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I wasn't sure what to expect from Risking the Truth: Handling Error in the Church, but Martin Downes' collection of interviews proved to be a wise and insightful read. I really enjoyed this book. The interviews, with men like Carl Trueman, Tom Schreiner, Mark Dever, Michael Horton, Greg Beale, Joel Beeke, and Ligon Duncan, were so fascinating that I read the 247 books in two sittings. Admittedly, I am a sucker for interviews, especially interviews with pastors and theologians I respect. But non-pastors and non-academics can benefit from this book too.You won't agree with every line, just like those being interviewed don't always agree with each other, but there is a remarkable similarity in the general approach to truth and error given by these men: preach the Bible, don't neglect your own heart, don't spend all your time on controversy, test your theology against historic creeds and confessions, beware of pride.
Here are a few specific highlights:
Martin Downes on the blessing and danger of the reformed resurgence:
In many ways this is a sign of both growth and decay. It signals remarkable growth in the influence of reformed theology. Many are turning to it having found that much generic evangelicalism has drifted at one edge into superficiality and at the other into theological convictions antithetical to the fundamentally reformed orientation of classical evangelicalism. Today – not least among younger men and women – the importance of doctrine, seriousness of spirituality, and a recover of biblical exposition, have all become major desiderata in the movements with which they want to be identified.
Over the centuries when God has purposed a fresh work he has often brought together brotherhoods or networks of Christian leaders to point the way forwards. This is in some measure happening in our own day. To use the language of 2 Samuel 5:24, there is ‘the sound of marching in the tops of the balsam tree ...’ and a sense that ‘the Lord has gone out before you’.
It is, therefore, an exciting time to be reformed.
But exciting times can also be testing times. New energy and zeal are often accompanied by short roots that do not go down deeply into the soil. The discovery of new doctrine can easily lead to imbalance. It can propel an individual into an unhealthy desire always to hold something new. But the highway to novelty is also the road to deviation (10-11).
Martin Downes on the difference between error and heresy: One writer defines it as ‘any teaching that directly contradicts the clear and direct witness of the Scriptures on a point of salvific importance.’ Heresy is the kind of doctrinal error that is so serious that it redefines the gospel. But not all errors are heresies. A heretic is not someone who fails to explain adequately the doctrine of the Trinity, or that Jesus is both fully God an fully man, the nature of the atonement, or justification by faith alone. No, a heretic denies these truths and is fundamentally unsubmissive to apostolic doctrine and authority as it is given in Scripture (21).
Sean Michael Lucas on putting cultural transformation in its proper place:
It must be said that a desire for mercy and justice, for cultural transformation, and genuine community are proper in their place, but if they are not rooted in a prior individual vital communion with God through Christ by the Spirit in the Word, then they will finally lead to moralism and theological decline (125).
Conrad Mbewe on the best way for ministers to oppose error:
Again, I go back to consecutive expository preaching. Let us simply teach the Word of God regularly, in its own context, and we shall find that we will not be preoccupied with error. We will be overwhelmed with the grandeur and beauty of the truth, as set forth in the Scriptures, that we will be lost in wonder, love and praise to God for this truth instead of starting at anything that moves, for fear that it may be erroneous. We will also have a passion for the truth without necessarily being trigger-happy and sniffing out error under every bush and shrub. So, I repeat my appeal for consecutive expository preaching (154).
Geoffrey Thomas on the right balance of feeding sheep and fighting wolves:
For every single word addressed to the wolf give ten words to the sheep (159).
Geoffrey Thomas on NPP:
For the last few years people have come to me and said, ‘What exactly is the New Perspective on the Apostle Paul?’ How difficult it has been to answer them. I can answer now better than three years ago, but that debate is for the mandarins, and increasingly the paedo-baptist mandarins, not the people I preach to who need to understand and glory in the free justification of the New Testament (161).
Michael Ovey on how smart people succumb to serious errors:
I think there are three things that spring to mind. First, pride: in particular perhaps a pride of intellect that insists God should have said this rather than that, and therefore squeezes the Scripture into one’s own system. Secondly, boredom: I think there is a spiritual malaise that has a sense of ennui at the presentation of simple gospel truths (Christ died for my sin, Christ rose again, He is the ascended Lord) and wants, so to speak, to explore the periphery of Christian theology. I think there is a cultural spirit in our time that loves the new and loves the esoteric. Thirdly, we can embrace error because we want to justify what we are doing: simple immorality over the years has led many of us astray (180).
Martin Downes quoting James Buchanan on how to refute error for the long haul:
It has long been my firm conviction, that the only effective refutation of error is the establishment of truth. Truth is one, error is multiform; and truth, once firmly established, overthrows all the errors that either have been, or may yet be, opposed to it. He who exposes and expels an error, does well; but it will only return in another form, unless the truth has been so lodged in the heart as to shut it out for ever (238).
This is a wise book and a quick read. Pastors and scholars especially would do well to pick up a copy.
