If a man walked up to a complete stranger on the street, bypassed entirely the rituals of introduction, ignored the necessity of building trust, and immediately demanded physical intimacy, society would rightly view it as an offensive, aggressive violation. It triggers an immediate psychological fight-or-flight response. The offense is not necessarily the subject of intimacy itself; the offense is the arrogant assumption that one has the right to access the most private, vulnerable spaces of another human being without earning it.
Yet, this is exactly how modern Christianity has been conditioned to share the Evangel.
A person’s faith, their internal doubts, their worldview, and their ultimate destiny comprise the most intimate and vulnerable architecture of their psychology. When a religious stranger, or even a casual workplace acquaintance, suddenly corners someone with a high-pressure gospel pitch, they are demanding unearned intimacy. They are treating a human being not as a friend to be known, but as a transaction to be conquered, a project to be completed, or a notch on a spiritual scorecard.
The hearer instinctively recoils. The approach is deeply disrespectful to the fundamental boundaries of human relationship.
In the 1st Century, when the Apostle Paul was heralding the Evangel, he was walking into an environment of information scarcity. The concept of a God who justifies humanity by unmerited grace rather than demanding transaction through blood sacrifice was literal breaking news. But today, we live in an era of information saturation. People are not starved for the message; they are drowning in its perversions. The message has been weaponized by prideful, self-aggrandizing religious snobs who use it as a political battering ram or a tool for moral superiority.
When believers approach the Evangel with an anxious, frantic hustle, they aren’t saving the world, they are just adding to the obnoxious noise. And ironically, this hustle is born out of a catastrophic misunderstanding of what human “free will” actually is, creating two deeply dysfunctional extremes within the faith today.
Part 1: The Two Dysfunctional Extremes and the Mirror of 2 Timothy 3
When human logic encounters the sovereignty of God, it demands an “either/or” answer. We want God to do exactly 100% of the work while we sleep as passive robots, or we want to do 100% of the work so we can maintain control of our own destiny.
These two extremes have formed two distinct camps: the Religious Mainstream and the strict Concordant Literalists. While they exist in the same theological universe, their crosshairs are aimed in entirely different directions. Yet, when placed in front of the mirror of Scripture, they suffer from the exact same terminal illness.
Extreme 1: The Religious Mainstream (The Outward Panic)
The standard Christian model operates on the perverted cultural definition of “Free Will”, the belief that man is the final, ultimate decision-maker of his own salvation.
The Mainstream crowd is not rivaling the Concordant believer; in fact, the vast majority of mainstream Christians have no idea the Concordant movement even exists. Their crosshairs are aimed squarely at the “unbeliever,” the secular culture, or those they deem to hold the “wrong beliefs.” Because they believe God is sitting in heaven, wringing His hands, hoping human stubbornness doesn’t thwart His eternal plan, everything gets heaped onto the individual believer’s shoulders.
This breeds a culture of constant anxiety. They exhaust themselves trying to save their neighbors and fix the culture. Because they believe ultimate destiny is tied directly to daily human choices, every interaction with an unbeliever becomes a high-stakes emergency. This outward panic is the birthplace of the offensive “street-preacher” approach. They violate relational consent because their theology tells them someone will burn forever if they don’t.
Extreme 2: The Concordant Paralysis (The Inward Smugness)
On the opposite end of the spectrum is the strict Concordant crowd. They correctly understand that God is sovereign and that “all is out of God.” They possess the beautiful truth of God’s absolute destiny.
But instead of letting that truth produce peace and purposeful local action, they push it to an extreme fatalism. Armed with the truth of sovereign grace, they look down from their theological balconies at the frantic mainstream church. They surrender their local responsibility entirely. They figure, “Why bother trying to fix my flaws, build real relationships, or make smart life choices? God will just do whatever He’s going to do anyway.” They reduce humans to mindless robots, using God’s sovereignty as a theological excuse to sit on their hands, give up, and become passive spectators.
The Prophecy of 2 Timothy 3
In 2 Timothy 3, Paul warns of an era characterized by people who are “lovers of themselves… boastful, proud, abusive… having a form of godliness but denying its power.”
When you place both extremes before this verse, the reflection is devastating.
The Mainstream believers deny the true power of godliness by refusing to rest. By relying on their own willpower and anxiously hustling to save the world, they maintain the “form” of religion while entirely denying the power of God’s actual, unshakeable sovereignty.
The Concordant believers, meanwhile, frequently become exactly what Paul warned about: proud, boastful, and arrogant in their intellect. They hold the highest truths of God’s grace, but by abandoning their daily responsibility to genuinely love, toil, and build relationships with the lost, they deny the power of that grace to actually transform their own hearts. They wield the truth as a weapon of superiority rather than an instrument of healing.
Paul’s middle ground completely rejects both the frantic hustle of the Mainstream and the smug paralysis of the Concordant. To Paul, true godliness meant possessing a theology of absolute sovereign grace and using it as the fuel for tireless, humble, and loving service to others. Truth without love is dead, and religious zeal without resting in God’s providence is exhausting.
Paul levels both of these extremes, placing them in the exact same space of hypocrisy, with a single, devastating thought in 1 Corinthians 4:3-7. He asks,
“What do you have that you did not receive? Now if you did indeed receive it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?“
The Mainstream believer boasts in their willpower, acting as if they generated their own salvation through superior moral choices. The Concordant believer boasts in their intellect, acting as if their superior understanding of the text is a trophy they earned rather than a grace they were given. Both are puffed up, and both sit in constant judgment of one another.
Paul’s middle ground completely dismantles this. In that same passage, he states,
“With me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by a human court. In fact, I do not even judge myself.”
Paul refused to play the game of spiritual comparison. He recognized that every piece of truth he held was a sheer gift, leaving zero room for arrogance or anxiety.
As the author of Reconciliated Truths, I (Matt) have to constantly hold myself accountable to this exact standard. It is incredibly easy to critique the Mainstream church for its frantic, works-based anxiety, only to slip right into the Concordant trap of intellectual smugness. I have to remind myself daily of Paul’s piercing question: what do I have that I did not receive? Having the “right” theology means nothing if I am not using it to love people better. I hold myself accountable to what Paul is formally addressing where so many others miss the mark. Every revelation I hold is an unearned gift. I must rest entirely in God’s grace, and let that grace propel me to genuinely care for the people in front of me, rather than using it to judge those who have not yet received it.
Part 2: “Free Will” (Local Agency vs. Absolute Destiny)
Before we can understand how to actually interact with human beings in a healthy way, we have to dismantle the linguistic idol at the center of the religious hustle: the cultural definition of “Free Will.”
If you search the Scriptures for the theological doctrine of “free will” regarding human salvation, you will come up empty. The phrase only exists in the text concerning Old Testament freewill offerings, voluntary physical sacrifices of grain or livestock. It is never used by Jesus or the apostles as a foundational doctrine of ultimate human destiny.
When people ask, “Do humans have free will?” the only honest, biblically coherent answer is: It depends entirely on whether you are talking about our daily choices or our absolute destiny.
To understand how Paul lived in the middle ground, neither an anxious religious hustler nor a paralyzed fatalist, we have to look at the analogy of the Room.
The Room Analogy
Imagine God places you in a room.
- Your Local Agency: Inside that room, you have genuine freedom of choice. You can sit on the floor, pace the halls, read a book, paint a picture, or take a nap. Those choices are entirely real. They have real, localized consequences, and you are responsible for them.
- The Absolute Destiny: However, you did not choose to be put in that room. You did not design the architecture of the walls. You do not control when the door opens, and you do not control where the building is moving. The ultimate destination of the room is completely out of your hands.
The Mainstream “Hyper-Willpower” crowd argues that because you can move the furniture around in the room, you must also have the power to break through the walls and map out your own ultimate destiny. The Concordant “Passive Paralysis” crowd argues that because God controls the destination of the building, you don’t even have the freedom to pick up a book or scratch your nose.
Paul rejected both of these extremes. He recognized that human beings are not mechanisms; we are organisms. A robot executes code without feeling, desire, or consequence. But humans have internal lives, deep desires, and a genuine capacity for joy and suffering. God doesn’t move us like chess pieces against our will; He perfectly orchestrates our nature, our circumstances, and our revelation to shape what we want.
Paul’s Exercise of Local Agency
If you read Paul’s letters, he speaks exactly like a man who possesses the personal agency to make decisions, give opinions, and exercise authority over his own life choices, all while resting in God’s absolute sovereignty.
He didn’t wait for a lightning bolt to dictate his every move. He actively exercised his authority (exousia) inside the room:
- He formed his own opinions: In 1 Corinthians 7, Paul openly separates God’s direct commands from his own human advice. “But to the rest I say, not the Lord…” (v. 12), and “I have no injunction of the Lord’s, yet I am giving an opinion…” (v. 25).
- He claimed authority over his lifestyle: Paul fiercely defended his right to make daily choices about his income and relationships without needing divine permission. “Have we no right [authority] to eat and to drink? Have we no right to take along a believing wife…?” (1 Corinthians 9:4-5).
- He made voluntary decisions to secure a reward: Paul knew his destiny as a herald was forced upon him on the Damascus road. But how he carried it out was a voluntary choice. “For if I do this willingly [voluntarily], I have a reward; but if against my will, I have been entrusted with a stewardship.” (1 Corinthians 9:17).
- He understood the difference between the Gift and the Prize: Paul recognized a massive distinction between the free gift of ultimate destiny and the prize of the high calling. God’s absolute sovereignty ensures the final destination of the universe. However, the Evangel functions as a message passed down through the ages by those God ordained to share it. When a person hears that message, their choice to decisively acknowledge it with their heart is a matter of local agency. You choose to accept or reject it based entirely on your current disposition. If you reject it, you remain in that disposition until the Father redirects your path according to His ultimate plan to reveal the truth. But if you accept it, you do not just sit passively. Like Paul, you make daily choices to better yourself, seeking the “Prize” (1 Corinthians 9:24) as a profound response of gratitude for the gift of grace you have already realized.
- He honored the agency of others: When Paul sent the runaway slave Onesimus back to Philemon, he refused to force Philemon’s hand. “But without your consent I wanted to do nothing, that your good deed might not be by compulsion, as it were, but voluntary.” (Philemon 1:14).
The Pauline Paradox
Paul anchors this entire mid-point reality in one masterful, paradoxical thought in Philippians 2:12-13:
“Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling… for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.”
He puts local agency and absolute destiny back-to-back. To Paul, the fact that God is operating the room is precisely why he feels empowered to take action inside it. He isn’t working for his salvation (destiny); he is working it out (local agency).
When you adopt this mid-point reality, the psychological burden of faith evaporates. You make the best decisions you can, you take responsibility when you mess up, you build genuine friendships, and you put profound effort into your life. But at the end of the day, you rest your full weight on the Architect. You don’t have to hustle to save anyone, because Christ’s success is not limited by human permission.
For me, applying this mid-point reality through Reconciliated Truths means fiercely recognizing my own jurisdiction. I am entirely responsible for how I arrange the furniture in my room. I am accountable for how I study, how I speak, and how I treat my family and my readers. But I absolutely refuse to carry the agonizing weight of trying to steer the building. When I feel the religious anxiety rising, that subtle lie telling me I need to hustle harder to convince someone of the truth, I have to step back and realize I am trying to play Architect. Paul teaches us to work hard, but to do so from a posture of absolute peace and humility, knowing the final blueprint is secure.
But what happens when believers lose this grounded reality in the digital age? What happens when the Evangel is stripped of genuine, local relationship and thrust onto the internet? It devolves into a spectator sport.
Part 3: The Digital Colosseum and the Narcissism of Concordant “Grace”
When you take the Evangel out of the context of a genuine, flesh-and-blood relationship, when you abandon the physical “room” of local agency, and thrust it onto a YouTube livestream, or a video, a tragic transformation occurs. It ceases to be Good News. It becomes a commodity. It becomes content.
If the anxious street-preacher represents an offensive demand for unearned intimacy, the digital religious space has turned that intimacy into a spectator sport. Welcome to the Digital Colosseum.
Prostituting the Evangel for Engagement
In these disembodied online spaces, the goal is rarely mutual understanding, and it is certainly never gentle spiritual care. The goal is algorithmic dominance and ego gratification.
Religious content creators and theological influencers essentially prostitute themselves to be challenged. They invite conflict, not to find the truth, but to farm engagement. They use the Evangel to build personal empires, memorizing logical fallacies and stockpiling “gotcha” verses to prove they are the smartest person in the room. This is a form of spiritual abuse. The opponent is not viewed as a human being; they are a prop to be humiliated for the entertainment of a live chat.
The Mainstream Echo Chamber: Fear and Culture Wars
For the Religious Mainstream, this digital prostitution takes the form of perpetual moral panic. Mainstream influencers farm engagement by weaponizing fear, relying on apocalyptic clickbait, culture-war outrage, and frantic demands to “take back the nation” or “fight the enemy.” They reduce the Evangel to a political battering ram, demanding their followers stay in a constant state of anxiety over the world’s inevitable decay. They retreat into their own echo chambers, preferring the synthetic, high-stakes drama of online outrage over the difficult, unglamorous work of loving their actual physical neighbors.
The Concordant Cults of Personality
Nowhere is this more tragic than within the Concordant and ultimate-reconciliation communities. Having discovered the massive, liberating truth of God’s absolute sovereignty and universal grace, you would expect these online spaces to be the most patient, grounded, and loving environments on earth.
Instead, they frequently devolve into toxic cults of personality.
You can easily find channels and forums in this space that have built entire brands on this exact dysfunction. The culture is saturated with a smug intellectual elitism. The comment sections and livestreams are filled with documented branding and common bragging tropes:
- Branding themselves with boastful titles like “The World’s Most Outspoken Bible Scholar” or wearing the label of “Christian Heretic” as a smug badge of honor.
- Publishing materials that openly belittle everyday believers, releasing books and videos whose sole premise is to mock the intellect of mainstream Christians. While they rightfully recognize that God does not dwell in institutional temples, they replace the church system with something equally toxic: isolated digital echo chambers and highly exclusive private conferences. When they do gather in person, the movement’s ring leaders enforce strict intellectual purity tests, going so far as to ban anyone from speaking who does not hold their exact, nuanced view on secondary doctrines like the pre-existence of Christ. It is not a fellowship built on grace; it is an elitist VIP club reserved only for those who pass a theological exam.
- Using derisive slurs like “limitarians” to aggressively mock traditional Christians during digital debates, frequently devolving into outright verbal abuse. Opponents are routinely subjected to ad hominem attacks, told to “shut up,” or insulted live on the air with vitriol like, “Listen jackass, take your fingers out of your ears.”
- Labeling the institutional church a “self-righteous den of hypocrisy” that is “Unbiblical, Un-christlike, and Spiritually Risky.” They routinely dismiss traditional believers as “unbelievers,” “Pharisees,” or “lost” people who just “do not get it,” treating the entire body of traditional believers with disgust, as a joke to be laughed at and shunned rather than a flock to be loved.
It is a profound narcissism masquerading as enlightenment. You will find endless hours of video content dissecting Greek definitions, redefining eons, and aggressively out-arguing opponents, but you will find an absolute void of genuine pastoral care.
Most video content created by either side simply does not need to exist, especially when the creators are merely addressing one another in judgment. Whether you are calling out a ‘Christian,’ a secular person, or someone of another faith, the methodology remains the same: if you intend to teach, teach the subject without calling out, labeling, or resorting to public defamation. Just make the teaching point, entreat the listener, and get on with your life. The more videos one makes to feed the algorithm of outrage, the higher the likelihood that their work will be burned at the dais in the loss of rewards, unlike the person who knows the truth but lives quietly, practices their hobbies, and builds upon their existing relationships.
This narcissism breeds a deeply unhealthy audience. I (Matt) once participated actively in these spaces, interacting with the video and livestream creators in their comment sections and their private Discord communities. I grew increasingly sickened the more I tried to speak with the genuine, open curiosity of a child, pondering and offering scripturally backed nuances for them to ruminate on. These are individuals of an age where wisdom and patience should be most esteemed. Yet, rather than engaging the text, I found a space of heavily filtered chatter and a harsh dismissal of any outside thinking.
It operates exactly like the one thing it claims not to be: a cult. It is an echo chamber where a select few names are held as the ultimate, unquestionable authority on the Scriptures. When a thoughtful critique is presented, the creator simply moves the goalposts, and the audience flocks to the comments to mock traditional or similar believers, cheering each other on with superficial praise. If a newer member like myself arrived with contrasting perspectives, I was shunned, told to move on, ignored for failing to fall in line, or challenged relentlessly until I conformed to their comfort zone. It became glaringly obvious that their love and respect were entirely superficial. The environment is a place of practiced dominance, relentless over-correction, and an ostracizing elitist behavior where confirming the group’s bias is rewarded and genuine biblical accountability is completely dismissed. Instead, the things most talked about are the romanticized sufferings each member endures, worn as a badge of pride. It is perhaps the only exchange they have left to validate their genuine existence among a group of acquaintances that never truly reach beyond an internet connection. This isolation comes at the steep price of shunning the very world the Apostle Paul commanded them to “abound in love toward” (1 Thessalonians 3:12), choosing instead to spend endless hours bonding over how much they ‘hate’ it.
The Hypocrisy of Forgotten Blindness
Perhaps the most staggering irony of the online Concordant space is their collective amnesia of origin. Almost every believer who now holds the beautiful truth of ultimate reconciliation came out of the exact same mainstream religious system they now relentlessly mock. They too were once blind. They too once held the horrifying, pagan doctrine of eternal torment as a legitimate reality.
Let me be absolutely clear. The mainstream institutional church has propagated deeply damaging systems of performance-based religious trauma. The endless treadmill of works, the heavy burden of legalism, and the psychological terror of eternal torment are grievous errors that demand firm scriptural correction. It is entirely understandable why believers flee that system to find rest in God’s sovereignty.
Yet, in a bizarre inversion, they now position themselves as if God exclusively chose them out of a special, predestined foreknowledge. They forget that they were simply placed in a situation where they heard the truth and accepted it, a choice of their own that they now conveniently claim was not their own. They fight endlessly to evade personal responsibility while simultaneously pointing to the “falsehood” of free will as the measure of their own superior standing in the faith. They separate themselves from mainstream Christianity, judging the church for being stuck in Galatian error and pagan myths, all while failing to see that their own elitism is just a different flavor of the same pride.
Yet, even in that state of profound theological ignorance, they still proclaimed that Christ died for the sins of man, was entombed, and was raised from the dead on the third day (1 Corinthians 15:3-4).
Here is the humbling reality that the online debate bros refuse to acknowledge: Belief precedes the deep, structural doctrines. The mere subtlety of that foundational message, that Jesus died and rose from the dead, is the sole means by which a person is placed into the Body of Christ. The ability to rightly divide the word, to see past the mistranslations, and to view God’s eonian plan in its breathtaking entirety is a maturity that comes much later.
The terrifying test for the Concordant believer is this: When God finally grants you the grace to reach this higher position of understanding, are you self-aware enough to remain humble? Does this massive revelation make you more gracious, or does it make you self-centered, arrogant, and impatient with those who have not yet received it? Weaponizing your newfound clarity to bludgeon the very people you used to sit next to in the pews is a glaring symptom that your ego has hijacked the Evangel.
This highly esteemed arrogance has, tragically, created such severe strife in personal relationships that it has fractured lifelong friendships and even destroyed marriages. It is profoundly saddening to watch couples tear each other apart simply because one spouse still clings to the traditional fear of Hell, while the other, having learned that Hell does not exist, becomes so intolerant of their partner’s blindness that they sever their vows and dismember their love for one another over it.
This intolerance often flares up simply because a spouse chooses to continue attending a traditional Sunday service. There is a profound, grounding wisdom from the film “Grumpier Old Men” where the mother asks the daughter who is cursed in love:
“Do you care for him?
…Yes.
Then leave him be.”
Relationships that embrace this kind of “live and let live” grace are the ones that actually thrive. True faith does not require two people to be on the exact same theological page at all times. In a marriage, faith is simply trusting that love will not die out due to differences in perspective. This is exactly what Paul anchored the Body of Christ to in 1 Corinthians 13:4-8:
“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.”
But I tell you this, my Concordant believer: A person can still hold tightly to all the terrible, pagan traditions that the institutional church has taught for centuries. Yet, if they believe that Christ died for sins and rose from the dead, even if they narrowly esteem that He died only for “their” sins rather than the sins of the whole world, the crux of the matter remains intact. The foundation is whether Christ is dead or alive. If Christ is not roused, your faith is vain, and what are you even boasting over? If they believe He is risen, they are in the Body. They will be saved, yet so as through fire. They may not receive a Prize for their resistance to the deeper truth, but make no mistake, they will be standing right there next to you at the dais of Christ, and right there beside you when all things commence for the eons to come. Frankly, I have no desire to share an eternity with an elite few who are so puffed up by their knowledge that they cannot smell the stench of their own self-righteousness, especially when their highest pursuit is simply being “accurate” for the sake of their own pride.
The Intellectual Law of Perfect Theology
The Concordant movement prides itself on escaping the works-based religion of the mainstream church. Yet they have simply replaced a law of physical works with an intellectual law of perfect theology.
Paul strictly defined the baseline evangel in 1 Corinthians 15:1-4 as believing that Christ died for our sins, was entombed, and was roused on the third day. Paul never added an appendix requiring a flawless, mortalist understanding of the intermediate state of the human soul. He never stated that a perfect comprehension of absolute sovereignty was the gatekeeper to the Body of Christ.
If a modern believer trusts that Jesus shed His blood on the cross to forgive their sins, but they mistakenly think His spirit went to heaven for three days or they falsely assume their own “free will” secured that transaction, the online Concordant elitist claims their faith is invalid. They demand a believer hold a degree in Concordant theology regarding the strict metaphysical definition of death before they allow them to be saved.
This is the exact definition of a Pharisaical law. They have moved the foundation from Christ’s blood to human intellect. If a perfect doctrinal understanding of God’s absolute sovereignty is the strict prerequisite for inclusion in the Body of Christ, then grace is no longer pure grace. It becomes a wage earned by intellectual superiority. Ignorance of God’s sovereign operation does not negate the fact that God is the one who actually operated. The Galatians literally mutilated their own flesh to secure their standing, yet Paul still called them brethren because they began in the spirit. Adding a confused mental decision to the cross is a fleshly addition of wood, hay, and stubble, but it does not erase the foundation.
Online elitists frequently use this confusion to accuse traditional believers of preaching “another Jesus.” But the Jesus who bled on the cross and walked out of the tomb is the exact same Jesus, regardless of whether a confused believer fully understands the sovereign mechanics of how He saved them. A misunderstanding of the operation does not create a false deity; it simply reveals a flawed disciple. And Paul was a master at gently correcting flawed disciples without ever questioning their foundation in the Body.
The Elephant in the Room: The Actual Boundary of the Body
To completely dismantle the intellectual pride of the digital colosseum, we must address the elephant in the room: Who is actually in the Body of Christ, and who is not? We cannot afford to be vague, but we must also refuse to be elitist.
The absolute boundary line for inclusion in the Body is not a flawless understanding of eonian times or absolute destiny. It is the baseline Evangel delivered by Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:1-4. The moment a person genuinely believes that Christ died for their sins, was entombed, and was raised, their salvation is completely secured and the Spirit seals them. Just as Paul said as plain as it can be in 1 Thessalonians 4:14:
“For, if we are believing that Jesus died and rose, thus also, those who are put to repose, will God, through Jesus, lead forth together with Him.”
When we look at the modern religious landscape through this precise Pauline lens, three distinct groups emerge:
1. The Workers of Lawlessness (Outside the Body)
These are traditions that do not just misunderstand Paul; they openly avoid, replace, or explicitly deny his Gospel of unearned Grace. Because they refuse to believe that Christ’s death and resurrection are entirely sufficient, they trust in their own human effort or deny the physical reality of the cross altogether. Since they never believe the foundational truth, they are not sealed by the Spirit.
To the Concordant believer, a sober realization is necessary here. These are not simply brethren who are confused about free will. These are massive religious systems that actively wage war against the finished work of the cross. They operate entirely outside the Body of Christ:
- Roman Catholicism: By dogmatic tradition at the Council of Trent (specifically Canon 9), they officially curse anyone who claims justification is by faith alone. They replace Paul’s unearned grace with a lifelong requirement of physical sacraments, priestly absolution, and the mandatory cooperation of the human will to maintain standing with God.
- The Eastern Orthodox Church: They reject the Pauline doctrine of forensic justification entirely. Instead, they teach theosis, a lifelong synergistic process of becoming like God through asceticism, human effort, and physical rituals, refusing to rest in the finished, unmixed work of the cross.
- Mormonism (Latter Day Saints): They explicitly deny that the cross is a finished work. Their foundational text, 2 Nephi 25:23, declares they are saved by grace only “after all we can do.” They mandate lifelong moral performance and exclusive temple rituals, making Christ’s sacrifice entirely insufficient on its own.
- Jehovah’s Witnesses (The Watchtower Society): They completely deny the bodily resurrection of Christ, claiming He was raised merely as a spirit creature. This strikes directly at the heart of 1 Corinthians 15:4. Furthermore, they demand absolute obedience to an earthly organization and constant evangelism to earn a place in paradise.
- The Hebrew Roots Movement: They openly reject Paul as a false apostle or claim his writings have been corrupted. They demand that believers return to the physical Law of Moses, Sabbath keeping, and strict dietary rules to be justified, literally abandoning the cross for the Torah.
- Progressive and Deconstructionist Christianity: They completely discard the epistles of Paul, claiming only the earthly, moral teachings of Jesus matter. This entirely erases the true Evangel of the cross, reducing Christ from a resurrected Savior to a mere social justice activist and treating His shed blood as an unnecessary or offensive concept.
- Oneness Pentecostals (UPCI) and Churches of Christ: They reject the baseline Evangel by teaching that believing in the cross is not enough to save you. They mandate that physical water baptism (and for the UPCI, the physical evidence of speaking in tongues) is the exact, mandatory moment salvation occurs, transferring faith from the cross to a pool of water.
- Christian Science: They completely spiritualize away the physical reality of the Evangel. They teach that sin and death are mere mental illusions, thereby explicitly denying the literal death, the shed blood, and the physical bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ.
By explicitly denying the finished work, the physical resurrection, or the authority of Paul, these groups remain outside the Body, trusting instead in a works-based or fundamentally altered religion.
2. The Modern Galatians (In the Body, but Losing the Prize)
These are the mainstream Christian denominations. They accurately preach the entry point of 1 Corinthians 15, but the moment you believe it, they hand you a list of rules. They bait you with Grace and switch to the Law. By doing this, they do not forfeit their salvation, but they successfully steal your crown. They begin in the Spirit, but attempt to be perfected by the flesh (Galatians 3:3). This group includes Baptists (who drag you to water to prove obedience), Pentecostals (who demand emotional performance and tongues), Calvinists and Reformed (who trap believers in Lordship Salvation and anxious fruit-checking), and Methodists or Non-Denominational churches (who put you on a treadmill of tithing, attendance, and moral perfection). Online Concordant elitists love to call these believers “unsaved.” But Paul called the Galatians brethren. They are in the Body, even if their fleshly additions of wood, hay, and stubble will be entirely burned up at the dais.
3. The Faithful (Securing the Prize)
These are the believers who completely submit to the instructions given to Paul by the risen Christ. They rest in the finished work, adding absolute zero human effort, water rituals, or moral performance to the cross. They rightly divide the word, refusing to mix the earthly kingdom instructions of Peter and James with the heavenly grace given specifically to Paul. However, as we have seen, possessing this perfect mechanical theology is not enough on its own. There will be things each side is rewarded for at the dais. But those who sit balanced with absolute Grace, resting in the finished work while operating in a profound awareness of love for all brethren in spite of theological differences, these are the ones rewarded with the highest Prize of the allotment.
Weaponizing the “Antichrist” Label
This intellectual pride leads to a catastrophic failure in the very thing the Concordant community claims to master: rightly dividing the word of truth. In their rush to demonize the mainstream church, these digital personalities borrow terms from entirely different administrations to slander their brethren.
They frequently label the traditional Christian church as an “antichrist” system, citing John’s letters to the circumcision. Yet John specifically defined the antichrist in 1 John 2:22 as “he who is denying that Jesus is the Christ,” and “he who is denying the Father and the Son.” John was writing to Israelites about a specific Jewish deception. Modern traditional Christians, for all their profound confusion regarding free will, eternal torment, and legalism, emphatically declare that Jesus is the Christ. They do not deny the Father and the Son.
To place a prophetic, circumcision-era curse label on confused Gentiles in the dispensation of grace is a textbook failure of right division. It proves these creators are more interested in finding biblical slurs for their opponents than accurately teaching the text. They twist the scriptures to build a wall of exclusion, eagerly throwing the “antichrist” label at anyone who lacks their nuanced vocabulary.
The Clanging Cymbal and the Boots on the Ground
If we are to fairly evaluate the mainstream institutional church against the online Concordant movement, we must look honestly at the actual fruit being produced. For all of their profound doctrinal errors, their anxiety-driven theology, and their legalistic frameworks, mainstream believers are still out in the physical world. They are organizing disaster relief, running food pantries, visiting the sick, and striving to genuinely care for their local communities. They are attempting to live out the love of Christ, even if their theological mechanics are severely confused.
The online Concordant elitist, meanwhile, frequently produces nothing but digital noise. They possess the accurate mechanics of God’s sovereign grace, yet they use it to sit in a desk chair and mock the very people who are out sweating in the field. They will frequently justify their digital hostility by claiming that aggressively dispensing “accurate truth” is the ultimate act of love. But Paul was absolutely clear in 1 Corinthians 13:1-2:
“you can understand all mysteries and all knowledge, but if you do not have love, you are a clanging cymbal.”
You can possess the most meticulously translated literal Bible in the world, but if the mainstream believer with a flawed theology is the one actually bearing the physical burdens of their neighbor, the mainstream believer is the one walking closer to the Law of Love.
The Idolatry of the Uninspired
This echo chamber environment relies on a very specific, foundational dysfunction: the theological idolatry of men who were never apostles.
Both extremes are entirely guilty of this. The Religious Mainstream elevates reformers, apologists, and prominent church leaders to near-infallible status. They weaponize quotes from John Calvin, Martin Luther, or C.S. Lewis as if they carry the breath of inspiration. The Concordant movement behaves exactly the same way, idolizing A.E. Knoch. They treat his translation, his commentaries, and his theological frameworks as unquestionable law, eagerly quoting him to immediately shut down any outside curiosity. Instead of operating as living, breathing members of the Body, followers in both camps become repeating parrots. They are programmed only to win arguments, stifling genuine friendships through a self-righteous, elite narcissism.
This directly violates the example set by Paul. Paul did not even idolize Christ according to the flesh (2 Corinthians 5:16). When he received his revelation, he isolated himself in Arabia to be transformed. He engaged directly with the Holy Spirit to rightly discern the truth as new knowledge came to him. He never used the Old Testament writings or the actions of the earthly disciples as a rigid foundation to justify stubbornness. Instead, he used them as reflections to realize God’s greater, eonian plan for all.
As the author of Reconciliated Truths, I do not idolize anyone, and I adamantly refuse to let anyone idolize me. Like Paul, my ultimate encouragement to you is to be yourself, think for yourself, and study according to your own accord. I genuinely want to learn what you realize in your own studies. Paul explicitly stated that he laid the foundation, and it is up to another to build upon it for a Prize (1 Corinthians 3:10-14). You cannot build anything of value if you are merely parroting another man’s words. We are not called to lay a new foundation, but we are called to learn from every perspective, using them as stepping stones to build a beautiful, enduring structure on top of what is already there. That is how you truly learn, and that is how you escape the cult of personality.
The Theological Root of the Brawl
Why do these “grace” personalities feel compelled to invite this abuse and engage in endless online brawls? Because, ironically, they too do not actually rest in God’s Absolute Sovereign Destiny.
Imagine telling a man that he is not responsible for anything he thinks or does, that God is currently making him say exactly what he is saying, and then spending a four-hour livestream angrily berating him for it. This is the exact cognitive dissonance of the digital colosseum. If you truly believe that God is the Architect, that He is operating all things according to the counsel of His will, and that He alone draws the heart in His own timing… you do not need to belittle a mainstream Christian on a livestream. The frantic need to insult, mock, and out-argue an opponent reveals a fragile, ego-driven theology. They are using the doctrine of absolute grace not to worship God, but to worship themselves.
Jesus explicitly warned against this behavior:
“Do not cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces” (Matthew 7:6).
The Evangel is a pearl. Turning it into a shock-jock performance or a debate-bro livestream to be monetized and trampled is a direct violation of Christ’s command.
The Pauline middle ground for discourse, whether in the ancient marketplace or the digital colosseum, is explicitly outlined in 2 Timothy 2:24-25:
“And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful. Opponents must be gently instructed, in the hope that God will grant them repentance leading them to a knowledge of the truth.”
Paul’s philosophy demands that truth be delivered with profound gentleness, prioritizing the spiritual health of the hearer over the ego of the speaker.
The Missing Anguish of Romans 9
If the Apostle Paul were to log onto the internet today and view the landscape of both the Religious Mainstream and the Concordant movement, his fiercest rebuke would not be about their parsing of Greek verbs or their end-times timelines. His rebuke would be a pastoral heartbreak over the absolute void of their compassion. He would fiercely condemn how both camps enthusiastically “bite and devour each other” (Galatians 5:15) under the delusion that they are defending the truth.
When Paul looked at his own brethren, the Israelites who were actively rejecting the Evangel of grace and violently clinging to a works-based religious system, how did he react? He did not start a podcast to mock their ignorance. He did not call them idiots. He did not revel in his superior revelation.
He wrote in Romans 9:2-3,
“I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my people, those of my own race.”
This is the heaviest reflection both camps must face in the mirror.
The Mainstream believer will cross oceans to convert a sinner, but they will viciously exile and excommunicate a brother who simply asks the wrong theological question, displaying a militant anger rather than unceasing anguish.
The Concordant believer is even more indicted. If you truly hold the highest revelation of God’s universal, saving grace, where is your Romans 9 anguish for the traditional believer? When a mainstream Christian is terrified of eternal torment, exhausted by the treadmill of works-based religion, and blinded to the peace of God’s sovereignty, the Concordant response should be to weep for their heavy burden. Instead, the Concordant digital culture mocks them, creating memes about their “Babylonian” captivity and laughing at their theological blindness. They possess the knowledge of Paul, but they are entirely devoid of his tears. They have forgotten Philippians 3:18, where Paul says he tells them “even weeping” about the enemies of the cross. Paul’s corrections were bathed in tears; modern corrections are bathed in venom.
Navigating this digital space with Reconciliated Truths forces me to ruthlessly evaluate my own motives. When I see the shock-jock arrogance and debate-bro cruelty online, or the militant outrage of the mainstream church, I have to look inward and ask myself: Does their blindness make me angry, or does it break my heart? Am I posting this to heal someone, or just to prove I am right? Paul’s command to be kind to everyone, able to teach, and not resentful is the exact standard I hold this platform to. If I ever use the beautiful doctrine of ultimate reconciliation to belittle a traditional believer, or if I lose my anguish for those burdened by false religion, I have completely abandoned the Evangel. My accountability is to the brokenhearted posture of Christ, not the algorithm.
Part 4: The 1 Thessalonians Mandate and the “Library” Approach
If the modern religious landscape is defined by the anxious megaphone of the street preacher and the toxic bloodsport of the digital colosseum, what is the alternative? How do we actually share the Evangel in an era of information saturation without violating the boundaries of human relationship?
In a culture driven by chronic anxiety, outrage, and the desperate need to be heard, the most radical, attention-grabbing thing a believer can do is stop yelling.
Because the Apostle Paul was laying the foundational blueprint of the current administration of grace, he functioned as the tip of the spear. He took the brunt of the suffering. But for the everyday believer, Paul did not command a frantic, high-pressure religious hustle. He commanded the exact opposite.
In 1 Thessalonians 4:11, he provides the ultimate antidote to the religious anxiety of the modern age:
“Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business and to work with your hands.”
The Radical Apologetic of Peace
When you truly rest in God’s Absolute Destiny, when you realize that the Architect has not lost control of the building, you are finally free to live this mandate.
- Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life: This means opting out of the religious outrage machine. You do not need to panic over the news cycle, and you do not need to win arguments in the comment section. God does not need a digital bodyguard.
- Mind your own business: Stop policing the morality of a world that does not understand grace. It is not your jurisdiction to fix the theology of every stranger you meet.
- Work with your hands: Be a grounded, productive, helpful member of society. Pay your bills, tend your garden, perfect your craft, and be present in the physical world.
When you live quietly and rest in God’s sovereignty, people eventually notice that you aren’t carrying the same existential dread that everyone else is. Your peace becomes a disruptive, undeniable witness.
The “Library” vs. The “Megaphone”
This quiet life entirely changes how we use the internet. We must abandon the “Megaphone” approach. A megaphone forces unearned intimacy. It shouts a message at people who have not given consent to hear it, treating them as hostile targets to be conquered.
Instead, believers must adopt the “Library” approach.
A library doesn’t chase you down the street and shove a book in your face. A library quietly exists, meticulously organized, leaving the lights on for the person who is actually looking for answers. When you build a website, write an article, or record a video, you are simply putting a book on the shelf. You aren’t forcing an interaction; you are creating a resource.
When a person types a question into a search engine and finds your work, they are giving consent to be taught. They are actively seeking. By curating your understanding of the Evangel quietly, you position yourself to help the exact person whose heart God is already drawing, without harassing the person who isn’t ready.
Earning the Right to Speak
Sharing the Evangel is an invitation to the deepest level of human intimacy. You cannot demand that from a stranger. You have to earn the right to speak.
Paul understood this perfectly. He was a tentmaker. He didn’t just stand on a soapbox; he sweated in the marketplace alongside normal people. He offered a day’s labor, he shared meals, and he built relational equity. He became a safe, trusted friend first.
If we want to share the Good News today, we have to return to this localized, human approach. Be a genuinely good friend. Share the comforts of life. Hold your peace. Wait for the other person to explicitly invite you into their spiritual space.
The Apostle Peter perfectly summarized this posture: “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have” (1 Peter 3:15).
Notice the trigger: “Who asks you.“
You let your quiet life provoke the question. When a friend is crushed by the weight of their own willpower, exhausted by the world, and finally turns to you and asks, “How do you stay so calm when everything is falling apart?”, they have just opened the door. They have given you consent.
At that precise moment, sharing the Evangel is no longer an offensive intrusion or an unearned demand. It is a welcomed, beautiful answer to a shared human struggle. It is the ultimate expression of your local agency, resting entirely in the Architect’s absolute design.
This is the ultimate vision and accountability for Reconciliated Truths. I do not want to be a megaphone shouting at people who never asked for my opinion, nor do I want to be a brawler in the digital colosseum. I want to build a quiet, meticulously organized library. My personal commitment is to live out the 1 Thessalonians 4:11 mandate in my own life by working hard, minding my business, and finding peace in God’s absolute sovereignty. I will never forget that I was once just as blind to these truths as the people the internet loves to mock, and I refuse to let the gift of clear doctrine puff up my ego into impatience. When the weight of the world’s religious hustle finally crushes someone, and they come looking for rest, this platform will be here. Until then, I will focus on being a safe friend, waiting for the door to open, and trusting the Architect with the rest.
Conclusion: Repentance and Rebuilding on the Foundation of Love
If there is one final, sobering reality that both the mainstream church and the Concordant movement must face, it is the biblical command to drop the gavel. Paul explicitly states in 1 Corinthians 4:5,
“Judge nothing before the time, until the Lord comes.”
He follows this in Romans 14:4 by asking,
“Who are you to judge another’s domestic? To his own master he stands or falls.”
Demanding visible evidence of someone’s salvation belongs to the earthly destiny of Israel before Christ returns. But for those of us in the Body, our justification is already eternally secure in Christ. Our daily works and the way we live out our faith are not a test of our salvation. They are simply the metric by which the Father will evaluate us at the dais of Christ to determine our Prize, the specific role and rank we will inherit within the jurisdiction of the heavenly spaces.
Because our justification is already settled, we should never be quick-witted to declare whether another person has believed “correctly” enough to be saved, nor should we demand perfectly articulated theological evidence to prove they are in the Body. We are commanded to hold to only one law. As Paul wrote, the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: the Law of Love. Love does not condemn, it does not dismiss, it does not demand intellectual perfection, and it does not establish exclusive, elitist boundaries.
I know this because I am intimately guilty of it.
I once spent years proclaiming things online that anyone reading today would look at and say, “What the f***, Matt!? You were way off back then! And man, you were pretty mean about it at times, too.”
When the absolute, unmerited grace of God finally broke through my own arrogance, what did I do? I spent a couple of weeks combing through my digital history. I looked at all my old comments, laughing in embarrassment at my past attempts to stubbornly herald, challenge, and confront others. I saw exactly how blind I once was. I vividly remember one specific exchange where a traditional Christian asked me:
“Am I evil for believing this?”
and I responded, “Yes, you are f***ing evil!”
I have never forgotten it. Despite the brevity of the exchange, it haunted my conscience with guilt and shame, because I realized that I had completely given up on that person. I never truly gave them a chance. Christ never gave up on any of us, least of all the Apostle Paul. How was anything I was teaching ever going to be heard if I was busy insulting a brother who was simply of a different disposition and stuck with blinders on? Whether that person still remembers our exchange or not, I will not know until the dais. But I am deeply grieved for having done it. Even if my theology was right and his was wrong, my pride inevitably placed me in the exact same position of condemnation.
Driven by this conviction, I went back and deleted my old comments one by one. I repented of my hostile disposition toward the very understanding of grace I now acclaim. I even deleted entire accounts that contained hours upon hours of finger-straining arguments, including the one holding that shameful exchange. I did this to rebuild my foundation, recognizing that this hostile digital brawler was no longer me. It was the old me, just as Paul once reflected on his own violent, Pharisaical past.
This is the profound change anyone in the Body must undergo if the spirit within recognizes the arrogant errors of their past. To the content creators, the livestreamers, and the comment-section warriors: do not be afraid to delete your old videos, your bitter comments, and your abrasive livestreams. Start over today. Begin anew, fresh with a path that starts with love and wraps up in the exact same thing.
I truly do not know what the Prize of the upward call looks like in its full glory. But I know this: Paul was given an unspeakable vision of that celestial reality. And that vision was so staggering that it radically changed his ways, transforming him from a high-minded, violent elitist into a supremely humble rendition of Christ’s own character in his own flesh.
If a vision of the Prize did that for the Apostle Paul, then I find it only fitting that I ought to do the exact same.
Will you too reconsider? Even if you have fifty years of history? What is fifty years of history compared to an eonian purpose that administrates a celestial kingdom for the eons? It is a time frame unspeakable, incomprehensible, and yet profoundly profitable for all who accept this path of toiling, even if it means bearing reproach rather than seeking the appeasing approval of mere men.
Rather, I am advocating that you discern yourself at every opportunity to ensure you are aligning with the two-pronged measure of Paul’s mandate:
- To love all ideally and deal with all patiently.
- To rightly divide the word of truth to show yourself approved and equipped to teach.
Practicing these two in balance will profoundly profit you at the dais. It is your choice to evaluate your own walk. God may not be a respecter of persons, but He is absolutely a respecter of jurisdictions. Life would have no meaning if you had no right to accept or reject a choice within your own local agency. What good is a man who has made nearly no mistakes? What good is the learning process of life if every single moment is viewed as a rigid, predestined script that requires no human effort? God wants you to live. He wants you to truly exist, so you can not only learn how to stand, but learn how to run the race of faith.
Many blessings to you, with love, grace and peace.
-Matthew