Go, Johnny Mac!!

My blog-reading informed me of an interview including Dr. John MacArthur on the topic of... yoga. This is sort of a "fringe" topic for me, one that comes up intermittently, but has never been a very pressing issue. (It seems like it could be innocent exercise as long as you don't do any weird chanting or anything... but enough people are polarized against it that I didn't want to be naive and blithely participate in something bad.) Check out the transcript, and a video courtesy of YouTube.

It's impossible to adequately cover the nuances of the issue in perhaps three 30-second opportunities to speak, in an interview reaching a grand total of 5 minutes. Much more could be explained to develop a complete framework, with more time. That's why it's so easy for people to misconstrue one's words in that sort of situation. But it literally shocked me that the other pastor, Doug Pagitt, took a verse out of context, claimed you can't presume to know what Jesus thinks about modern-day topics (I thought he or the emergent movement was all about relevance?), and dismissed outright the efficacy of the Word to impact our lives. Wow.

The Bible's principles transcend, and are completely applicable in, present-day culture. I am admittedly biased, because I believe the Bible is true and sufficient for any need, but I don't think either the Bible's own cultural contexts or today's cultural milieu make it irrelevant for today. I also don't think the Bible is ambiguous. While there is mystery in the Bible, there are also very clear instructions for how to live today. The manifestations of those instructions will perhaps be unique, but we can know what Jesus thought. In fact, there are numerous direct quotes from him on everything from children to money to lust to eternity!

Again, wow. I am simply non-plussed. (And by the way, I'm not one of those "John MacArthur can do no wrong" people. He's a fallen man who sins like the rest of us. However, I respect him very much for his advocacy for true truth, his staunch argument for the sufficiency of Scripture, his wealth of learnedness... and his vocabulary. Where else would you learn the word perspicuous?)