Join Bob Wilkin and David Renfro as they address listener concerns regarding religious symbols like the cross. They navigate through theological nuances distinguishing dispensationalism’s view on clerical roles and symbolism. This episode provides thoughtful insights into how secretive acts of faith, as taught by Jesus, relate to modern expressions of spirituality through symbols, ensuring a robust conversation on being effective ambassadors for Christ.
The following is a listener supported ministry from the Grace Evangelical Society.
SPEAKER 01 :
Should believers wear crosses? Can symbols be overdone? Can images even be idolatrous? How should we think about this as ambassadors for Christ? Hello friend, thank you for joining us today on Grace in Focus. You are always welcome here. This is a ministry of the Grace Evangelical Society. Our website is faithalone.org and we’d love you to go there and find a free subscription to our magazine also called Grace in Focus. This is a full size and full color magazine with great articles and the subscription is free. You only have to pay postage if you live outside of the 48 lower United States. Just ask for it. Give us your contact information and it will come to you six times a year. And the website faithalone.org Now with today’s question and answer discussion, here’s Bob Wilkin along with David Renfro.
SPEAKER 03 :
I have a question from Susan. This is kind of interesting, and I’ve kind of run into this too. She says, I don’t know why, but anytime I see someone wearing a cross, it bothers me. Many gang members wear them or have them tattooed on their skin. But I’m not really talking about that. I’m referring to other people who wear crosses. I do not advocate or believe in Catholicism, nor do I appreciate their many religious artifacts. I do believe that if we choose to wear a cross or a Christian pin, I guess the fish is what she’s talking about. then we are representing ourselves as an ambassador of God. How do you feel about this practice? Yeah, that’s a very good question. It’s very interesting because we do see that all over the place. People wearing crosses.
SPEAKER 02 :
And Susan does mention Catholics and how, you know, maybe she’s being influenced by that because she doesn’t like a lot of the images that Catholicism… There’s lots of symbolism in Catholicism.
SPEAKER 03 :
You know, what the pope wears or what a priest wears. You go into a Catholic church… And there’s symbol after symbol.
SPEAKER 02 :
I’m doing a talk in Sunday School this Sunday about what is dispensationalism. And one of the things I’m saying is that Dr. Ryrie said that the distinction between Israel and the church is the sine qua non of dispensationalism. You do, and you clean it up. sine qua non means without which not it means that you’re not a dispensationalist unless you distinguish between israel and the church the problem with having priests and altars which catholics have and by the way on my mother’s side i i went to lots of eastern orthodox churches serbian orthodox churches which are similar We had priests. We had altars. If you’re doing that, you’re failing to distinguish between Israel and the church because the New Testament says we’re all believers, priests, but we don’t have any people called priests. We don’t have altars anymore. We don’t have animal sacrifices anymore.
SPEAKER 03 :
No, there’s not an official office of priest. Right. The only offices that I see are elders and deacons. Right.
SPEAKER 02 :
Even pastor isn’t an office in the New Testament. Elders are to be pastors, shepherds of the flock. But okay, I get it. In American churches, we’ve created an office called pastor. Okay. But we shouldn’t call that pastor father, right? Jesus said, call no man father. And we certainly shouldn’t call him priest. So part of the issue of what Susan is asking about here is, is if you’re going to have a cross, are you going to have Jesus on the cross? Right. They call that a crucifix because in Catholic theology, Jesus dies over and over and over again every time someone takes communion or what they call the mass. In Catholic churches, they don’t allow worshipers to partake of the wine or the juice instead only the priest drinks that and instead they only give them the wafer which they call the literal body of christ but in their view he dies over and over and over again so i would say look If a believer is going to wear a cross, don’t wear a crucifix because Jesus is not on the cross anymore. He rose from the dead. And so having a cross with no Jesus on it symbolizes Resurrection Sunday, right?
SPEAKER 03 :
Absolutely.
SPEAKER 02 :
It symbolizes that he’s risen from the dead. So, first of all, if you’re going to have a cross, have the right kind of cross, which is Jesus is not on it. But secondly, and this is her deeper question, should we even do that? My suggestion would be, look, Matthew 6 might come into play here. This is where Jesus said, if you’re going to give, don’t be like the Pharisees who like to make a great show of their giving and show everybody how much they’re giving. He says, don’t let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. Your giving is so much in secret. That, you know, figuratively, one of your hands doesn’t know what the other hand is doing. It’s very secret. He says, when you pray, don’t go out in the public square, pray long prayers and try to impress people with your prayers. For us, it’d be shouting into the microphone.
SPEAKER 03 :
What? Anyway. Oh, Lord.
SPEAKER 02 :
He says, but look, they’re not heard because of their many words. And besides that, go into your secret room and pray, Jesus says. And in both of these cases, he said, if you give in private, you’ll be rewarded by Christ publicly. If you pray in private, you’re going to be rewarded by Christ publicly. I take it that’s the judgment seat of Christ. And he says, when you fast… Don’t go out of your way to look bad. So, you know, you’re putting on special makeup so you look like one of the zombies or something. So people will go, oh, are you fasting? Don’t do that. Instead, fast in secret and God will reward you publicly.
SPEAKER 01 :
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SPEAKER 02 :
It could be the cross might tie in here. I personally would think that Matthew 6 is not prohibiting wearing of a cross or wearing of a fish symbol. Ken Yates, our missionary coordinator, and he goes all over the world speaking, he’ll wear a fish symbol, he’ll wear all kinds of Christian things, and I have no problem with that. You know, I don’t think it’s particularly wrong to wear a cross. I don’t. The only jewelry I have is my wedding ring. I have nothing else. And, you know, the Amish, they go so far as no jewelry whatsoever. In other words, not even a wedding ring.
SPEAKER 03 :
Right.
SPEAKER 02 :
And they don’t even put buttons on their clothes because they think that’s idolatrous. So there are people within Christianity who think… that we need to be very careful that, you know, these images can be idolatrous.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, what you could do is, like she mentions, gang members having crosses. What comes to my mind when that happens is, are they doing that cross thinking that even though, you know, they may think, well, I’m going to do some horrible things, but I’m going to be protected by God.
SPEAKER 02 :
Right. This sounds a lot like the Mafia, too, right? It sure does. Because all these Mafia people were very devout Catholics. Right. And they would go to Mass every week, and they would christen their children, and they would go through confirmation or whatever, you know, First Communion, I guess they call it in the Catholic Church.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 02 :
And they were very pious people, even as they’re killing people.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, a classic example of a Sunday morning Christian. Go to church and act real holy, and then the rest of the week, whatever you want to do is fine. Kill people, no problem. Right. Well, this was their job, actually. That was their job. Well, let me ask you this. If a person wanted to wear a cross with Christ not on the cross— I think it would be a great thing if you use that as a way to open up somebody to conversation, you know, as like saying, guess what? Notice that Jesus is not on the cross and because he’s in heaven and believing in him for everlasting life, you will be with him forever. Forever. Forever. And if it opens you up to do some evangelism, I’m all for it. No, I get you there. But what I don’t think, and this is human nature too, is to think that if I wear it, then I’m magically protected. God’s obligated to protect me because I’m wearing this symbol of him.
SPEAKER 02 :
And yeah, now you’re into superstition.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, but that’s human nature. And that’s the thing we have to avoid. is this superstition, this belief, if you will, that wearing this protects me or blesses me more than somebody who doesn’t wear the cross.
SPEAKER 02 :
No, that’s absolutely right. Now, I like your idea of using it, if you’re going to do it, as a witness, then it can be something that could lead to some discussion, and that’s fine. You know, part of what Susan was talking about is being a representative of or an ambassador for Christ, being an ambassador for God. And you know what Jesus said? He said, so let your good works shine before men so that they may glorify your Father who is in heaven. So the main way we manifest Jesus is in our good works, and that includes the words we say. Like, for example, when you’re saying, notice he’s not on the cross, he’s risen.
SPEAKER 03 :
Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER 02 :
So both our works and our words, which are part of our works, are the way in which we manifest Jesus in the world. That’s how we’re ambassadors for Christ. It’s not because I wear a fish pin or because I wear a cross. One other point I might make. Have you ever seen people wearing really big crosses? I mean, like some of the… And they’re real flowery looking things, yeah. And not only some of the cardinals, they have very big crosses, you know, and stuff. I personally think if you’re going to wear a cross, you shouldn’t be wearing one that’s ginormous because you’re just calling attention to yourself more than Jesus. It’s, look at me. Yeah, I’m so holy, right? Yeah. Well, for example, what do Catholics do, and now some Protestants, on Ash Wednesday?
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, they put the ashes on the forehead. Yeah, and in the form of the cross. In the form of the cross, yeah.
SPEAKER 02 :
Now, Susan, I am absolutely against that.
SPEAKER 03 :
I am too.
SPEAKER 02 :
Because that is hyper-religious. I mean, that is like, look at me. It’s superstitious too. And it’s superstitious. But the thing about it is, wearing a small cross is not putting something on your forehead. People need to recognize it’s by believing in Jesus and that alone that we have everlasting life. And we’re going to get away from wearing a cross for superstitious reasons. We’re certainly not going to have a St. Christopher medal to protect us. And we’re going to recognize that if we do wear the cross, okay, I’m a representative for Jesus, so that’s probably more for me than for the people who see it. It’s reminding me Okay, I represent Jesus, but I don’t feel the need to wear a cross to remind me of that. Do you? No. Well, thanks, Susan. Thank you all.
SPEAKER 03 :
Thank you.
SPEAKER 02 :
And what are we going to do, David? Keep grace in focus.
SPEAKER 01 :
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SPEAKER 03 :
The preceding has been a listener supported ministry from the Grace Evangelical Society.
