentcheungteam]

The Matrix of Religious Tradition

April 28, 2025

Arden Dray

“Until then, prophecy, healing, and all kinds of signs and wonders will never cease, but they are meant to increase, expand, and multiply as God’s people transition toward that state of transformation and glorification in Christ.” — Vincent Cheung

When we trace the history of miracles and the work of the Spirit, a strange pattern emerges. The early church operated in raw spiritual power, but without the neat categories and complex systems that later generations would invent. Faith and the Spirit were the driving forces behind miracles. Lists like Paul’s in 1 Corinthians 12 were recognized for what they were, illustrative examples, not exhaustive catalogs or doctrinal frameworks. However, each generation afterward, instead of preserving this freedom, invented systems that distorted, restrained, or replaced the original power.

By the time of the fourth century, as institutional Christianity hardened, miracles were increasingly tied to relics, saints, and sacraments. Faith was replaced with superstition. The Reformation rightly broke from Catholic corruption, but also sterilized supernatural expectations. Miracles were viewed as belonging to a bygone apostolic era. Faith was reduced to a dead claim of belief, not the living assent that Scripture demands. By the seventeenth century, cessationism had become entrenched as orthodoxy, despite its defiance of Scripture.

In the early twentieth century, the Pentecostal revival reignited belief in miracles and spiritual gifts. Yet it did not restore biblical theology. Instead, leaders like Howard Carter created artificial systems such as what Vincent Cheung calls the three-by-nine matrix of spiritual gifts. This scheme divided the gifts into categories of revelation, power, and utterance, a human invention that imposed unnatural limits on spiritual life. Charismatic movements spread this matrix globally, creating a new tradition only slightly less rigid and misleading as the old.

Today, most debates about miracles are trapped inside these defective frameworks. Cessationists argue against gifts that are misdefined. Charismatics defend gifts they scarcely understand. The true biblical pattern is almost forgotten: faith in God, Christ’s promises, the living Spirit, and the unstoppable force of prayer. Gifts exist, but they were never meant to define, regulate, or restrict the entire spectrum of supernatural ministry.

The restoration of authentic orthodoxy is underway. Miracles are not confined to human limits but flow from an ever-expanding relationship with the living God. They will not diminish but increase, until they are swallowed up by the glorified powers of the children of God. True orthodoxy is prehistoric, far more ancient than the historic orthodoxy of man. It began with God himself and will continue past the end of history. The Spirit was never caged by human matrices. Faith was never meant to be boxed by unbiblical categories. The kingdom is breaking out again, not as an echo of tradition but as a return to the primal design.

[vincentcheungteam]

The Reductive-Institutional Approach to Scripture

April 26, 2025

Vincent Cheung

The Redemptive-Historical Framework

The redemptive-historical approach interprets Scripture as the progressive revelation of God’s plan, culminating in the person and work of Jesus Christ. Rather than treating biblical texts as isolated moral teachings or abstract doctrines, it recognizes that every passage contributes to a unified, unfolding narrative of redemption. In theory, this method guards against atomizing Scripture into scattered life lessons or disconnected theological points. It invites the reader to trace the divine initiative throughout history, to understand the covenants, the types, the promises, and the fulfillments that center on Christ. When rightly employed, it draws attention not merely to events or principles, but to the character and activity of God revealed across time, enabling a more integrated and God-centered understanding of the Bible as a whole.

The Corruption of the Framework

Although the redemptive-historical approach claims to magnify Christ, in the hands of preachers and scholars it most often functions as a means to limit what people are permitted to believe about him. They routinely use it to suppress the full testimony of Scripture, filtering every passage through a narrow framework that permits only certain pre-approved attributes or actions of Christ. In practice, they never implement a redemptive-historical approach to Scripture, but a reductive-institutional approach that mutilates Christ. A text might clearly reveal him as a healer, a miracle worker, or a provider in response to faith, but these features are then reclassified as merely illustrative or symbolic, never meant to apply to the reader, never meant to describe what Christ does now. In this way, the method is used to amputate the very truths it claims to reveal.

This results in a Christ who is not defined by the totality of Scripture, but by the restrictions imposed by the interpreter. The method becomes a tool of theological reductionism. Whatever Christ says about himself in a given passage is often discarded in favor of a generic summary that aligns with a predetermined portrait. By insisting that the text is “only about Christ,” and then dictating what that must mean, the theologian nullifies the revelation of Christ already present in the passage. It is a sleight of hand disguised as reverence, replacing exegesis with evasion. This not only flattens Christology, but disables the reader from receiving what the text promises, commands, and reveals.

The effect is spiritual disfigurement. A method that should expand the believer’s vision of Christ ends up shrinking it. A method that should inspire faith ends up installing unbelief. It is now common for those who espouse this approach to brazenly dismiss healing, miracles, prophetic gifts, or answered prayer as applications of the text, even when the text itself speaks plainly about these things. The redemptive-historical approach, as commonly practiced, has become a sophisticated technique for denying the power of God while maintaining a veneer of scholarship and a superficial allegiance to Scripture.

The Rightful Use of the Framework

The redemptive-historical approach is valid in principle. Scripture truly does reveal Christ throughout its history, covenants, types, and promises. But a proper use of the approach must begin with submission to the text itself. It must allow the passage to reveal Christ on its own terms, rather than force the passage to conform to a predetermined image of Christ. The method becomes faithful only when it listens to the voice of God in each specific place, drawing out what he says about himself in that context, without preemptively discarding aspects that make the interpreter uncomfortable. The aim is not to reduce all passages to a single pre-decided theme, but to encounter the manifold wisdom of God in the diversity of revelation.

A faithful use of this approach will expand our knowledge and strengthen our faith. Instead of silencing texts that speak of healing, miracles, or spiritual power, it will recognize these as dimensions of Christ’s self-revelation. It will not discard the Christ who heals in answer to faith, or the Christ who commands nature, or the Christ who empowers his people by the Spirit. It will allow the text to teach us how Christ reveals himself, how he deals with people, and what he expects from those who believe in him. A redemptive-historical reading that does not lead to greater faith in Christ and greater expectation of his miraculous power has failed both as a method and as a theology. Its proper function is not to confine, but to unfold. It is not to guard against misapplication by denying application altogether, but to rightly instruct us in who Christ is and what he is doing now.

From Text to Christ: What We Are Meant to See

When the redemptive-historical approach is used rightly, it restores the authority of the text, the fullness of Christ, and the inheritance of the believer. Instead of silencing Scripture, it allows each passage to speak in its own voice, revealing dimensions of Christ that are too often ignored. We see not only the Christ who forgives sins, but the Christ who heals bodies, drives out demons, pours out abundance, and empowers his people to act in his name. The miracles of Jesus are not merely signs that he is the Messiah. They are revelations of what the Messiah is like, and what he continues to do for those who believe.

A proper reading of the Old and New Testaments will affirm not only salvation from sin, but also the outpouring of the Spirit, the authority of faith, the increase of supernatural abilities and ministries, and the evident intervention of God. It will teach that we walk in the legacy of Abraham, Moses, Elijah, and Paul, not just as students of history, but as inheritors of promise. The same Christ who acted in the past is active now, and the same power that parted the sea and raised the dead is available to those who believe. This is not sentimental reading or motivational abuse of the text. It is the natural result of letting the text speak plainly about Christ and taking him seriously.

A faithful redemptive-historical reading will not leave the believer with less. It will leave him with more: more vision, more confidence, more obedience, and more faith. It will not reduce the Christian life to waiting for heaven. It will compel him to take possession of what Christ has already given, and to press forward in faith. When Scripture is read as it was meant to be read, the church does not shrink back into theological minimalism. It rises to proclaim and demonstrate the full gospel of Jesus Christ: in word, in power, and in truth.

[vincentcheungteam]

The Cult of Self-Awareness

April 24, 2025

Arden Dray

In almost every era, the church has been taught to doubt itself in the name of humility, to degrade itself in the name of piety, and to dissolve itself in the name of God. But this is not the doctrine of Christ. It is a distortion that parades as piety while undermining the very power of the gospel. It is a spirituality designed to suppress identity, crush confidence, and make believers so afraid of loving themselves that they end up despising the very work of God within them.

Now, having obliterated the true self by tradition, the church pretends to rediscover it through therapy. Enter the cult of self-awareness. It appears in two forms. First, as introspective religion. This version condemns the self in the abstract but obsesses over it in practice. It warns you not to think too highly of yourself, while forcing you to constantly monitor your motives, measure your surrender, and scrutinize your sincerity. It demands endless self-examination without giving you a self worth examining. It strips away assurance, leaves you hollow, and then chastises you for being hollow.

The second form is secularized. It uses psychological language but serves the same spiritual aim. You are taught to study your wounds instead of healing them, to trace your personality instead of transforming it, to accept your instincts instead of overcoming them. Weakness is repackaged as authenticity, and entire identities are built on pathologies. You are told to know yourself, but not through doctrine. You are encouraged to be honest with yourself, but not with God. You are told to accept your limitations, not with hope for change, but with resignation. This is not humility. It is self-pity disguised as insight.

These paths offer no restoration. They offer no righteousness. They entrench the flesh and dismiss the new man. One sanctifies guilt. The other sanctifies fragility. Scripture sanctifies neither. It offers a self renewed in Christ, shaped by the word, strengthened by power, and defined by divine promise. The man of God does not scour his heart to find identity. He fixes his eyes on Christ and discovers who he is in him.

Christ does not restore the self by encouraging endless introspection. He restores the self by commanding faith. The Christian does not find himself by tracing patterns but by confessing the promises. Our worth is not in our wiring. It is in our relation to Christ, who defines us by divine purpose and supernatural power. He does not reduce us to our emotional habits. He renames us. He tells us what we are. This is the beginning of true self-awareness. Not the awareness of damage, but of redefinition. Not the study of an old nature, but the possession of a new one.

The apostles did not dismantle identity. They preached the new man. They did not call for lifelong introspection. They called for transformation. They did not command people to dissolve. They called them to arise.

You are what the word of God says you are. You are righteous. You are healed. You are powerful. You are seated with Christ. The new man does not suppress the “I.” He says with Paul, I am what I am, by the grace of God.

The gospel does not lead you to embrace dysfunction. It commands you to overcome it. It does not preserve pain. It eliminates it. It does not hand you back to yourself. It recreates you into something new. The Christian self is not a puzzle to be solved through introspection. It is a reality to be declared in faith.

The church must stop teaching people to apologize for existing. You are not holy because you are wounded. You are not humble because you are conflicted. You are holy because you have been made holy. You are humble because you believe what God says about you. You are strong because Christ lives in you. Stop explaining yourself. Start confessing the truth. The man of faith is not absorbed in himself. He is defined, focused, and assured. He knows what he is, and he lives like it.

[vincentcheungteam]

The Illiteracy of Religious Professionals

April 23, 2025

Vincent Cheung

It is commonly assumed that those who receive formal theological education are thereby equipped to teach others. In reality, religious institutions often function as finishing schools for unbelief, and the credentials they confer are no guarantee of biblical understanding. A man may hold multiple degrees, occupy a prestigious pulpit, or lecture at a seminary, and yet remain entirely ignorant of the most elementary doctrines of Scripture. Worse, his learning may serve not to clarify the word of God, but to entrench his rebellion against it under the guise of scholarship.

This phenomenon is not new. Scripture warns that many will be “always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth.” Theological illiteracy persists not because information is lacking, but because submission to divine revelation is absent. Religious professionals who read the text with no intention of believing it cannot be expected to understand it. Their exegesis bends to the expectations of their denomination, their academic peers, or their donors, rather than to the authority of the text. In such hands, the Bible becomes a tool of evasion rather than proclamation. The result is a clergy class trained not to preach the word of God, but to protect the people from it.

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Still in Babylon’s Shadow

April 21, 2025

Arden Dray

The Break That Never Broke

The Reformation is remembered as a rupture, a defiance of Rome, a rediscovery of truth. It tore Europe in half, rewrote nations, and gave the world new churches with new creeds. But the break was never clean. The Reformers left the pope, but they built new thrones in his image. They denounced Catholicism while preserving her structures, her fears, and her instinct to control. They left the palace, only to take the furniture with them.

They protested, but did not depart. While they challenged the corruption of Rome, they still retained her habits, layers of tradition, chains of institutional power, and systems of mediated grace. They replaced indulgences with introspection, bishops with theologians, and papal bulls with synods. But they did not return to the raw power of the gospel, the immediate authority of Scripture, or the living witness of the Spirit. They cleaned the chalice and filled it with the same wine.

No Revelation, No Power

When Jesus called his apostles, he did not give them institutional offices. He gave them revelation. He did not establish clerical ranks. He gave them the Spirit. Their authority did not come from education or election. It came from heaven. Paul did not preach because he studied theology. He preached because Christ appeared to him and sent him.

The Reformers claimed the word, but rejected the power. They recovered the text, but denied the voice. They taught that the Spirit had already spoken, and therefore would not speak again. They insisted that revelation had ceased, and so they built churches where the gifts no longer functioned and the fire no longer fell.

They inherited Rome’s lack of spiritual power, but dressed it in Reformed vocabulary. Rome at least claimed miracles, signs, and wonders. Though her claims were false, superstitious, or politically motivated, her affirmation of the supernatural was theoretically closer to the truth. The Reformers, in their reaction, went further astray by denying the Scripture on this topic altogether. They built seminaries instead of cathedrals, and called it progress. But what they produced was not an upper room. It was a classroom. There was no faith, no tongues, no healing, no prophecy, no revelation. Just notes, sermons, and fear of anything that could not be footnoted.

A Gospel of Qualifications

The Reformers said justification is by faith. Then they surrounded that faith with conditions. They said salvation is by grace. Then they tied assurance to performance. They insisted that a man is saved by Christ alone. Then they taught him to examine himself endlessly to see if Christ had truly saved him.

They refuted the mass, but kept the penance. They mocked the rosary, but replaced it with psychological self-flagellation. Their converts were not filled with joy, but paralyzed by introspection. Assurance became a prize for the anxious, not a promise to the believer. Faith was no longer a bold trust in the word of God. It became a tortured exercise in self-doubt.

This was not the gospel that made sinners rejoice. It was not the gospel that healed the sick or raised the dead. It was not the gospel that gave boldness to fishermen. It was a gospel for the cautious, the academic, the endlessly analytical. It created Calvinists, not conquerors. It trained men to doubt themselves better, not to believe Christ more.

Ritual Without Faith

The Reformers rejected the mass, but many of them kept its logic. They condemned transubstantiation. Then they taught that grace was still tied to water, bread, and wine. They denounced the Roman altar. Yet they clung to sacramental union and baptismal regeneration. They denied that the sacraments were magical, but still treated them as necessary channels of spiritual life.

They did not preach faith as a full sufficiency. They preached faith that comes with form, grace that travels through ritual, blessing that must be sealed by elements. They accused Rome of superstition, but then instructed their people to cling to visible signs in order to receive invisible things. They mocked the priesthood, but reserved the grace of God for ceremonies controlled by ministers.

This is not the freedom of the Spirit. It is not the simplicity of the gospel. It is not the faith that heals, moves mountains, and saves. It is another form of dependence. This time not on relics or indulgences, but on regulated rites. It teaches men to believe not in what God has done, but in what must be done again, and again, and again. It does not produce faith. It manufactures anxiety.

What they rejected in Rome, they reassembled in Geneva. The names changed. The bondage remained.

Traditions of Men, Again

The Reformers proclaimed Scripture alone. Then they quickly surrounded it with other voices. Their creeds became filters. Their confessions became limits. Their theologians became high priests. What they rejected in Rome, they reconstructed under a different name.

Instead of priests, they gave us scholars. Instead of popes, they gave us councils. They replaced relics with footnotes, and tradition with commentary. They denied the magisterium, but then enforced uniformity with catechisms and synods. The Scripture they defended became mediated again, this time through the minds of dead men in Geneva and Westminster.

Sola Scriptura became a slogan, not a reality. Dissenters were not excommunicated by decree, but by marginalization. Ministers were not cast out for heresy, but for daring to believe what the apostles practiced. The churches that claimed liberty of conscience crushed anyone who saw in Scripture more than they were taught to see.

The Spirit They Despised

When Rome drove out the Spirit, the Reformers did not open the door again. They shut it tighter. They denounced prophecy, ridiculed miracles, and buried healing under dispensational charts. They treated the Holy Spirit as a memory, not a presence.

They believed in the gifts in the early church. They did not believe in them for their own. They preached sermons on Pentecost. Then they warned their people never to expect anything like it. They read about visions and called them disorder. They read about tongues and called them madness. They read about healing and said it had passed away.

And today, many of their heirs continue the pattern. They resist the Spirit with argument, often using Scripture to deny the very power it proclaims, and in doing so, many of them blaspheme the works of God and commit what cannot be undone. They do not test what is spiritual. They dismiss it altogether. They speak of reverence, but what they fear is power. They exalt doctrine, though their doctrine is false, or else they would have faith and the Spirit. They speak as if they honor truth, yet they reject its power and resist its witness. They recoil when the Spirit moves. They will parse every word, but they will not receive power.

Suburbs of Rome

The Reformers named Rome as Babylon. Then they built new systems in her style. They replaced the harlot. They did not replace the architecture. They claimed to leave her behind. In truth, they walked in her shadow.

They did not return to Pentecost. They returned to the so-called church fathers. They did not rebuild the church with apostles and prophets. They rebuilt it with theologians and magistrates. They did not preach faith that moves mountains. They preached suspicion that examines fruit, but ignored that in Scripture, fruit includes faith, power, and miracles. They did not pray for power. They debated it.

They did not come out. They stepped sideways.

And the churches that followed them were not cities on a hill. They were suburbs of Rome.

The Revolution That Must Come

The Reformation protested Rome. It did not escape her. It opposed the papacy, but absorbed the structure. It recovered the doctrine of faith, but buried the life of faith under fear and suspicion. It preached grace, but denied its power. It honored the word of God, but condemned the Spirit of God that the same word teaches. It gave us a Bible that could be read; however, it left us with a church that would not believe it.

The Reformation was not enough. A revolution is needed. It must not be a mere revision. It must reject not only Rome, but everything that rebuilt Rome in Protestant form. It must tear down the systems that cage the gospel and smother the Spirit. It must stop treating the power of God as a threat and the gifts of God as a relic. It must abandon its fear of miracles, its hatred of certainty, and its worship of cautious theology.

The revolution will not come from councils or seminaries. It will not be written in confessions or policed by denominations. It will begin where every true work of God begins, in the word and by the Spirit, with power and with faith. It will not be led by those who debate whether God still speaks. It will be led by those who speak because God has spoken.

The church must stop reforming what God has not built. It must stop patching walls that Christ never laid. The reformation that matters is not the one that returns to Calvin. It is the one that returns to Christ.

[vincentcheungteam]

The Church has No Pope

April 21, 2025

Arden Dray

The Illusion of Holiness

Catholicism presents itself as the ancient faith, mother of the churches, guardian of the gospel. Its rituals are elaborate, its history immense, and its reach global. At its center stands the pope, veiled in white, hailed as the vicar of Christ, the successor of Peter, and the visible head of the church on earth. To many, he appears serene and wise, a moral compass in an unstable world.

But the standard of truth is not appearance. It is the word of God. And by that word, the image collapses. The Scripture identifies true leaders by their doctrine, their calling, and their faith. It exalts no throne but heaven’s. The issue is not taste or tradition, but truth and salvation. Catholicism is not another version of Christianity. It is another religion. The pope is not the leader of the church. He is the head of a counterfeit.

Catholics will insist this is a misrepresentation. They will say that Protestant critics misunderstand their system, or read it uncharitably. But this is not a matter of misunderstanding. The problem is not in the periphery but in the core. The entire structure of Roman religion defies Scripture, resists the gospel, and builds itself on human tradition. Its errors are not occasional. They are systemic.

No Voice from Heaven

In the New Testament, apostles were not elected or inherited. They were appointed. Christ called them by name, taught them by revelation, and sent them with authority. Paul makes this plain: “I received it not from man, nor was I taught it, but through a revelation of Jesus Christ.” He was not alone in this. Apostolic calling came by divine initiative, not by clerical ceremony.

The pattern was not optional. It was how God appointed apostles, and the pope does not belong to that pattern in any way. He claims descent from Peter, but Scripture confirms no such succession. He does not speak from revelation. He does not preach by divine instruction. He is selected by conclave, installed by rite, and affirmed by institution. No prophet sent him. No vision called him. No voice from heaven declared him. 

Even the Pentecostal woman in a forgotten village, with her tattered Bible and trembling prayers, has more in common with the apostles than he does. She prays with faith, hears the voice of God, and walks in the Spirit. He inherits ceremony. She receives revelation.

The apostles came with power. The pope arrives with applause.

The Foundation Betrayed

Jude writes that the faith was “once for all delivered to the saints.” The apostles did not leave a tradition to be developed, but a foundation to be preserved. Their message was not open to revision. It was given with finality, under divine authority, to be upheld and obeyed.

This apostolic message is not a scaffold for later construction. It is the house itself. Christ did not commission the apostles to begin a conversation, but to declare the truth. The church is not called to build upon their doctrinal foundation with new layers of human wisdom. It is called to stand upon it, unmoved and unaltered. To tamper with it is not progress. It is betrayal.

Catholicism has not upheld it. It has buried it beneath councils, creeds, and codes. It has elevated church fathers over the prophets, and theologians over apostles. It introduces doctrines by degrees: first as custom, then as rule, then as revelation, until the voice of Scripture is muffled by centuries of accumulated noise.

It calls its additions sacred tradition, but the apostles never permitted such a category. Jesus rebuked the Pharisees for nullifying the word of God with their tradition. Catholicism does the same. Its hierarchy does not protect the truth. It replaces it. The doctrine of papal infallibility is not humility before Scripture. It is war against it. The pope does not sit beneath the word. He competes with it.

It did not begin with innocence and drift into error. It began with defiance and solidified into tradition.

A Different Voice, A Different Gospel

Paul writes, “If anyone preaches another gospel… let him be accursed.” The gospel is not a flexible announcement. It is the definitive message of grace, by which God declares the sinner righteous through faith in Jesus Christ alone. It is not ritual. It is not cooperation. It is not a process of earning or maintaining. It is the proclamation of a finished work.

Catholicism preaches a different gospel. It ties grace to sacraments, turns justification into a ladder of effort, and places the church itself as mediator between God and man. It calls this sacred. But Scripture calls it slavery. The pope is not a herald of good news. He is a priest of fear, a minister of control. The office itself is not a distortion of truth. It is a rejection of it. It did not fall from purity. It rose from rebellion.

The problem is not only the man. It is the throne. It is the system that built it, the religion that sustains it, and the millions who trust it. The pope is not a Christian leader, because Catholicism is not the Christian church. It is a different voice, a different doctrine, a different gospel. And it must be rejected.

The Kingdom Without the Spirit

The faith that comes from God is never without power. The gospel is not just a message, it is a miracle. In the book of Acts, the church was born by the Spirit, preached by the Spirit, and moved by the Spirit. Healings confirmed the word. Prophecy clarified the truth. Boldness filled the mouths of fishermen. The Spirit was not an accessory to faith. He was the fire in it.

Catholicism burns with fire, but not the fire of the Spirit. Its rituals and sacraments, incense and liturgies, impress the senses but not heaven. There is pageantry without prophecy, power without resurrection. Its hierarchy silences spiritual gifts and ridicules living faith. Grace is not received through faith but dispensed through clerical control. It does not welcome the supernatural. It replaces it with ceremony.

The pope stands at the summit of this structure, a monument to order without anointing. He speaks, but the Spirit does not bear witness. He presides, but the gifts of God do not follow. He claims to be a father, but he cannot give the Holy Spirit to anyone. He is not a vessel of divine presence. He is a symbol of spiritual absence. Where the Spirit is present, the lame walk and the doubting believe. Where the pope reigns, the liturgy is performed, but no fire falls.

The Politics of Piety

The kingdom of Christ is not of this world. It needs no earthly throne, no diplomatic recognition, no alliance with the powers that be. But the Roman Church has always relied on political strength. It has bound itself to kings, shaped empires, crushed dissenters, and absorbed nations. It baptized Caesar and never let go. It once crowned emperors and burned heretics. Today it dines with dictators and kisses idols.

This spirit has not changed. Today, Catholicism elevates diplomacy over doctrine, image over truth. The pope blesses false religions in the name of unity. He partners with tyrants for influence. He offers moral counsel to nations while denying the power of godliness. The Vatican maintains the appearance of holiness, but it is deeply entangled in the world it claims to transcend.

This is not the witness of Christ. It follows the strategy of Babylon. It manages reputation instead of declaring truth, courts the world instead of confronting it. It blends in where it should stand apart, gains approval where it should suffer reproach. What claims to represent heaven is admired by the powers of earth.

And the pope, robed in white, walks the corridors of this kingdom not as a prophet, but as a diplomat.

A System Under Judgment

The book of Revelation speaks of a great prostitute, clothed in scarlet, drunk with the blood of the saints. This was a prophecy of first-century Jerusalem, apostate, violent, and condemned. But the spirit it describes did not vanish with the temple. It rises again wherever false religion joins with worldly power to suppress the truth.

Catholicism bears this spirit. It has shed the blood of reformers. It has persecuted the faithful. It has exalted its leaders above the word of God and demanded submission in the name of peace. Even now, it offers another Christ, another gospel, and another church.

The judgment recorded in Revelation is not confined to a single century. It unveils the mind of God toward every system that repeats her offenses. Catholicism has repeated them with precision. This is not mere error. It is provocation. Not weakness, but defiance. Not confusion, but condemnation.

Come Out from Her

The call of Scripture is not merely to argue with false religion, but to separate from it. When God judged Babylon, he commanded his people to come out of her, lest they take part in her sins and share in her plagues. That command reveals how God treats all systems that defy him. Christ does not call us to reform Rome. He commands us to forsake it. The Spirit does not say negotiate. He says depart.

Catholicism is not Christianity. The pope is not a Christian leader. The gospel is not found in their mass, their sacraments, or their ecclesiastical declarations. It is found in Christ alone, in his finished work, and in the word he has spoken. No institution has the right to mediate or modify that word. No man, however robed, can replace the voice of God.

To remain under Rome is to remain under deception. To submit to her claims is to reject the word of Christ. The way of salvation is not paved with relics and rosaries. It is the narrow road of truth, entered by faith, walked in power, and sealed by the Spirit. There is no pope on that road. There is only Christ.

Come out from her, and follow him.

[vincentcheungteam]

The Book Grown-Ups Need But Don’t Deserve

April 19, 2025

Arden Dray

Vincent Cheung recently told me that, among all his books, the one he would most strongly recommend right now to religious adults, especially Christians, is The Adventures of Jesus Christ. Although it was written for young readers, it turns out to be one of the most effective ways to expose the pride, blindness, and rebellion that dominate adult religious culture. It is a book of simple stories, clear speech, and spiritual precision, and that is why it wounds where so many theological volumes merely impress.

He did not say this because adults need to relax or be comforted with nostalgia. He said it because most religious adults today are spiritually diseased in a way that theological books rarely touch. They are not intellectually impressive at all. Their minds are dull, pretentious, and lazy. They have learned to mimic the sound of scholarship without ever producing truth. They analyze and admire in circles, but they never submit, never believe, never obey. They esteem the forms of doctrine, but not its power. They read for commentary, not confrontation. They want to manage the truth, not be mastered by it. What they need is a direct exposure of their false views of Jesus Christ, and a total rejection of the sophisticated pride that keeps them blind. This is exactly what The Adventures of Jesus Christ delivers. Its power lies in its refusal to cater to adult vanity. And that is why Vincent now places it above all other books when speaking to those who think they are already mature.

Why Religious Adults Are the Problem

If this sounds offensive, that is because it should. Most of what passes for maturity in the church today is just religious pride with a library card. The men who plotted to kill Jesus were not wild pagans or naïve peasants. They were the most educated, most devout, and most religious people in the nation. They believed in God, read the Scriptures, memorized the laws, and led the worship of Israel. Yet when the Word became flesh and stood before them, they called him a devil. They accused him of violating the Sabbath, undermining tradition, and blaspheming the name of God. Their devotion was not a virtue, it was a weapon against the truth. Their piety did not honor God, it attacked his Son. And when their arguments failed, they reached for nails.

This pattern has not changed. The people who are most eager to argue theology today are often the ones least likely to receive correction from Jesus himself. They build churches and seminaries, write confessions and catechisms, host conferences and publish journals, but they cannot endure the kind of Savior who walks into their pulpits, flips over their tables, heals on their Sabbaths, and rebukes them in public. They are fine with doctrine, as long as it does not speak. They are fine with Christ, as long as he is dead. But the real Jesus, the one who speaks with divine authority, works miracles without permission, and calls their entire system corrupt, is unbearable to them. They despise clarity when it refuses to validate their authority or feed their reputation. Even while they publish books for children themselves, they instinctively recoil when childlike truth exposes adult vanity. They want theology that flatters their intellect. What they need is a storybook that wounds their pride.

Why This Book Pierces Where Others Fail

Most books written for adults aim to impress. They lean on historical background, lexical nuance, theological jargon, and scholarly tone. These are not always harmful, but they are often used to obscure rather than reveal. Religious adults have been trained to treat these features as marks of trustworthiness. If a book is complex, they think it must be profound. If it is simple, they assume it must be shallow. But The Adventures of Jesus Christ destroys this assumption. Its simplicity is its weapon. It does not reason like a professor trying to earn a place in your mind. It declares like a prophet sent to judge your heart.

This is why it pierces when other books flatter. It strips away the illusions that adults hide behind, the idea that theological maturity means speaking in abstractions, that faith is found in footnotes, that doctrine must always arrive with professional credentials. In this book, Jesus is not someone you admire from a distance. He is someone you must obey, immediately. He is not locked in history or theory. He is alive, bold, and unstoppable. He walks into the story from the very beginning, speaks with the voice of God, works miracles with ease, and identifies his enemies without apology. The religious adult who reads this book cannot escape. He will either humble himself and believe, or bristle and reject the Christ he claims to know. But he will not remain neutral.

Each chapter in this book dismantles a false image of Jesus that religious adults have inherited from their churches, their pastors, and their books. It confronts the idea that Jesus was merely a teacher, or a moral example, or a meek and sentimental figure. It replaces these lies with a Christ who speaks with power, acts with force, and demands faith. The style of the book prevents evasive interpretation. You cannot hide behind exegesis when a child understands the rebuke better than you do.

Key Themes that Offend the Proud

From the opening chapters, The Adventures of Jesus Christ attacks the foundation of religious arrogance. Jesus appears as a child, but not as a passive or quiet one. He commands storms to cease, walks on water, and speaks to angels. He does not hesitate to call people out as unbelievers, fools, or hypocrites. And this is not framed as a surprising twist, it is shown as perfectly normal. Jesus is the Word of God made flesh, and he acts like it. The book refuses to present him as merely developing into divinity or growing into authority. From the beginning, he is Lord. And this humiliates the adult reader who still clings to a soft, manageable Christ.

The miracles in this book are not rare events meant to impress or distract. They are constant, inevitable, and righteous. Jesus does not work around human unbelief, he confronts it, overrides it, and rebukes it. The message is clear: faith is not optional, and divine power is not a footnote in theology. This alone is enough to offend entire denominations. Adults who have built their religious identities around the idea that miracles have ceased, or that divine power must submit to ecclesiastical approval, will either break under this book or harden against it. And that division is exactly what Christ produces wherever he goes.

Another offense is the clarity of Jesus’ speech. He does not offer gentle encouragements, speculative theologies, or vague illustrations. He says things like, “If you do not believe, you will die,” and “You are not a teacher, you are a liar.” There is no room for ecumenical compromise or interpretive negotiation. Jesus says what he means, and he means what religious adults do not want to hear. Those who value tolerance over truth, or dialogue over doctrine, will find themselves exposed by every page. The very style of the book stands as a rebuke: it shows that the gospel is not complicated, only rejected.

Why Adults Should Read It, And Why They Probably Won’t

The religious adults who need this book most are the least likely to read it. Or if they read it, they will dismiss it with a condescending shrug. They will say it is for children, that it lacks nuance, that it oversimplifies the truth. But the real issue is that it does not flatter them. It does not respect their traditions. It does not court their approval. It looks them in the eye and calls them what Jesus called the scribes and Pharisees: blind guides, whitewashed tombs, murderers of prophets. And it does this not with technical arguments, but with devastating clarity.

Religious adults prefer books that make them feel learned. They do not want something that makes them feel lost. But The Adventures of Jesus Christ tells them the truth, that they have confused complexity for faith, and that their religion is built on layers of self-deception. This book does not ask them to admire Christ. It demands that they repent before him. And because of that, it has more spiritual substance than most books written for adults.

What is most humiliating to them is that the very features they dismiss as childish, such as simplicity, directness, and storytelling, are the very ones Jesus used when preaching to the crowds. He spoke in ways that exposed the heart. He told stories that divided the listeners. He said things that were too clear to reinterpret. This book does the same. And just like in the gospels, those who claim to see will be blinded, and those who admit their blindness will receive sight.

The Line Has Been Drawn

Vincent Cheung’s recommendation is not just literary, but prophetic. When he names The Adventures of Jesus Christ as the most important book for adults right now, he is not making a casual suggestion. He is making a diagnosis and delivering a sentence. He is saying: you are not as mature as you think, and your theology is not saving you from unbelief. You need to meet Jesus again, not through the filter of your religious identity, but through the raw confrontation of the Word himself.

This book is not beneath adults. It is above them. It is what they need precisely because it denies them the illusions they cherish. It does not play their games. It does not wait for their approval. It stands in judgment over their traditions, their institutions, and their polished doctrines. And for those who have ears to hear, it offers a chance to be shocked, stripped, and healed by the real Jesus Christ.

But those who love the kind of Christianity that killed him will hate this book too.

[vincentcheungteam]

The Days that Bind

April 17, 2025

Arden Dray

Galatians 4:9–10 Now that you have come to know God—or rather to be known by God—how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world, whose slaves you want to be once more? You observe days and months and seasons and years!

Romans 14:1–2, 5 As for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not to quarrel over opinions. One person believes he may eat anything, while the weak person eats only vegetables… One person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind.

Colossians 2:16–17 Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.

There is something deeply ironic about the modern church calendar. It is full of movement, color, ritual, and season, yet at its core, it often feels hollow. Even as people gather to celebrate holy days, their actions repeat the very pattern that the apostle Paul warned against in multiple letters to the early church.

The issue is not cultural preference, but theological clarity. The moment someone assigns spiritual weight to a particular day, whether Mosaic or manmade, they have abandoned the logic of the gospel and returned to the very shadows from which Christ delivered us.

A Return to Weak and Worthless Things

In Galatians, Paul is direct. Observing religious days is not a sign of devotion. It is a symptom of regression. “You observe days and months and seasons and years,” he exclaims, not with approval, but with grief. These things belong to the elementary principles of the world, the spiritual kindergarten of law and shadow, powerless to sanctify.

The gospel does not sanctify us by calendar or custom. It sanctifies us by Christ. And to rebuild the structure of days as if it were the gospel is to reject the substance in favor of symbols. The strongest critique Paul offers is not against paganism or legalism alone. It is against those who claim Christ and still find comfort in the forms he has fulfilled.

The Weakness of Scruples

Romans 14 introduces a softer tone. Paul addresses the issue of religious scruples with patience. Some believers still feel compelled to honor certain days. Others eat only certain foods out of conscience. Paul does not attack these believers, but he does name them. They are the ones who are weak in faith.

This is where many modern interpreters falter. They imagine that Paul was saying all positions are equal, that observing days or not observing them are just two equally valid options. But Paul is not relativizing. He is tolerating. And he is guiding the church toward maturity.

The strong man of faith esteems all days alike. He is not bound by rhythm or ritual. He is free. But his freedom is not flaunted to harm the weak. It is exercised with clarity and held with patience. The weak are welcomed, but the strong are not told to imitate their weakness.

Shadows and Substance

Colossians 2 brings the theological explanation. Festivals, Sabbaths, and special observances were never the substance. They were shadows. Hints. Prototypes. Christ is the fulfillment. The moment he arrives, the shadow ceases to matter.

When modern believers elevate Easter, Christmas, or any such day to a place of spiritual obligation or reverence, they are not advancing the faith. They are repeating the mistake Paul dismantled. The point is not that manmade holy days are inferior to Mosaic ones. The point is that both are irrelevant when the reality is Christ.

And more than irrelevant, they become harmful if insisted upon. Paul does not say, feel free to observe days if it helps you. He says, let no one judge you, that is, for not observing them. That is a rebuke to those who impose, not to those who refrain.

Clarity in a Calendar World

Many religious people will resist this. They will insist that their traditions are sacred, that their calendar honors God, and that their observances are rich with meaning. But they must be asked plainly: Is their conviction drawn from the Scriptures or inherited from sentiment? Are they defending truth, or just defending what they are used to?

Paul’s writings are not vague. He does not give suggestions for the liturgically inclined. He gives instructions for those who would walk in the Spirit. He does not call seasonal observance a valid path. He calls it weakness. He does not refer to religious days as enrichment. He calls them slavery. And when people today replicate these practices under a new name, they are not reviving something spiritual. They are reviving what Paul calls regression.

The modern church calendar is filled with intentions. But intention is not the measure of truth. The Scriptures draw a line between shadow and substance, ritual and reality, weak faith and strong. The believer who sees through the rituals does not oppose them for the sake of being contrarian. He opposes them because they blur what Christ made clear. He knows that no day is holier than another, and that the gospel offers no seasonal advantages.

This kind of faith does not rely on cycles or ceremonies. It does not need the feel of tradition to find its footing. It stands on something firmer. The faith that needs seasons and special days to feel real is a faith that does not yet know the fullness of what it already has.

Observing a day may not begin as rebellion, but it reveals a lack of understanding. What begins as tradition often becomes confusion, and what feels like reverence often becomes regression. The Scriptures do not praise such observance. They warn against it.

The calendar does not make you holy. The culture does not make you wise. Only Christ does. And he does not come and go with the seasons.

A Faith That Does Not Need Seasons

Some will say they observe Easter or Christmas simply to honor Christ. But honoring Christ cannot be defined on our terms. Paul does not affirm the intentions of those who observe days, because a sincere motive does not sanctify a misguided act. The problem is not just the message such observance communicates. The problem is that the act itself reflects theological confusion. To add significance to a day is to subtract from the sufficiency of Christ. Even what feels like reverence can become unbelief. And church tradition, no matter how long it has lasted, cannot reverse what Paul has written.

The fullness of Christ is enough. He is the once-for-all sacrifice, the eternal Sabbath, the living temple, and the resurrection itself. Nothing is gained by revisiting shadows, and nothing is lost by leaving them behind. To live in him is to live above the calendar. It is to walk in a liberty that does not ebb and flow with the seasons, but remains fixed in the finished work of the cross.

[vincentcheungteam]

Faith. Reason. Power.

Some things are written to invite conversation and entertain endless debates, as if to postpone belief and action. Our collection serves a different purpose. It is composed of writings that set forth what is certain, not to plead for consensus. They are deduced from Scripture, ordered by reason, and declared with clarity. The question is not whether these writings are appealing to everyone, but whether one will stand with the truth or fall under it.

Those who read will find no attempt to soften the message or make room for doubt. They will encounter the God who demands full assent and a system of truth that requires them to choose between clarity and collapse. Grounded in the system of faith, reason, and power that Scripture itself proclaims, these writings do not wait for acceptance. They speak what must be said, and move forward with or without approval.

They are offered for those who truly seek something more than conversation, and for those who desire a faith that speaks with authority, stands without apology, and acts without retreat. This is a faith that brings certainty to the mind and power to the world, producing actions and effects as it was always meant to do. It is for those who are ready to believe with their whole heart and live as members of a kingdom that does not bend to the world.

browse or search our collection

[vincentcheungteam]

What treachery it is to say that the Bible is insufficient as a comprehensive intellectual foundation! What blasphemy it is to say that the Bible is insufficient to address every need! God's revelation is more than enough to produce a complete worldview and philosophy, and to provide definite answers to our practical and ethical issues. Yet Christians glibly say, "The Bible does not address this," and then proceed to think about their problems as if this is indeed the case. They are very quick to assume that the Bible is insufficient, but very slow to admit that they are too lazy and stupid to find out what the Bible says.

Instead, a Christian should say: "The Scripture claims to be sufficient to make me 'thoroughly equipped for every good work' (2 Timothy 3:17). Since I have this problem or this decision to make, the Bible must have an answer. The problem is never in the Bible, but in my ignorance of what it teaches, and in my laziness. If there is something that the Bible does not address, then it means that I do not need to know it in order to have a comprehensive worldview, or to make wise and ethical decisions. The Bible contains all the information necessary for me to be a good and growing Christian in every way. Although I might not live up to all that it teaches, all the information that I need is in there, and it is my duty and delight to study and obey it."

There is hope for someone who thinks this way. The Bible promises, "If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him" (James 1:5). On the other hand, many people set up their own ignorance as God's judge. They assume that if they do not know what the Bible says about something, then the Bible does not say anything about it. This sinful attitude brings destruction upon themselves.

Since the Bible is sufficient, it is shameful for Christians to seek answers to the ultimate questions from scientists and philosophers, who know nothing themselves, and to seek instructions on practical living from psychologists, self-improvement experts, or gurus and fortune-tellers. Are these so-called Christians stupid and spineless, and in desperate need of proper teaching, or they are in fact non-Christians, who are as dogs returning to their vomit, and pigs returning to the mud (2 Peter 2:22)?

Paul teaches that God's revelation to us covers all that is needed for human thought and conduct, and all that is needed for salvation and holiness. Thus the Christian faith addresses both the philosophical and the practical. In connection with this, Foulkes writes, "If this is correct, it follows that the wisdom of God is not merely intellectual or academic…it is also the source of understanding in the details of daily living." Many others make this point; however, they often forget that this also works the other way. Paul just as clearly shows that the wisdom of God is not merely "the source of understanding in the details of daily living," but that it is also "intellectual or academic." If biblical wisdom is not only philosophical but also practical, then it is not only practical but also philosophical. And if there are indeed some who stress the intellectual too much – as if this makes sense to say, since even practical wisdom cannot be non-mental, or non-intellectual – there are many more who do not stress it enough.

— Vincent Cheung, Commentary on Ephesians (2014), p. 37-38.

[vincentcheungteam]

HAPPINESS vs HOLINESS

Some people insist that God mainly wants them to be happy, and this assumption becomes for them a principle for guidance in decision-making. Since God wants them to be happy, then God's will must be for them to pursue the course that maximizes their happiness. Even some Christian ministers are sympathetic to this view. It is then used to justify illegitimate marriages, divorces, homosexual relationships, covetous ambitions, and various unbiblical and unproductive social gatherings and relationships.

The Bible, however, does not teach the pursuit of happiness as a principle of guidance; instead, it teaches the pursuit of holiness:

It is God's will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality; that each of you should learn to control his own body in a way that is holy and honorable, not in passionate lust like the heathen, who do not know God; and that in this matter no one should wrong his brother or take advantage of him. The Lord will punish men for all such sins, as we have already told you and warned you. For God did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy life. Therefore, he who rejects this instruction does not reject man but God, who gives you his Holy Spirit. (1 Thessalonians 4:3-8)

Preachers must not tell people, "God wants you to be happy; therefore, you may do whatever you wish," but rather, "God wants you to be holy, and therefore you must do whatever he commands; otherwise, 'The Lord will punish.'" Those who ignore God's precepts to pursue happiness may laugh now, but Jesus promises that they will mourn and weep later.

Vincent Cheung, The Sermon on the Mount (2012), p. 14-15.