How Ozark prepares kingdom leaders to defend biblical truths

NIGHTSHADE VS. GOOD GREEN GRASS

GUARDING THE DOCTRINAL DIET OF GOD’S FLOCK

Matt Proctor

In 2002, I was a 32-year-old preaching professor at OCC. I was always looking for good pulpit examples to share with my students, and that year, I pointed them to a young preacher named Rob Bell.

A Dynamic Biblical Communicator

In 1999, Rob Bell planted a church in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and for the first year, he preached through Leviticus— verse by verse. Why? “Because it’s so visual,” said Bell. “Instead of describing an abstract concept like substitutionary atonement, Leviticus gives instructions on how to slit the throat of a lamb. The blood spattering on your cloak lends vivid imagery to the penalty for sin. The sacrificial system becomes one giant visual aid to explain Jesus.”

Rob also chose this book because “unchurched people often perceive the Bible as obsolete. If that crowd could discover God speaking to them through Old Testament law, it would radically change their perception.” So Bell acted out Leviticus in his sermons. He built altars on stage, had “priests” wearing ephods, brought in a live goat for the Day of Atonement, and showed that the whole book pointed to Jesus.

Many preachers are afraid arcane Old Testament laws would bore their people. (They avoid Leviticus because they’re afraid of an exodus!) But during that year through Leviticus, Bell’s church grew to over 2,000.

“Wow!” I thought. “Here’s a guy who believes in the power of God’s Word!” I attended a Conference on Preaching where Bell spoke and had my preaching students listen to his Leviticus 16 sermon. The world needs strong biblical communicators, and in Rob Bell, it seemed we had one more.

A Troubling Turn in Doctrinal Direction

But when I read his 2005 book Velvet Elvis, I was troubled. He seemed to question the doctrine of the virgin birth. Then in his 2011 book Love Wins, Rob Bell openly questioned the doctrine of hell.

I was deeply saddened, and I took his sermons out of my preaching class. Despite loving calls to return to biblical truth, Rob Bell kept walking further away. He resigned from his Michigan church, and in a book entitled What Is the Bible?, he argued that: • The Bible is simply a human book, not the unique Word of God. “The Bible is not a book written by God. It’s a book written by people about God.” • The Old Testament laws were human inventions. “God didn’t set up the sacrificial system. People did.” • The cross of Christ was not God’s work to save humanity from wrath. “God didn’t need to kill someone to be ‘happy’ with humanity. What kind of God would that be? Awful.”

Rob Bell remains one of the most intelligent, funny, and eloquent communicators I’ve ever heard, and thousands still listen to him. But the man a newspaper once called “the next Billy Graham” has, to put it plainly, “departed from the truth” (2 Tim 2:18).

A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing

Christianity has always faced opposition. (Nativity sets should probably include King Herod and soldiers marching toward Bethlehem.) Physical attacks from antagonists and philosophical attacks from atheists are easy to spot. They are wolves in wolves’ clothing.

More dangerous are the wolves in sheep’s clothing (Matt 7:15). False teachers like Rob Bell can be winsome, compelling, and even morally admirable people. They call themselves Christians, know their Bible well, and sound authentically spiritual, but they “secretly introduce destructive heresies” (2 Peter 2:1).

False teaching comes in many forms. Some forms contradict God’s Word, such as Bell’s “progressive Christianity.” Other false teaching distorts God’s Word, such as the “health and wealth” gospel or a legalism of salvation by works. Some false teaching alters God’s Word, like the Jehovah’s Witnesses, while some adds to it, like the Mormons. Whatever form it takes, the devil constantly slips into sheep’s clothing to tamper with truth.

False teaching was not just a first-century problem. It’s still dangerous today.

At Ozark, we believe the Bible is still true. (Still True is the theme for this Ambassador and for last February’s PreachingTeaching Online.) So we equip the next generation of kingdom leaders to defend biblical truth in three ways: study up, stand up, speak up.

Study Up (on Threats to the Flock)

When my dad was an Iowa teenager, raising 120 sheep on 100 acres of pasture, he noticed one summer his sheep began dying. No evidence of predators. Just one or two, here and there, no obvious cause.

It’s not uncommon for a sheep or two to die each summer. (House plants have higher IQs than sheep.) But these deaths continued until his flock had dwindled by almost a third. My dad finally called in a veterinarian to investigate, and an autopsy found the culprit: nightshade. These poisonous plants grew in the shade, under the trees where the sheep congregated in the summer heat, and they couldn’t resist the tasty weed.

What did my dad do? Thirteen-year-old Gene Proctor walked all 100 acres in the sweltering sun, pulling every single nightshade plant he found, and his vigilant labor saved his sheep.

Ozark students learn: a spiritual shepherd guards his flock’s doctrinal diet. That means studying the poisonous plants that might endanger them. Paul warned the Ephesian elders about false teaching: “Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock” (Acts 20:28). In classes like Apologetics, Philosophy, and Cults, students learn to spot non-Christian worldviews and popular false teachings—the common, tasty-but-toxic weeds in our cultural pasture.

Ultimately, we want students familiar with the truth. U.S. Treasury agents don’t learn to detect counterfeit currency by studying fake bills. They study genuine money until they know the real thing so well bogus bills are instantly recognizable. Our students take over 50 hours of Bible classes. Why? So they will know God’s Word so well false teaching is quickly recognizable. Then they can pull whatever “theological nightshade” threatens.

Stand Up (When False Teaching Surfaces)

In a church I served, a young couple became enamored with a popular televangelist who taught “name it and claim it” theology—just as God spoke things into existence, so can we if we speak the words with enough faith.

Deceived, the young couple tried to apply his teaching in their new business—seeking to make certain things happen by “speaking them in faith.” I sat in their living room to express my concerns, but my warning fell on deaf ears. When their business faltered, their faith did as well.

Confronting false teaching is about as fun as pulling 100 acres of weeds in the hot sun. It’s always more enjoyable to teach truth than to challenge error. (Read Jude 1:3.) But sometimes, standing up to false teaching is necessary, because souls are at stake.

In 2019, former-conservative-Church-of-Christ-membernow-progressive-Lutheran-pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber wrote a book entitled Shameless: A Sexual Reformation. In the book, which garnered praise from periodicals like The New Yorker, she seeks to “set Christians free” from shame over their sexual behavior: “Unless your sexual desires are for minors or animals, or your sexual choices are hurting you or those you love, those desires are not something you need to ‘struggle with.’” Instead, you’re free to express your sexuality, she said, as you see fit.

So we point students to teachers like Dr. Wesley Hill, a biblical studies professor at Trinity School for Ministry. As a same-sex attracted man, Dr. Hill is obeying Christ in a life of celibacy, and his response to Bolz-Weber’s book carries the power of personal testimony. Dr. Hill wrote that believers don’t defeat shame by “whittling the law’s demands down to a size that fits their behavior. Sexual purity is a scriptural (and therefore indispensable) category.” The only way to overcome shame is to “admit guilt and ask for mercy.” His response was one of Christianity Today magazine’s most read articles last year.

Our students learn: standing up for truth is necessary.

Speak Up (with the Truth of God’s Word)

Longtime OCC academic dean Dr. Lynn Gardner taught apologetics, the defense of the faith. But he once quoted Charles Spurgeon: “The Word of God is like a lion. You don’t have to defend it. Just turn it loose, and it will defend itself.”

The Bible is powerful. At times we may need to defend it, but more often, we simply need to proclaim it—to give the flock the good green grass of God’s Word. So we teach students to speak the truth that: • God still reigns. In a world that says there is no God, we proclaim that “he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.” (Hebrews 11:6) • Humanity still sins. In a world that says everyone is okay just as they are, we proclaim that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23) • Jesus still saves. In a world that says all roads lead to heaven, we proclaim that “no one comes to the Father except through” Jesus. (John 14:6) • The Church still prevails. In a world that says the church is irrelevant, we proclaim that “the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” (Matthew 16:18)

I have never met Rob Bell or Nadia Bolz-Weber, but I pray that “God will grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth” (2 Timothy 2:25). God’s Word does not need edited, recalibrated, or explained away. It is already “perfect, refreshing the soul” (Psalm 19:7). Our best work is simply to read it, love it, live it, and preach it. Even Leviticus.

Matt Proctor has served as president of Ozark Christian College since 2006.