Welcome to a Wright View! Make sure you spell “wright,” right. What I will be posting here in this place is my view. My prayer is that it will be far more than just my view though. My opinion on anything is worthless. What matters only and eternally is what God says. And God is not silent. God has spoken. He has spoken fully, faithfully, and finally in His Word; the center of all that He has said grounded in and giving glory to the Lord Jesus Christ. My goal in this blog is to seek prayerfully and diligently to be as faithful as possible to what God has said in HIs Word. This means that I must seek to be clear about the “words” that are the constitutive elements in the Word of God. Each and every word matters. Will I make mistakes? You betcha! Not just in grammar and syntax, but in not having a clear understanding of the Word. I am still growing. God is still sanctifying. I rest in His love for me and grace toward me in the life, death, resurrection and current reign of Jesus over all things. I await eagerly His time for me to come home or His time to come get His people and judge the world. But I will work until He comes to get me through death or through HIs descent to the earth. And a part of that work will be using words in this space to get at the meaning of “words” in the only “Word” that really matters, the Word of God.
My main concern for most of the ministry in the church as a pastor of a local church has been focused on one issue. It is the issue that most troubles my soul. It is the issue that wakes me up at night and drives me to prayer. It is the issue that causes me to weep with great sorrow over the spiritual condition of so much of the church in America and for me particularly, the part of the world in which I have lived and worked for almost all of my time in pastoral ministry. It is the concern over the deep divide between “cultural/nominal Christianity” and “genuinely Biblical Christianity.” The former is by far the most popular, the most powerful, and the most pervasive. The latter is real, but rare. Most of our churches are populated by people who profess and practice the former. Those in the latter group love Jesus and His church but are deeply grieved over what is too often called Christianity among those who profess to be Christians. But those in this group are often more than hesitant to stand up and speak out for fear of being called Puritans, Pietists, or Pharisees. This is the issue that I will be addressing. Pray for me that I will speak to it with biblical faithfulness, theological integrity, and compassionately driven evangelistic enthusiasm.
Let me end this first post with a very brief definition of both the cultural Christian and also the biblical Christian. A cultural Christian is someone who follows the rituals and traditions of his or her church for what it means to become a Christian. Such people choose the time and the place to choose to become a Christian. The choice is made, the rituals that follow are fulfilled and from that moment on this person considers himself or herself a Christian. It is a forever done deal. Sometimes small changes in life are made. Sometimes for a short season big changes in life are made. But all the basics of the Christian life are negotiable: belonging and being active in a local church, reading and studying the Bible, giving through the church for the advance of the Gospel, sharing the Gospel of Jesus with family and friends, a daily time for prayer to God and hearing from God as we read His Word etc.
A biblical Christian is someone who can identify a time in his or her life (it does not have to be a precise day and time for everyone) when they know that something changed in them. And it changed them. They know that the change was real and that it was radical. They know that something happened that they cannot explain. It is a mystery that is marvelous. They know that they received Jesus as Lord and surrendered their lives to Him. Still sinners, yes; but new desires begin to be born in them: to be an active part of a local church. to read and study the Bible, to pray to God, to give financially as God commands, to share the Gospel of Jesus that saved them with family and friends, to love Jesus and His church more and more and to live for His glory.
There are not different kinds of Christians. There is only one biblically defined kind of Christian. Anything other is fraud. It is false. It will send people to hell forever even while such people live daily and unto death actually believing and saying that they are Christians. Do you see and sense why my heart breaks and my soul weeps over this issue?
Articles and commentary by Dr. G. Al Wright
I do need the commitment to speak up when I think there is a verbal profession only. However, the harsh sting of being called the “J” word and then described as that to other people gives me the out of, “well Jesus will convict them when He is ready.” I have been asked why would I want to throw “my pearls before swine.”