Scripture: The Foundation of Truth?

Posted on 09/17/2009 by Paul Pavao

 I saw a blog recently, pretty good other than the ridiculous amount of advertising at the top, and I wrote the following response to it. I thought it was pertinent and ought to be on my blog.

Scripture and the Church

The history part of your post is excellent, and that’s unusual. While there are always going to be interpretations of history, there are basic things that simply happened, and any honest person has to at least stick to those things. Most don’t. You did. Congratulations. It’s sad that it’s so rare.

That said, I do disagree with your conclusion about carefully sticking to the Scriptures. One of the things the Scripture says to do is to test things by their fruit. I’m not very impressed by the fruit of the sola Scriptura movement. It’s pretty pitiful, in fact.

But let’s say we were to actually follow Scripture in the more important areas:love, unity, mercy, judgment, for example, and above all in how to know truth. Well, here’s some things it says.

The foundation of truth is the church and the revelation of God in the church (1 Tim. 3:15; 1 Jn. 2:27, where the “you” is plural, not singular). I’m not Catholic or Orthodox. By church, I mean the local church bonded together in Christ, not some organization.

That’s what the Scripture says. I didn’t make that up or rely on tradition. The Scripture says that if people are trying to seduce you, then you don’t have to worry if you–the local church–follow the anointing into what’s true. Hold fast to the unity of the Spirit, and God will lead you into the unity of the faith (Eph. 4:3,13).

God’s church will never be founded on micro-managing type of rules like no instruments and other things people fight over. It will be found on those who depart from iniquity (2 Tim. 2:19). People who pursue peace, faith, and holiness together (2 Tim. 2:22). And people who judge sin and put those who are obviously faking it or purely nominal out of their midst (1 Cor. 5). You will never find the church united in power and following God when most of its members have no interest in denying themselves, taking up their cross, and following God, even giving up all their possessions for one another and for the poor (Luke 9:23; 14:26-33).

Following the Scripture will lead you to know God and walk by the Spirit, so that the Spirit of God resolves all the difficulties in your midst, even the doctrinal ones. Following the Scripture as a foundation of truth, rather than knowing that Christ is Truth (Jn. 5:39-40), will have you never resolving your differences but living like Pharisees. It’s been proved over and over again.

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Accidental Series on the Church, Part IV

Posted on 08/25/2009 by Paul Pavao

I really didn’t mean to be writing a series on the church, but here goes part IV.

Most attempts at starting house churches/simple churches/”the” church don’t go anywhere. That’s acknowledged in most of Gene Edwards’ books. I’m not sure about Frank Viola’s.

Why?

Problem 1: Christians Don’t Know What the Church Is

It never ceases to amaze me that Gene Edwards and Frank Viola have been writing about starting home churches for years, and the description always remains this wonderful, free, joyful thing that practically grows and takes care of itself. While Gene Edwards acknowledges that it hardly ever works, his answer is to get more free and don’t try so hard.

Yikes!

People don’t know what they’re getting into. The Church is the most important thing on earth. It’s more important than governments and countries. If Christians get together, hear Jesus Christ and obey him, then they can conquer the world.

We did it once. We overthrew the Roman empire with love, submission, and suffering. We spread across the earth before there were government churches and conversion by the sword.

If we don’t know it, the devil most certainly does. He’s not deceived. He’s quite aware that the gates of hell cannot stand against the church (see Which Church?, my previous post), and he has no intentions of letting it exist.

He’s taking it seriously, and the followers of simple church/home church are not. The battle’s way worse than they have any idea, and it’s a lot more subtle and deceptive.

As the great Cyprian of Carthage put it in A.D. 250:

Caution is more easy where danger is manifest, and the mind is prepared beforehand for the contest when the adversary avows himself. The enemy is more to be feared and to be guarded against, when he creeps on us secretly. (On the Unity of the Church, ch. 1)

Problem 2: Christians Don’t Know What a Christian Is!

One problem with everything I’ve written so far is that I’m using “we” loosely.

Jesus said that no one can be his disciple who doesn’t deny himself, take up his cross, follow him, hate his family, including his wife and kids, hate his own soul, and forsake all his possessions (Luke 9:23; 14:26-33).

He did.

Most Christians today think he didn’t mean it.

He did mean it. I’d like to be nice and say that you can be a Christian and ignore those ideas of Jesus, but you can’t.

You can’t.

He’s the one who said it.

You can’t build a church with people that aren’t Christians.

Daring to Make It Just a Little Easier

It’s scary to me to lighten what I just said at all. After all, those were Jesus’ ideas, not mine.

However, I think it’s clear from Scripture that Christians weren’t those who did this perfectly. When Jesus wrote letters to the churches in Revelation 2 and 3 he acknowledged as Christians those who had some problems. He acknowledged as churches people who had a lot of problems.

But he called them to repent.

You can’t have a Laodicean church. If the Laodicean church didn’t repent, Jesus was going to spew them out of his mouth. They were not going to continue being a church.

In fact, look at the Ephesian church. They had only one thing held against them. It was one big thing, they had left their first love, but nonetheless all else said to them was positive. They had works and patience. Jesus tells them that twice. But he was still going to remove their candlestick–and that quickly–unless they repented. (History says they did, by the way.)

In other words, even the righteous Ephesian church, standing against evil and deception, were going to cease to be a church if they did not return to their first love.

Problem 3: Christians Don’t Understand Their Purpose

Jesus takes the Church as seriously as the devil. He’s a lot more powerful than the devil, too. He created the devil. The devil is not a problem for him.

But even Jesus didn’t defeat the devil without a fight. He had to stand up to him. He had to bear real temptation. Overcoming the devil is always a fight.

As Justin Martyr put it some 1850 years ago:

[The demons] subdue all who make no strong opposing effort for their own salvation. (First Apology 14)

The early Christians knew what they were getting into.

They also knew what it meant to be a Christian. Justin added this rather frightening description of the Christian life:

There is no other way than this: to become acquainted with this Christ, to be washed in the fountain spoken of by Isaiah for the forgiveness of sins, and for the rest, to live sinless lives. (Dialogue with Trypho, ch. 44)

Hmm. Impossible? His contemporaries didn’t think so:

If we Christians are compared with you [Romans], although in some things our discipline is inferior, yet we shall be found much better than you. For you forbid, yet commit, adulteries; we are born only for our own wives. You punish crimes when committed; with us, even to think of crimes is sin. You are afraid of those who are aware of what you do; we are afraid even of our own conscience alone, without which we cannot exist. (Minucius Felix, The Octavius, ch. 35)

There is room for stumbling. There is room for public repentance. There is room for forgiveness. There is not room, however, for a Christianity that says, “I don’t have to obey Jesus because it’s impossible.”

Such a Christianity knows nothing of grace.

Problem 4: We Think Real Christianity Is Too Hard

Most “Christians” will look at what I’ve written and begin making the most ridiculous excuses. I don’t know how many times I’ve been told to give away my computer so that I can have forsaken all my possessions and so scoffers and worldly Christians won’t have to read me writing about Jesus’ commands!

They’re not scoffing at me. They’re scoffing at the commands of Christ. There’s no true Christianity except the one that goes all the way with God, and the only Christians that can band together and be the church are those that obey Christ.

Everyone else is a liar.

I tried to think of a nicer word, but “liar” is the word the apostle John–the apostle of love–used (1 Jn. 2:3-4).

We might as well be honest. The fact is, I’m a human, too. The temptations that affect you affect me. I’ve had to cry out to God for mercy. I’ve lived like an American at times, not like a Christian. I fear, like Peter commanded (1 Pet. 1:17), because I know I will be judged by my works. I know how desperately I need the grace that removes sin’s power.

But it’s God that sets the standard, not me. I don’t get to lower it. I only get to submit to it.

And the church that overthrows the gates of hell is going to consist of people who submit to the Gospel of Jesus Christ as he gave it, not as we wish it was in this ridiculously intellectual, divided, and carnal Christian world.

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Which Church?

Posted on 08/19/2009 by Paul Pavao

This post is the 3rd part of a 3-part series I didn’t mean to write. Better read the previous two posts. Both of them are dated today, too.

So, here’s part 3:

Which Church?

I keep talking about the church, but which church?

I’m talking about the church. The people who are Christians in your area.

You need them. They need you.

It really doesn’t matter whether we Protestants have developed a denominational system where you go to the Methodist church and your next-door neighbor goes to the Lutheran church. That’s not okay. You’re sinning.

It really doesn’t matter that the pope in Rome is the head of a huge hierarchy that claims to be the one true church; that idea has nothing to do with anything Biblical or with the historical church.

You’re supposed to be sharing your life with other Christians. You are supposed to be family. You are supposed to be more likely to take an unemployed brother and his family into your house than his parents are.

You’re supposed to call nothing your own and share with the Christians around you.

That’s Biblical, and that’s historical. [It’s not just Acts that talks about calling nothing your own. There was an early Christian tract that gave the same command, which is included in the Letter of Barnabas and the Didache. Justin Martyr in Rome in A.D. 150 and Tertullian in Carthage, Africa in A.D. 200 both claimed that Christians in general were following that command.]

That’s the church that God cares about, and that’s the church that will inherit the promises.

That’s the only church that matters because it’s the only one that can exhort one another every day (Heb. 3:13), speak to one another in love (Eph. 4:11-16), and be led together into all things (1 Jn. 2:27, where the “you” is plural, not singular).

How Does One Join Themselves to that Church?

I have no idea.

Sorry. I didn’t create the problem, and I don’t have miraculous revelation on how to solve it. I can just show you that the Bible says it’s a problem and if you try to solve it, you’ll find out what it means that “all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution” (2 Tim. 3:12).

The devil hates it when you try to gather the saints. It terrifies him.

I can give you some advice, though.

I’ve tried a lot of things. Others have tried things.  Here’s some of what’s worked and what hasn’t.

I tried talking to everyone around me, going to every church I could, and telling people what the Bible says.

Not very many people listened to me.

The fact is, most people who call themselves Christians aren’t really Christians. They don’t have the Spirit of God, and they don’t much care what Jesus wants. They’re not going to listen to or look for God’s will whether you show it to them in the Bible or whether God speaks it to them in their hearts. They just don’t care, and they’re not really Christians.

Some are, though, and they care. Hundreds and thousands of people have managed to gather them together to try to do the things I’m talking about here. Gene Edwards and Frank Viola have written dozens of books on what to do when you do get them together.

I’ve met dozens of those groups. What they’re doing isn’t working. They don’t grow, and they get quickly bored. Most simply fall apart quickly. Those that don’t end up going back to the institutional churches they were once part of.

There’s some problems in Gene and Frank’s books. It’s not as simple as they say it is, and there’s some key issues missing.

I gave up trying on my own. When I found people who were making it work, I moved to where they were and gathered with them.

What do I mean by making it work? I mean they were really together, God pays attention to them, and they are being taught by God.

I’ve met other groups like that, but they didn’t last. They had the tremendous joy and fulfillment that comes from being in the church; they were taking care of each other; they had revelation from God; but they fell apart, usually rapidly.

Why?

Well, I have some ideas about that, too. But I guess that will have to wait for part 4.

I didn’t mean to be writing a series, and I’m out of time for today, so part 4 will have to wait until later today, tomorrow, or the next time I can get to this.

For now, just know that the devil hates it when the church rises up. It doesn’t matter whether it looks like a home church or like an institutional church or like neither. When Christians in a local area gather together, love one another, take care of one another, and act like family, the devil hates it and attacks it.

Christians today aren’t ready for a fierce battle with casualties, so they usually lose. The devil just tears them apart.

That’s the biggest problem. Like I said, though, I’ll say more about that in the next part.

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The Church

Posted on 08/19/2009 by Paul Pavao

You might want to read the previous post before you read this one. I just finished it a moment ago.

It’s so important for Christians today to find out that Christianity is not meant to be an individual religion!

The following is what I almost added to the previous post, but I didn’t want to detract from its topic. So here it is as its own topic.

The Church

One further problem we have is a belief that Christianity is an individual religion. It is not. God has always intended for those who are saved to be added to the Church (Acts 2:47).

Unless you are part of a group of people who are exhorting one another every day, you are in constant danger of hardening through the deceitfulness of sin (Heb. 3:13). God never meant for you to be delivered by yourself.

It is imperative that we get this. By losing our understanding of this we have lost everything!

Read through 1 Cor. 12 and Eph. 4:11-16. See how clearly the Bible says that we must grow together. It is only as every part supplies its “effective measure of grace” that we grow together in love.

Apart from that, we don’t grow. We just fool ourselves. Sin is deceitful, the Scripture says. We think we’re righteous, but we’re not.

We need each other.

Doctrine and Division

We have lots of reasons for separating from one another. This one believes in a 2nd experience, a baptism in the Spirit separate from salvation, and this one does not. That one speaks in tongues. This one believes baptism is symbolic; that one believes it’s not.

So important, it seems to us!

But we learn together. The Scripture has not called us to learn on our own. Study and pray for guidance all you want. The first guidance you must get is that you are not going to be led into truth by yourself!

The pillar and support of the truth, according to the Bible, is the church! (1 Tim. 3:15).

Yes, the church!

You need your brothers and sisters. As soon as you divide from them, you lose.

Doctrine and Division: The Solution

We think the Scriptures are the pillar and support of the truth. We don’t seem to care that the Scriptures say that the church is the pillar and support of the truth. We don’t believe that, so who cares what the Bible says!

Dear God, please deliver us from that sort of thinking.

The Pharisees searched the Scriptures. With the Scripture’s help, they missed Christ!

You search the Scriptures because you believe that in them you have life, but these are they which testify of me. Yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life! (John 5:39-40)

You have the Scriptures. They testify of Christ, but where will you find Christ?

Christ, the Church, and the Scriptures

There’s an incredible verse in the Bible, found at 1 Corinthians 12:12. It’s so astonishing it’s hard for us to believe.

Ready?

For as the body is one, yet has many members … so also is Christ. (1 Cor. 12:12)

Do you understand why this is so important? Do you see what it says?

This does not say that the church is like a body with many members. It says that the Christ is like a body with many members.

Think about that a moment.

The Church: Christ in the Earth

I’ve been through a lot of evangelism programs. All of them led to a final point. That final point was something like, “Jesus is here right now. You can’t see him, but he’s here right now. Just bow your head and tell him you believe.”

That’s what’s supposed to happen. All of us Protestants know that.

Can you find it in the Bible?

There’s a fascinating story in the Bible. Saul, persecutor of the church, is on his way to Damascus. A light appears, and he is knocked to the ground.

Then Jesus appears to him. We don’t know how or in what way, but Saul saw Jesus.

If ever there was a time to say, “I’m right here. You can see me, unlike all others, so you can really pray. Just bow your head and tell me you believe,” that time was then.

But it’s not what Jesus said.

Instead, Jesus told him to go to Damascus and wait for Ananias.

The Christ Comes to Paul

We know the story. We know Ananias came to Saul. But have you thought about what happened when Ananias came to Saul?

Saul had been stricken with blindness. Ananias healed that blindness. He laid hands on Saul, and Saul was filled with the Holy Spirit (Acts 9:17-18). He baptized Saul, and Saul’s sins were forgiven (Acts 22:16).

And Saul became Paul the apostle.

We tell people what they need is an invisible Christ in the heavens. Jesus told Paul that what he needed was a visible Christ on the earth.

Hmm …

It’s true that we need something spiritual and invisible. We walk by the Spirit not by the flesh. Ananias hands were the means Jesus used to baptize Paul in the Spirit so that Paul would be a spiritual man, able to hear the voice of God.

Our Need for the Church

No wonder Paul spoke so highly of the church. No wonder Paul said that our growth is tied to the church, tied to our speaking to one another, and tied to each of us contributing our measure of grace (Eph. 4:11-16).

That’s a lot for one post. I’ll just quit there.

I don’t know how well this is all explained, but as a great man of God once said, both Christ and the church are known by revelation. They are not “figured out.” You must ask God to allow you to see the church and to understand Christ. You will not go through the immense battle that is necessary to be part of the church unless you have a revelation of your need for it.

Oh, you’re probably asking: what church?

That’s for the next post …

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Romans 7 and Romans 8

Posted on 08/19/2009 by Paul Pavao

Romans 7 and Romans 8, do Christians really understand those two chapters of the Bible?

Recently a number of members of Rose Creek Village went to a “Jesus Radicals” conference. As odd as it may sound, the Jesus Radicals conference was a Christian anarchy conference.

Since Christ basically means king [it means “anointed,” and refers to the anointing of the king of Israel], “Christian anarchy” is at least somewhat an oxymoron.

Be that as it may, several of our members went to such a conference in Memphis.

There were some good people there. Many of them are activists; they are devoted to the idea of changing the world.

Missing Romans 7

I’m told that for the most part these Christian anarchists know they are failing in their goals. They want to change the world; they want to do good; but they don’t know how.

Jesus once said that he could only do what he saw the Father doing (John 5:19). If Jesus could do nothing unless the Father was already doing it, how much less can we?

Romans 7 is Paul’s announcement that we will never do good in ourselves, no matter how much good will we have within us. We do have good will within us, he says, but the performing of that good will we find impossible.

It’s a crucial lesson. Like Jesus we are dependent on the Father. In fact, if it’s possible we are more dependent on the Father than Jesus was. If we want to change the world, we have to stop, see what God is doing, and join him.

He’s not going to join us.

Do you wonder why you’re failing at what you’re trying to do? If you’re human–even if you’re a Christian human–the chances are, that’s why.

Missing Romans 8

Most Christians aren’t like those Christian anarchists. They understand Romans 7. They know that the good they wish to do, they cannot do.

The problem is, they don’t seem to want to move on to Romans 8!

Romans 8 is the answer to Romans 7. Read through Romans 7, and you will see that the principle described there is quite accurately described as “the law of sin and death.”

Romans 8 is the answer to the law of sin and death.

The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set us free from the law of sin and death. (Rom. 8:2)

Romans 8 begins with an announcement that we don’t have to live in Romans 7. The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus delivers us from Romans 7!

The very next verse says it again:

What the Law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God did! (Rom. 8:3)

We don’t have to live in Romans 7. We can live in Romans 8!

The righteous requirement of the Law is fulfilled in us who do not walk according the flesh but according to the Spirit. (Rom. 8:4)

Romans 8 and the Atonement

In between the two sentences I just quoted is a statement that this deliverance from the law of sin and death is provided by the atoning death of Jesus Christ. Most Christians know that, but so many don’t seem to believe that it works!

If we are Christians, buried with Christ in baptism, born again to a new life in Christ, then we are supposed to be delivered from the law of sin and death.

So many Christians say that they should not be pushed to good works because they are under grace. No! They should be pushed to good works specifically because they are under grace!

Sin shall not have power over you because you are not under law but under grace. (Rom. 6:14)

Romans 7 and Romans 8

Let us be believers in both Romans 7 and Romans 8. Let us know that we can do nothing of ourselves. Let us know that in ourselves–that is, in our flesh–nothing good dwells.

But let us also know that the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus–the law described in Romans 8–has delivered us from Romans 7.

A Caveat: The Church

I have to add a final word.

Wait, no I don’t. I started to add a section on how you can’t do this alone. Unless you’re exhorted every day, says Hebrews 3:13, you’re not safe. You’re likely to be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.

I highlight that because, being deceived by sin, you won’t know it. You’ll try all the above alone, and you’ll fail. You need your brothers and sisters.

However, I have so much to say on that subject, it would make us lose focus on our topic: Romans 7 and Romans 8.

So, I’ll save that for the next post.

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Three Dollars Worth of God

Posted on 07/29/2009 by Paul Pavao

No comments of my own today. Everything’s borrowed.

I wrote a post yesterday called “Intellectual Honesty and Throwing Up.” I’m trying to decide whether it’s worth posting, needs editing, or just needs to be thrown out.

For today, though, Voice of the Martyrs quoted Wilbur Rees as saying:

I would like to buy $3 worth of God, please. Not enough to explode my soul or disturb my sleep, but just enough to equal a cup of warm milk or a snooze in the sunshine. I don’t want enough of God to make me love a black man or pick beets with a migrant. I want ecstasy, not transformation. I want warmth of the womb, not a new birth. I  want a pound of the Eternal in a paper sack. I would like to buy $3 worth of God, please.

I looked that up on the internet, and Wilbur Rees’ daughter commented on a blog (the one about to be quoted) that her father wrote that in a book titled $3.00 worth of God. (Available from Amazon only used and only very expensive; must be popular and out of print.)

When I looked the quote up, I found this comment on this blog:

It has been said that too many Americans have been inoculated with a slight case of Christianity that is preventing them from getting the real thing.

One of the people who has said that is Keith Green, who once put out a tract on “Gospel inoculations.”

‘Nuff said …

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Back Surgery and the Help of God

Posted on 07/24/2009 by Paul Pavao

This is not meant to be a blog about my personal life, but …

Yesterday my wife had back surgery for a bulging disk. It was huge; 18 mm, for those that have an idea of what that is. The nerve that exits between her bottom vertebrae and tailbone was completely crushed–flattened out–against the bone at the back of the tunnel.

People with bulging or herinated disks have problems if the disk even touches the nerve. This nerve was completely flattened by the bulge. The surgeon commented, both when looking at the MRI and after surgery, “That was a huge disk.”

My wife’s been struggling with sciatica for almost two years. We’ve tried numerous therapies, two of which worked very well for some time. A chiropractor got her relief for six months, and the muscle release techniques found at Julie Donnelly’s web site got her relief for a month. Decompression therapy helped also, even at the end, but only for the day it was done and sometimes the next day.

In the end, none of it worked because the disk was compressing the nerve.

Help from God

One of the things that drove me to belief in God during the short time I was an atheist was a movie called In the Presence of Mine Enemies, a story about a man who was a POW in Vietnam for seven years.

I remember at the end of the movie, all the POW’s were released at the same time. They gathered in the yard and sang “God Bless America,” and then they all got on their knees and gave thanks to God.

As an atheist, that completely threw me. Why were they giving thanks to God? Howard Rutledge, the subject of the story, had been tortured and mistreated for seven years! Why give thanks to God for that?

If God could have saved him, why didn’t he save him at the start, before all the torture?

As I lay in bed that night, I knew there was only one reason that every one of the prisoners would give thanks to God. There was only one reason that none of those prisoners were atheists.

God had helped them during their imprisonment. They were not simply tortured and mistreated. They were also comforted by God.

Nothing else made sense to me.

This surgery for my wife was a similar experience (though, of course, not near so drastic in suffering). By the night before surgery, my wife was able to say, “God’s been so in control of all of this that even if something awful happens and I end up in a wheel chair, I’ll know it is the will of God.”

We’ve prayed and cried out to God, and he’s answered in so many little ways that there’s no describing it. I walked around the surgery center to pray while she was in surgery, and I knew everything would be okay. I didn’t pray; I gave thanks to God.

In fact, one of the last “little things” to happen was that two days before surgery I picked up Watchman Nee’s A Living Sacrifice. I flipped it open at random, wanting to have a little “devotion” time, and I read the chapter on prayer.

Nee said that one should pray until faith comes. Once faith comes, there is no more need for prayer. You have your answer. Any further prayer will only dissipate faith. Once faith comes, praise is in order, not prayer.

That is so true, and I was reminded of that as I circled the surgery center during the operation. Faith had come, and we had peace.

The surgery was a complete success, by the way.

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Roman Catholics, Orthodox, and the Local Church

Posted on 07/19/2009 by Paul Pavao

I got an email from a Roman Catholic and an Orthodox believer both in the same day. The biggest thing they had in common was massive miscommunication.

What I mean by that is that they both presented arguments to me that were convincing to them but didn’t make a lick of sense to me. Worse, neither of them seemed to take into account what I had already told them in a previous email. They just ignored my arguments.

Only later did I realize: no, they didn’t. They didn’t understand my arguments. Not any more than I understood theirs.

The Church

As I pondered the problem, the answer suddenly became obvious. We had two completely different paradigms concerning the church. They saw the church as a large organization, and I saw the church as local and local only.

Take a look sometime at Revelation 2 and 3. No matter which church you go to, those should be really important chapters. They tell us, in letters dictated by our Lord and Master himself, what Jesus likes and doesn’t like about a church, and what he’s going to do about it.

You’ll look in vain in Jesus’ letters for any comments about submission to the pope or even the local archbishop.

You’ll look in vain for any comments about theological stances and statements of faith.

What you will find, in every letter, is a comment about works, both in general and specifically.

You can’t apply any of those letters to a hierarchy. All of them are applicable only to the local church.

The Local Church and the New Testament

In fact, everything in the New Testament only has applicability at the local level. God’s concern, obviously, is not about hierarchy or church structure, it’s about obedience to Christ empowered by the Spirit of God.

Protestant or Rose Creek Village leadership structure is not any more important to the Spirit of God than the Roman Catholic or Orthodox structure. Hebrews says to submit to your leaders three times, but it never gives those leaders the good, Scriptural name of “elders” or “overseers.”

1 Thessalonians is worse. It tells you to submit to whoever devotes themselves to the ministry of the saints (5:12).

Note the wording: “devote themselves.”

Don’t get me wrong. I think leadership and shepherding are important. The Bible does talk about that, using all sorts of terminology. There’s apostles and prophets and evangelists and elders and overseers and leaders and shepherds and teachers.

Some of those overlap, but in the end, you’re going to have hard time proving God cares about the structure of the leadership of the church, both in the New Testament and in the later churches the apostles started.

Justin and Tertullian, for example, refer to the leader in church gatherings as the president. Clement of Rome uses elder and overseer interchangeably, the way Paul and Peter do, but everyone who writes from a church where John worked talks about one overseer over a group of elders.

The Local Church and What God Cares About

So if God doesn’t care about what leadership structure you have, what does he care about?

Well, let’s see. The Scriptures entire purpose is so that “the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work” (2 Tim. 3:16-17).

Jesus’ death is to “purify for himself a special people, zealous for good works” (Tit. 2:14). It’s also so that he might be “Lord of the living and the dead” (Rom. 14:9) and that we might “no longer live for [our]selves, but for him who died for us and rose again.”

The Scriptures say those sorts of things about the Scriptures and about Jesus’ death, and then Jesus writes seven letters to churches in Rev. 2 & 3 talking to them about their obedience to and love for him.

It begins to be clear what God cares about.

The Local Church and Obeying God

Good works can only be carried out together at the local level. Doctrines about Jesus and the Father sharing one substance and Mary being born without sin and everyone else being born guilty of Adam’s sin (the last an abominable doctrine that has created a doctrine of the atonement that is insulting to God)–all those doctrines can be talked about, argued, and enforced at some hierarchical level.

But God doesn’t care about any of those things.

He cares about obedience to Christ. Jesus writes letters to churches about their works and about their love for God, not about their thoughts about his earthly mother, who is dead and can’t hear your prayers, since she’s incapable of omnipresence like her divine Son.

But whatever. Fine. Pray prayers to Mary that she can’t hear. Jesus doesn’t complain about those things to churches.

He complains about churches not obeying his commands.

The Commands of Christ

So what are his commands?

The problem with the Roman Catholic Church is not that they believe the pope is the head of the church. The problem with the Roman Catholic Church is that if you attend one, no one there will care or even know that Jesus said you can’t be his disciple unless you deny yourself, take up your cross daily, hate your own life and your family, and forsake all your possessions.

The problem with the Roman Catholic Church and almost every other church in this country is that so few people care that Jesus said you must seek first his kingdom and his righteousness and not take any thought for what you’re going to wear and eat tomorrow.

In the meanwhile, we idolize retirement plans and college educations. We abandon our churches for a better job offer in a different city, never thinking that we are either serving Christ or serving money, never both.

Why Do I Pick on Modern Churches

I pick on modern churches because they separate disciples. They oppose the work of God.

In modern churches, disciples who know that Jesus Christ called them to forsake their own lives and care about nothing on earth are forced to waste their time fellowshiping with people who don’t care what Jesus Christ said. Jesus’ statements are too extreme for them.

In the meanwhile, if we could get those disciples that do care together, God would do extraordinary things through them. He would display the love and unity of Christ through them. He would shine the light of a city set on a hill that can’t be hidden through them.

But that can’t happen because one of them is down at the Lutheran Church, a couple are at the Baptist church, several are over at the Methodist church, and they are scattered all over town, attending churches filled with people who have no intentions of submitting to Jesus’ extreme demands, listening to sermons being preached by pastors who are okay with the fact that their congregation is full of people who don’t want to follow Christ.

That’s a problem.

I want the sheep back. I want them to be rescued from those pastors and rescued from those clubs for people interested in tinkering with and talking about the faith of Christ. I want them to have real shepherds and be in a flock with real sheep.

The pope’s not interested in that, so I’m not interested in him. The Roman Catholic archbishop over Tennessee isn’t interested in that, so I’m not interested in him. The Eastern Orthodox archbishop, who shares “apostolic succession” with the Roman archbishop, but who claims authority over the exact same area as the Roman archbishop with no unity of labor–that Eastern Orthodox archbishop doesn’t care about these things, so I’m not interested in him, either.

I’m interested in local disciples who can get together with local disciples and obey Jesus Christ. Local disciples who can exhort one another daily (Heb. 3:13) and show the world the unity and love that proves that Jesus Christ is the Son of God (Jn. 17:20-23).

Conclusion

Well, I’ll just quit there. This post isn’t very systematic, anyway. It sorts of waddles from point to point uncomfortably, so we might as well just hit the end and stop. I think the things in this post are important.

What letter would Jesus write to us?

Would Jesus even write a letter to us?

Posted in Church | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

Christians and Liberals

Posted on 07/14/2009 by Paul Pavao

Today I found a news article about the ACLU supporting freedom of Religion … for Christians!

Giving credit where credit is due, I found that link at this blog.

I have some comments to make about Christians, liberals, and conspiracy theories:

Christians and Liberals

Once, as I was waiting in line to pay at a Chinese restaurant, I heard one Christian tell another this story:

I had someone ask me the other day, “Are you a democrat?”

I told them, “No, I’m a Christian.”

There are times when no one can compete with Christians for slander. It seems that as soon as we start thinking conspiracy, then we can lie, distort, and slander to our heart’s content in order to prove it.

I believe in evolution. I have no problems with the Christian who tells me, “I believe the Bible says the earth was created 6,000 years ago in 6 days, and I’m not interested in scientific evidence because I don’t trust science.”

No problem. I think you’re going to be disappointed as it becomes more and more obvious that life evolved and as more and more churches give in to the overwhelming evidence for evolution, but I have no problem with you trusting your interpretation of the Bible–you’re not actually trusting the Bible, just your confident interpretation of it–over science.

I have no problem, either, with you telling me that my loose interpretation of the Bible is inaccurate and my confidence in science and its rather notable accomplishments will prove a bad idea.

However, when people start accusing scientists of lying when they are not liars and of deception when they are honest researchers, then I get angry. It’s not right, and it’s all the more not right from Christians.

ACLU and Liberalism

The ACLU has taken some outrageous stands. Their idea of separating church and state is sometimes ridiculous. Kids should be allowed to pray and hold Bible studies in school just like other kids hold chess matches in school.

However, the ACLU is not simply anti-Christian. It is no surprise to me that they jumped to the defense of the Christian mom who wanted to send Scripture to her son in jail.

The ACLU does not take stands against Bible study in schools, conducted by students and not faculty, except on rare occasions, when they go too far.

I’m not saying I agree with their campaign to remove the 10 commandments from courtrooms, but removing the 10 commandments from courtrooms is completely consistent with their purposes.

Christian Governments

Christian governments have a history of being awful.

Many Christians would agree with me that the church fell under Constantine in the early 4th century. How did that church fall?

It fell by obtaining a Christian government and a Christian nation.

Those are bad things. REALLY bad things.

Defeating the ACLU

Do you want to defeat the ACLU? Do you want the populace to have such respect for the 10 commandments that the ACLU can’t remove them from courthourses?

Then let’s have judgment begin with those who call themselves the house of God.

There’s a reason the ACLU has so much influence. There’s a reason that we’re becoming such a secular, pleasure-loving, God-hating nation.

Because there’s so little light and so little salt coming from those who claim to be God’s people.

That’s what we need to fix. You’re never going to force people to obey your religion, and it’s a bad thing to try.

Christianity became so popular that in the Roman empire that by the 3rd century they had some influence in the places they lived. That happened because of the power of their lives that drew more and more citizens into the churches.

We would do well to emulate them.

Posted in History, Miscellaneous | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

If We Are the Body …

Posted on 07/11/2009 by Paul Pavao

That song continues:

… why aren’t his arm reaching? Why aren’t his hands healing?

I don’t know if that’s supposed to be a rhetorical question, but in case it’s not I’d like to try to answer it.

Because we’re not the body.

The Body of Christ

Our Gospel at Rose Creek Village gets expressed a number of ways, but my personal way is to reduce it to two things:

  1. Give up everything and follow Jesus Christ wholeheartedly
  2. Do it with everyone else who does the same

The body of Christ is the local, united gathering of disciples following Christ together as one family.

That wonderful, beneficial song by Casting Crowns assumes that the body of Christ is all the Christians making a profession of faith in the death of Christ. Chances are the closest thing they have to a local expression of the body is weekly meetings where people who are mostly strangers gather to sing songs, give money, and listen to a sermon about Christ.

That’s not the body of Christ according to Scripture and that’s why its arms aren’t reaching and its hands aren’t healing.

The Problem

One of the things that used to bother me immensely when I was in a typical, traditional church was that Paul could be confident that “he who began a good work in you will continue it,” but we could not share the same confidence.

Instead, we could be confident that 80% or more who made a profession of faith would not even be attending church 5 years later and that the great majority of those who do attend church would be cold, living like typical Americans, and not growing in Christ.

Many Christians disagree with that assessment, especially when someone like me–someone asking for change–says it. However, if I’m wrong, why do so many Christians believe that we’re in the “Laodicean church age”?

Why can groups like Casting Crowns sing “why aren’t … ” and become popular singing it?

It’s because everyone knows it’s true.

The Gospel

The Gospel that we’re preaching is either the power of God to salvation or it’s not.

When the result of the gospel is that we’re in the Laodicean church age and Christ’s arms aren’t reaching and his hands aren’t healing, then the gospel is false.

And we need to change to the real Gospel; the one that is the power of God to salvation.

Finishing the Tower

Jesus once said to count the cost. The reason he gave for counting the cost came in the form of an illustration. The illustration was of a man who set out to build a tower but had to quit before he was finished because he ran out of money.

Today we like to say the Gospel has no cost.

That isn’t true.

Because we don’t count the cost, more than 80% of the people who listen to the American gospel don’t finish the course. And we know that only those who continue to the end will be saved. The Scriptures say that repeatedly.

And even among those who do finish their course in “the body” as it’s understood in America are not living anything like the early disciples.

The Gospel

I’d like to suggest that the problem is our gospel.

What does Jesus say in the context of “count the cost”? That statement is made towards the end of Luke 14.

The answer is that he says we have to hate our families and our own life, deny ourselves, take up our cross, and forsake everything we own.

I’ve suggested on numerous internet forums that we do that. The responses I get are almost 100% scoffs and mockery.

Well, no wonder his arms aren’t reaching and his hands aren’t healing!

Faith vs. Works

If we preach a Gospel that proclaims that we must deny ourselves and forsake our families and possessions, then aren’t we preaching works rather than faith?

Obviously not!!!

What, do you think Jesus Christ was a preacher of works?

I shouldn’t have to explain myself because I’m just quoting Jesus. If you say you’re a Christian, then you must believe that he is your Master. After all, to quote him, why would you call him “Lord” and not do the things he says?

If he’s your Master, then you figure it out. You figure out how you can hear the Gospel of faith and also be required to deny yourself, take up your cross, and forsake everything. It’s supposed  to matter to you!

My explanation is here.

Posted in Church, Gospel, Modern Doctrines | Tagged , , | 3 Comments