We must challenge the church and ask the continual question, “What are the marks of a true church?” and “is my church holding to those marks?” There is an old saying the applies here: “choose your battles.” Sometimes in “protesting” we want to fight every fight, we want to draw every line in the sand. Yet like a general in the field, we need to realize there are certain points in the battle that demand more attention and certain hills upon which we must die.

Let’s be honest: the evangelical and Protestant church has seen better days. We have our own scandals. In a fast-paced world, our faults are replicated through our communities at a much quicker rate than in previous generations. We may not have a pope but we certainly have a celebrity culture of mega-pastors which people rally around in an “I follow Paul,” “I follow Apollos” sort of way. Evangelical and Protestant theology is long passed its highwater mark of intellectual depth, Biblical analysis, and careful articulation. Now, you can be “evangelical” and think that God does not know the future, Jesus is not equal in power and glory with the Father, or that justification by faith is not forensic but transformative. We have seen better days. In some ways, we need to rediscover the need for a little “protest”.

As a pastor, it is important to discern the things that matter and have eternal weight and emphasize those. We must challenge the church and ask the continual question, “What are the marks of a true church?” and “is my church holding to those marks?” There is an old saying the applies here: “choose your battles.” Sometimes in “protesting” we want to fight every fight, we want to draw every line in the sand. Yet like a general in the field, we need to realize there are certain points in the battle that demand more attention and certain hills upon which we must die.

First, one such hill to die on is the authority of the Word of God. The Bible is the Word of God. God used means and people in times and places but God is the ultimate author. It is authoritative because God spoke it. The Bible then is infallible and inerrant. What that means is simple; the Bible does not lie because God cannot lie.

Equally important to the authority of the Word of God is the canonicity of the Word of God. Does the Bible have authority because the church says so or do the books of the Bible have an inherent authority which the church recognizes? If you receive two love letters claiming to be from your wife, but they have different handwriting, style, and completely contradictory accounts of how you met and were married, they both cannot be true. Yet, because you know your wife and the details of your life with her, you will be able to spot the error. You will be able to declare “yes, this is the letter from my wife, the other is not.” But your proclamation did not originate the letter. No, you simply recognized what was already inherent in it from the moment it was written.

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