Fixed Theology/Flexible Methodology
If you were called to move to the Andes of Peru as a missionary, what would that look like? What if it were Sweden? Or Yemen? Would your ministry look the same?
The Apostle Paul took Titus up to Jerusalem, the Jewish Mecca, in order to make sure he was on the right track in preaching the gospel. We read this in Galatians 2:2-5:
Then after fourteen years I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas, taking Titus along with me. I went up because of a revelation and set before them (though privately before those who seemed influential) the gospel that I proclaim among the Gentiles, in order to make sure I was not running or had not run in vain. But even Titus, who was with me, was not forced to be circumcised, though he was a Greek. Yet because of false brothers secretly brought in--who slipped in to spy out our freedom that we have in Christ Jesus, so that they might bring us into slavery-- to them we did not yield in submission even for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might be preserved for you.
For the sake of the Galatians, Titus was not circumcised in order to show that circumcision was not a requirement of the gospel.
Something very different occurred when Paul met Timothy in Acts 16:1-5:
Paul came also to Derbe and to Lystra. A disciple was there, named Timothy, the son of a Jewish woman who was a believer, but his father was a Greek. He was well spoken of by the brothers at Lystra and Iconium. Paul wanted Timothy to accompany him, and he took him and circumcised him because of the Jews who were in those places, for they all knew that his father was a Greek. As they went on their way through the cities, they delivered to them for observance the decisions that had been reached by the apostles and elders who were in Jerusalem. So the churches were strengthened in the faith, and they increased in numbers daily.
John Piper is helpful here showing three differences as to why Titus wasn’t circumcised and Timthy was circumcised:
His Jewish mother brought him up as a Jew. But his Greek father had not allowed the circumcision. For Titus the pressure was to become Jewish. Timothy was already very Jewish by race and by training. For him to be circumcised would not have had the implication of moving from Gentile status to Jew status.
The people Paul resisted in Galatians 2:3-5 were false brothers. The Jews to whom he catered in Acts 16:3 were not even Christians. The pressure in Galatians 2:3-5 was from professing believers upon another believer to perform a work of law in order to be accepted. But Acts 16:2 says Timothy was “well spoken of by all the brethren at Lystra and Iconium.” No Christians were pushing for Timothy’s circumcision. Rather it was “because of the Jews that were in those places” (16:3) that Paul had Timothy circumcised. “Jews” is used over 85 times in Acts and almost without exception refers to unbelievers. And here they appear to be distinct from “brethren.” So it appears that Timothy’s circumcision was not motivated by “Christian” pressure from within but by a missionary strategy from without.
Titus was a “test case” in Jerusalem (Galatians 2:1), but Timothy was to be a constant travel companion (Acts 16:3). Therefore, in Titus’ case a clear theological issue was at stake. But in Timothy’s case, what was at stake was how unbelieving Jews might best be won to Christ. So just as Christian freedom caused Paul to resist Titus’ circumcision, this same freedom allowed him to remove the stumbling block of Timothy’s lack of circumcision. Paul applied his principle from 1 Corinthians 9:20, “To the Jews I became a Jew in order to win the Jews.”
What does it mean?
Fixed theology means that the Bible is the final authority on who God is and what we are to believe about Him and His relationship to us. It is immoveable and unchangeable. The Scriptures are not to be tinkered with. In the above scenarios with Timothy and Titus, the gospel message was the same. In both cases circumcision was a Jewish rite but not required for salvation. The way it was applied was, shall we say, a sharp contrast.
Flexible methodology means that the way we apply the unchangeable truth can differ depending on context.
Why is it important?
We are easily given to legalistic strategies of ministry that are marked by sameness and safety. It is uncomfortable to break out of what we have always known and into another Christian cultural pattern and so we cauterize our methodology by stamping it as the right and only way. If we dismiss cultural intelligence and scrap our flexible methodology, we will become a fundamentalist church and mimic every other religion that demands we conform to codes of dress, style, and practice. Flexible methodology is why one could visit a church on the Oregon coast one Sunday and another of the same denomination in the Deep South the next Sunday and their experience be very different BUT with the same fixed theology. That’s the beauty of Christianity and the Bible’s design for kingdom advancement. To supplant flexible methodology turns the hues of the church’s color palette into a drab gray and uniform conformity.