Is There Anything Christian About Christian Science?

Is there anything Christian about Christian science? That's just one of the questions we'll be answering on today's edition of CORE Christianity. Well, hi, I'm Bill Meyer, along with Pastor Adriel Sanchez, and this is the radio program where we answer your questions about the Bible and the Christian life every day. Here's our phone number. It's 833-THE-CORE.

That's 1-833-843-26. You can also email us your question at questionsatcorechristianity.com. We'd love to hear from you. First up today, let's go to Wallace calling in from Nashville, Tennessee. Wallace, what's your question for Adriel? My question is for Pastor Simmons. Mary was a child for our Lord and Savior to come through, and now that she's gone with the glory. So why would they ask the Virgin Mary to pray for her when she was just a child for our Lord and Savior, and now that she's gone to glory, she can't pray for anyone. So I thought to myself that the Catholic faith was in the center of the cult.

How do you feel about that? I disagree with offering up prayers to the Virgin Mary. I do think that in Protestant circles, I'm a Protestant minister, that sometimes we can minimize the role of the Virgin Mary in the history of redemption.

I think that's a problem. I think when you read Scripture, there were all sorts of debates that were happening also in the early church around Mary in particular that focused on Jesus and the Incarnation and who it was that took flesh from her womb, the second person of the Holy Trinity. The Word made flesh. So there have been a lot of conversations about this, and sometimes I think in Protestant circles, kind of in our response against Roman Catholics or to Roman Catholics, we can kind of have a low view, if you will, of the things that took place through God's providential action and care and redemptive working and salvation in bringing his son through the womb of the Virgin Mary. So that's one thing, but I don't believe with the Roman Catholic Church and some other Christian traditions that Mary should be prayed to, that we should ask Mary to pray for us. I mean, that's a part of Roman Catholic theology where they say, well, we can go to her and ask her to pray for us, just like you ask somebody else to pray for you here on earth, but there's no indication in Scripture that that's something that we're called to do as Christians. In fact, Mary herself, I think, pointed away from herself and to Jesus, her son, the savior of the whole world. But then you also ask, well, is the Catholic Church's view on Mary, does that make them a cult?

No, I don't believe so. I don't believe that the Roman Catholic Church is a cult. I think that there are a lot of disagreements that we have. I think there's some serious issues related to doctrines like the doctrine of justification. And historically, I mean, there have been some real fierce debates between the Roman Catholic Church and the Protestant reformers. I mean, they basically said early on that the Protestant Reformation was accursed. I mean, now Catholics today will say something a little bit different and sort of tone down their language.

But some serious differences, disagreements, why I'm not Roman Catholic. But I wouldn't say that the Roman Catholic Church is the same as the Jehovah's Witnesses or the Mormons. They do happen to get the doctrine of God right. So many of those court Christian doctrines that we believe are central to the faith, the doctrine of the Trinity, the doctrine of, again, the incarnation of the Son of God.

So I think that that's something that we can celebrate and say, okay, this is a good thing. And we wouldn't want to categorize them with the Mormons, with the Jehovah's Witnesses who don't get the doctrine of God right, who reject the doctrine of the Trinity and don't understand the incarnation. But that's not to minimize, again, the differences between Roman Catholics and Protestants. And some of those differences include piety and prayer and, you know, intercession to the saints. And those are things that I think that you don't see in scripture. And so I would on the basis of scripture with Catholic friends say, hey, this is not something that you find in the Bible.

So I think that's something we challenge. Wallace, thank you for your question. May the Lord bless you. This is core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez, Pope Francis on the line. Just want to say thanks for your comments there.

Yeah, yeah. I'm sure he listens to core Christianity. He probably doesn't. If you know him personally, send him, you know, this this broadcast and see if we can't get him on the line. I think that would be because there's a lot to discuss.

So there would be a lot to discuss. All right, well, let's go to one of our voicemails from one of our listeners who listens to us in Florida. Hello, thank you for taking my call.

My name is Linda. I am 56 years old and I'm a single woman. And so my question has to do with how much involvement should I have in terms of helping the opposite sex, especially if they are Christians? One person in particular, we were in an inappropriate relationship and I got out of that relationship and then several months later he reached out and he needed a lot of help with transportation, help with other things. I only help because I think God wants me to, but I just don't know how appropriate it is. He doesn't seem to have a good Christian community, especially if he's younger and he could reach out possibly for other resources. The other question to that is how much involvement should I be in a relationship that is not a promising relationship of a future husband?

The relationship is not also appropriate. Anywho, thank you so very much. God bless you and appreciate all you do. Goodbye. Well, dear sister, thank you for your question.

And let me just say a couple of things. One, you should not pursue, I mean a relationship that you know this is not going to go anywhere. This is not going to end in marriage, a romantic relationship. I don't think that you should waste your time with that.

No, not at all. And especially if this is something that is a stumbling block, something that you see is actually leading you away from obedience to Christ and his word. Well, yeah, there are a lot of red flags there. We need to take sin very seriously. And those areas of temptation in our lives that seem to trip us up, we have to take that very seriously. Remember what Jesus said.

This is Matthew chapter 5 verse 27. You have heard that it was said you shall not commit adultery. But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away.

It is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell. Jesus is speaking to all of us here. He's saying, look, don't minimize and make excuses for your sin. When you see that you're doing something or in a relationship or going to places where you find yourself in compromising situations and giving in to temptation, don't just say, oh, it's not that big of a deal.

I'll do better next time. No, he says, if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off. He's using hyperbolic language there, but essentially he's just stressing. We're playing with fire.

This isn't a game. And so I would just want to say to you, sister, you have to take this very seriously. Now, the good news is there is grace for you and grace for this individual. I don't want you to feel, but you should not feel bad that you're not helping this individual.

Yes, God wants us to help people and to care for each other. But for this individual specifically, I think because of the history of the relationship, he needs to get into a church where he has accountability and where there are others in the church, other men who can help him support him in the ways that he needs to be supported so that he's not dependent upon you. And again, just think about the history of the relationship. It's not appropriate to go on in that way. And just for your own sake, wanting to have a clear conscience before the Lord, but also wanting to walk in purity and honoring the Lord, I would say the right decision is not continuing to help this guy with the things that he needs, per se, and saying, look, you need to get some help from the church, from other men in the church. And if you're not in a church and you don't have those kinds of connections, you need to get in a good church. That's how you can help him, by encouraging him in that direction. And for yourself, sister, I think it's commendable that you want to help, but oftentimes, you know, this is a concern that I have, we will find ways to hold on to sinful patterns in our lives. And often those ways can sound very good and pious, you know, I'm just trying to help this person. Well, yeah, but if it's very clearly been a stumbling block and it's an area for temptation, Paul says, give no provision to the flesh to fulfill its lusts. And so I just would exhort you to be very careful in this situation, not to pursue a relationship that you know isn't going to go anywhere, and to pursue the Lord.

And, you know, if this is longing for companionship, for relationship, ready to pursue the Lord and pray that the Lord would provide that for you in a way that's good and honoring to him and in line with what he calls us to, you know, someone who believes and loves the Lord is going to respect you and honor you and love your family, your 17-year-old as well, you know, may the Lord bless you, sister, in that, and grant you his grace. And so I appreciate your call and thank you for just your openness. May the Lord give you wisdom and fill you with a sense of his love and forgiveness as you turn to him. God bless.

Some great counsel. Thank you for that, Adriel. You're listening to Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. We want to tell you about a brand new Bible study we have available. It's actually on the book of Hebrews.

Adriel wrote this along with his co-author, Josh Maloney. Yeah, this is a fun study to work together on, and it goes through, as I've said before, one of my favorite books of the Bible, the book of Hebrews. On Core Christianity, we constantly get questions about whether or not God speaks to us today, you know, what's the difference between the Old Testament and the New Testament, why did the Son of God become a human being? In the book of Hebrews, we see wonderful answers and explanations to these questions, but it's important for us to remember that this letter, the letter to the Hebrews, is not just a list of questions and answers and facts. It's coming from a concerned pastor to his congregation.

This was very just pastoral. That's one of the things I love about the book of Hebrews. There are these warnings throughout the book of Hebrews, but he's not trying to give this church a sense of condemnation or drive them away from Jesus.

He's trying to draw them closer to Jesus. So if you want to be drawn closer to Jesus, I want to encourage you to get ahold of this 10-week Bible study on the book of Hebrews today for a gift of $15 or more over at corechristianity.com. This is really a fantastic study. We'd love to get this in your hands, and as we've said before, you could do this individually or do it with a small group, a church study school class.

In fact, maybe your small group is looking for something to go through this fall, and this would be a great choice. You can find it by going to corechristianity.com for studies. Again, corechristianity.com forward slash studies.

Look for the book study on the book of Hebrews. Well, we do receive emails here at the Core, and here's our email address if you have a question. It's questions at corechristianity.com, and we're open to any questions you might have about the Bible, the Christian life, doctrine, theology. Again, questions at corechristianity.com. Maybe send us a question this weekend.

Here's one that came in from one of our listeners named James. He says, can the Lord's Supper be taken individually at home in devotions and prayer times? James, we've gotten this question before, and I got a lot of responses the first time I answered it, so I imagine that there's going to be some questions, maybe some follow-up when I answer it again this time, but it's an important thing.

My answer is no. We should not be taking the Lord's Supper on our own at home by ourselves, instead of administering it to ourselves. The Lord's Supper is a holy ordinance that Jesus gave to his church, and it's administered in the context of the local church where you have a minister who's been called to preach the word of God and is qualified to do that. The ordinances like baptism and the Lord's Supper are these visible words that God gives to his people, and the church is called to guard those things, to guard that word, the deposit of faith, that once for all has been delivered to the saints, and in the same way that you wouldn't just have anybody step into the pulpit to preach the word of God.

Why? Because it's so important when we're speaking on behalf of God what we're saying. We want to communicate the truth. In the same way, right, that we wouldn't just have anybody do that, we can't just have anybody administering the Lord's Supper to themselves. It's something that happens within the church. And part of the issue is the Lord's Supper is the sign of our unity and community as the body of Christ. The Apostle Paul said in 1 Corinthians 10 verse 16, The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread. In other words, this is a community meal. This is the church's family meal around the body of Christ. It's not this sort of magic bread that I just go and, you know, whenever I want to have a special moment with Jesus and just eat it on my own, that kind of thing.

No, this is something that we do together. As the church, under the faithful ministry of the word, to receive by faith Christ's body and blood for us. And so, you know, I think a lot of times, one of the issues is I think we sort of minimize the Lord's Supper. It's this, in many people's minds, this kind of ritual. It's about me and my personal time with Jesus. And as I do it, I'm thinking about the cross and the fact that he died for me.

And let me just say, those are all good things. You can do that at home on your own without trying to administer the Lord's Supper to yourself. I mean, we should always be meditating on the goodness of God to us in the Gospel. But when we're taking Holy Communion, that's something we do together as the body of Christ. And it's something that we don't give to ourself, but Christ gives to us through the hands of the minister so that we might be built up in our faith. And so we don't want to minimize these holy ordinances that Jesus gave to us or treat them as common things. We want to receive them as the very gifts of God for the people of God in accordance with the word of God.

Thanks. This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. We do receive voicemails here on a regular basis, and you can leave us one this weekend if you like. If you have a question about the Bible or the Christian life, here's a listener call that came in earlier this week.

Hi, my name is Amaha. My question is regarding about Christian sites. I've been attending Christian sites for one year, and it looks like many people consider them as cults, but I didn't find anything wrong with them. In general, I read the Bible, but I go to different churches, and I find that they are just reading the Bible and some other books. I would like to know what you think.

I'm not asking specifically what is wrong with that religion, but what is your general assessment of that as far as just reading the Bible, just like how many of you just read the Bible? So please let me know. I appreciate that.

Thank you very much. Well, my friend, when it comes to just reading the Bible, I'm always going to encourage that. I think that we need to be reading the Bible, studying the Scriptures. Now, what you find is that every religious group, every quote-unquote cult even, they claim to just read the Bible. I mean, talk to Jehovah's Witnesses, and they'll say, well, what we're teaching is just what the Bible teaches, and they'll quote some verses here and there, often taken out of context. You talk to the Mormons, they'll say the exact same thing. Well, we're just reading the Bible, right? I mean, this is what the Bible teaches, and they'll use biblical words like grace and Jesus and Son of God, you know, phrases.

The issue comes down to the interpretation. Heretics, false teaching, right? You can appeal to Scripture. You can say, well, we're just reading the Bible.

This is something everybody says, but we have to test that. We really have to say, okay, is this really what the Bible teaches? And we're commanded to test the spirits. I mean, this is something that we see in 1 John 4.

Just listen closely. This is what I think God would say to you, my friend. Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world, and by this you know the Spirit of God. Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist which you heard was coming and now is in the world already.

This is really important, right? We have to be discerning. There are going to be many people and churches and movements that say, well, this is just a new movement, a new wind of the Spirit. By the way, you might know this, but the Christian science didn't begin until about the 19th century.

I mean, this is something that's new, and any time you have something that's new like that, I think we should immediately, right? The red flag should go up because it's like, okay, so nobody got this throughout the history of the church. So you begin to ask questions, and when you begin to delve deep into what Christian science actually believes and teaches, even though they say, yeah, we just read the Bible like everyone else, what you find is they don't just read the Bible like everyone else. They don't just read the Bible like the church has read the Bible for the last 2,000 years. They change the interpretation of scripture, their own interpretation, in a way that twists the Word of God and I think leads people astray. They deny, in fact, the goodness of the material world. There's this very sort of matter, and the material world is not real, is not good.

It's the spiritual world that matters most, which coincidentally is very similar to the false teaching that John was coming up against in 1 John as he's writing to these Christians. They also deny the reality of sin. Now, there's a huge problem because if you take away sin as a category, and this is something that's happening all over the place in our society today, there's no such thing as sin. Now, we don't want to talk about sin.

Well, this is something that they do. They deny the reality of sin. Well, if you deny the reality of sin, then you also deny the hope that we have in Jesus Christ the Savior, who came to save men from their sins. If you say sin isn't a thing, isn't a real thing, then you remove essentially the need for the Gospel, for the good news of what Jesus Christ has accomplished, and so you begin to see how, yeah, they might read the Bible and talk about the Bible, but the way they twist Scripture and the categories of Scripture really undermines the teaching of the Bible, and ultimately it undermines the Gospel. The very need for a Savior, Jesus Christ, and so I would say, look, friend, continue to read the Word of God. Continue to read the Bible, and every time that you read the Bible, pray, pray and say, God, help me by the grace of your Spirit to understand this and get into a church, a solid church, that values the Scriptures, that believes the Bible, and confesses with the church of all ages those core Christian doctrines that Christian science rejects. Christian science rejects the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, the doctrine of the incarnation, the doctrine of sin. That's the very essence of the Christian faith, these things, right? The theology, what they teach, strikes at the very vitals of true religion. You can't have true religion if you reject the Trinity and the need for a Savior.

That's precisely what they do. And so get into a church where the faith, once for all, delivered to the saints, belief in one God, the Holy Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, where those things are believed and held, and where the Word of God is going to be faithfully taught and where you can grow under faithful Bible teaching. It sounds to me, and I imagine that you've had a good experience.

You've been going there for a year. The people are very nice. And you just think, well, we're just reading the Bible.

What's the big deal? And the fact of the matter is that the true church is not determined by the niceness of the people and the coffee hour that they have. I have Mormon friends who are very, very nice, wonderful people, we might say.

I don't want to minimize that. But what they say about Jesus and the Gospel is not true. And so have friends, relationships like that. That's a good thing.

That's not a bad thing. But when it comes to the Word of God and religion, faith, I would say, man, don't go to that church. Don't be a part of that Christian science movement because it doesn't teach what the Bible teaches.

Get plugged in to a solid church. And I appreciate your question. I just want to encourage you to continue to study the scriptures. And if you don't have a copy of it, get ahold of the book, Core Christianity by Dr. Michael Horton, because it'll really unpack some of those core doctrines that I've been talking about. May the Lord bless you.

Thanks. Thanks for listening to Core Christianity. To request your copy of today's special offer, visit us at corechristianity.com and click on offers in the menu bar. Or call us at 1-833-843-2673. That's 833, the core. When you contact us, please let us know how you've been encouraged by this program. And be sure to join us next time as we explore the truth of God's Word together.