My studies
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Wednesday, February 25, 2015
ROMANS 8-10
VIDEO- [I cover stuff on the
videos that are not in the post- here are a few]
.Council of Trent- what did the
Church say?
.Do we get the final say- at the Judgment?
.What are the Catholic virtues-
did Paul teach them?
.Augustine, Calvin, Whitfield and
Wesley.
.Infusion or Imputation? How bout
both!
At the bottom I added some quotes
from the Catechism of the Catholic church- to show that the official teaching
of the church DOES NOT TEACH SALVATION BY THE LAW- BUT BY CHRIST.
. REMINDER- This is a commentary
I wrote years ago- the videos are new.
.CHAPTER 8- FEW POINTS;
1-
Did God choose us to believe- or did we choose
him?
2-
When Paul says ‘he makes our bodies alive’ is he
only speaking about resurrection?
3-
Does God use difficulty- or is it to be rebuked?
4-
Was Paul a ‘hyper- Calvinist’?
(839)ROMAN 8:1-4 ‘There is
therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not
after the flesh [sinful nature] but after the Spirit [new nature]’. Now, having
proved the reality of sin and guilt [chapter 7] Paul teaches that those who
‘are in Christ’ are free from condemnation. Why? Because they ‘walk according
to the Spirit’ the ‘righteousness of the law is being fulfilled in them’.
Having no condemnation isn’t simply a ‘legal function’ of declared
righteousness, and Paul didn’t teach it that way! Paul is saying ‘all those who
have believed in Jesus and have been legally justified [earlier arguments in
chapters 3-4] are now walking [actually acting out] this new nature. Therefore
[because you no longer walk according to the flesh] there is no condemnation’!
This argument helps bridge the gap between Catholic and Protestant theology,
part of the reason for the ongoing schism is over this understanding. After the
Reformation the Catholic Church had a Counter Reformation council, the council
of Trent. They dealt with a lot of the abuses of the Catholic Church, things
that many Catholic leaders were complaining about before the Reformation. They
did deal with some issues and reformed somewhat. To the dismay of the more
‘reform minded’ Catholics [with Protestant leanings] they still came down
strong on most pre reform doctrines. This made it next to impossible for the
schism to be healed. But one area of disagreement was over ‘legal’ versus
‘actual/experiential’ justification. The Catholic position was ‘God can’t
declare/say a person is justified until they actually are’ [experientially].
The Protestant side [Luther] said ‘God does justify [legal declaration] a
person by faith alone’. Like I taught before, both of these are true. The
Catholic view of ‘justification’ is looking ahead towards a future reality [The
same way James speaks of justification in a future sense- He uses the example
from Genesis 22, when Abraham does a righteous act] while the Protestant view
is focusing on the initial legal act of justification [Genesis 15]. Here Paul
agrees with both views, he says ‘those who walk after the Spirit [actually
living the changed life] have no condemnation’.
(840)ROMANS 8:5-13 Paul will teach
the impossibility of the ‘carnal minds’ ability to submit to Gods law. Those
who are ‘in the flesh’ [the unregenerate nature- not simply ‘in the body’. We
will get into these distinctions in a minute] can’t submit to God. Society
spends so much time and effort trying to get the ‘lost man’ to do what's right.
The prohibition movement [outlawing liquor], the increase in the severity of
punishment for crimes dealing with drugs. Making the child kidnappers crime
punishable by death. While all these laws are necessary and good [though some
debate the wisdom of the kidnapper one, they think the kidnapper might just go
ahead and kill the victim if the same punishment applies to both crimes] they
have little effect on getting ‘the carnal man to submit’. Paul also says ‘if
the Spirit of him who raised up Christ from the dead dwells in you, then he
that raised up Christ from the dead shall quicken [make alive] your mortal
bodies by his Spirit that dwells in you’. Let’s do a little teaching here. Most
commentators see this as speaking of the promise of the resurrection ‘your
mortal bodies’. I see this more in line with the context of chapter 7. The
discussion of ‘mortal bodies’ [your actual body, the flesh- which is different
than ‘the fleshly nature’ which refers to the sinful nature] speaks of your
actual life now ‘let not sin therefore reign in your mortal bodies’. Also in
verse 13 of this chapter the same theme is seen ‘if ye thru the Spirit mortify
the deeds of the body ye shall live’. I believe Paul is primarily saying ‘if
you are in the Spirit [born of God] the Spirit of life will make alive your
physical life in such a way that you will glorify God in your body and spirit,
which are Gods’ [Corinthians]. Chapter 12 says your bodies are living
sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God. Now later on in this chapter [8] we do
see the resurrection, which is called ‘the redemption of the body’ [verse 23]
so these two concepts work together. The fact that the believer is ‘training
his mortal body’ for God [thru obedience] is sort of a precursor to the
resurrection! Now, some believers confuse the resurrection of the body and the
work of regeneration in ‘making you alive’ [Ephesians 2]. The work of
regeneration brings your dead spirit back to life [born again] when you believe
[which is a Divine imputation of faith at the moment of conversion, a sovereign
act]. This ‘coming alive’ is purely spiritual. This qualifies you for the
future physical resurrection of the body [Ephesians calls this the ‘down
payment’, the ‘earnest of our inheritance, until the redemption of the
purchased possession’. The word ‘earnest’ here is used in the same way as
‘earnest money’ in a real estate transaction. The fact that we have been
‘sealed’ with the Holy Spirit is our ‘guarantee of future bodily
resurrection’]. Bishop N.T. Wright, the bishop of Durham [the church of
England- Durham is the 3rd most influential post in the Church of
England. Canterbury is at the top] has recently written on the truths of the
resurrection of the body. He is an excellent scholar, way way above my league.
He has been instrumental in ‘re introducing’ the reality of Christ’s
resurrection as well as our future resurrection as a very real Christian belief
[and historic truth as well]. I have read some of Wrights stuff and am a little
surprised at some of the ideas on ‘soul sleep’ and the immortality of the soul.
Bishop Wright seems to side with some of the ideas that certain restorationist
groups [7th day Adventists] espouse, that the Catholic Church kind
of corrupted the ideas of heaven and the soul by being overly influenced by
Greek thought. While it is possible for Bishop Wright to have come to his
understanding entirely thru scripture and history, yet I felt it a little
strange to see him make these arguments. For the most part I like brother
Wright and totally agree with his stance on the future ‘new heavens and new
earth’ as the final place of rest [as opposed to dying and going to heaven now,
which is a temporary place] but there is the biblical reality of a present
‘heaven’ and this doesn’t only come from Greek thought. I have often used the
Christian doctrine of the new heavens and new earth while speaking with the
Jehovah’s witnesses, I always agree on the reality of a future kingdom on
earth. I simply steer the conversation back to ‘who qualifies for it’ and get
straight to the gospel. Well anyway we have a promise of a future resurrection,
and also a ‘quickening of the body now’ [God actually using our physical life
to glorify him]. These are both great truths!
(841)ROMANS 8: 14-18 ‘For as many
as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the Sons of God’. Many of us are
familiar with this verse [I hope!]. We often see it as saying ‘Gods direction
in our lives is proof that we are Christians’ true enough. But in context
‘being led by Gods Spirit’ means living the new life thru Christ. The putting
to death of the old man and being ‘made alive’ thru Christ is what this is
saying. Paul agrees with John [1st John] ‘those that do what is
right [led by the Spirit] are of God’. Paul says ‘we have received the Spirit
and a natural result of this is crying “Abba, Father”. I don’t want to do too
much here, but Paul sees the ‘confession’ and heart cry of the believer as
proof, a result of being ‘a habitation of the Spirit’. A sign, if you will, of
being born of God is confessing/ praying to the Father. Paul quoted David in
chapter 4 ‘for this shall every one that is godly pray unto thee in a time when
thou mayest be found’ [Psalms 32- actually Paul quotes a different section from
the Psalm, but this theme is consistent with Paul’s view]. Paul knew the
reality of ‘the godly calling upon God’ they have an inner cry of ‘Abba,
father’. ‘We are heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ’. For many years this
has been a popular verse among many believers, often times it is used to say
‘God owns the cattle on a thousand hills’ [which he does] therefore if we are
heirs ‘give me some cattle’! [stuff]. Here Paul uses this term in speaking of
our identification with Christ’s sufferings. ‘If we suffer with him, we too
shall share [joint heir!] in his glory’ [future glorification at the
resurrection- we shall see him and be changed in a moment, at the twinkling of
an eye. This mortal shall put on immortality]. It’s a symptom of modern
American Christianity to view all these scriptures thru a materialistic lens,
Paul held to the promise of a future reward [at the resurrection] that enabled
him to go thru great difficulty and suffering in this present life. He counted
the suffering as a privilege that he shared with Christ.
(843)ROMANS 8: 19-25 ‘the
sufferings of this present time [are you ‘presently’ suffering?] are not worthy
to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us’. Paul compares the
difficulty to the reward. The reward here is the future resurrection. Paul did
not see suffering as ‘from the devil’ or the reward as something material
[monetary stuff! The resurrection body will be ‘material’ - real]. Paul teaches
that the whole creation is waiting for this day. Not only will we get a
‘makeover’ but there will be a new heaven and a new earth! The creation itself
longs for this [almost as much as Al Gore!] This resurrection is called ‘the
redemption of our body’. The next verse says ‘we are saved by hope’. John also
says [1st John] that the future reality of the resurrection ‘causes us to be
pure in this life’ [every one that has this hope in him purifies himself, even
as he is pure]. Why? Because we know God has a purpose for our bodies as well
as our spirits! The ‘getting saved by hope’ simply means the future hope of the
resurrection ‘encourages’ us to live clean now. Once again ‘saved’ is a neutral
term. In can apply to all sorts of things. I always found it funny how when you
read certain commentaries, that you see the difficulty Christians have when
coming across these types of verses. There’s a verse that says ‘the woman will
be saved thru childbearing’ geez, you wouldn’t believe the difficulty some
writers have when they come across this stuff. Some teach ‘she will be ‘saved’
thru the birth of a child [Jesus]’ and all sorts of stuff. I think if we simply
changed the word ‘saved’ for ‘delivered’ [which are basically the same thing]
that maybe this would help. But thank God that we have a future resurrection to
look forward to, let this truth ‘deliver’ you from the temptation to think
‘what’s all this suffering worth, why even go thru it?’ Because we have a great
promise at the other end!
(845)ROMANS 8:26-28 ‘Likewise the
Spirit also helpeth our infirmities’ why does Paul say ‘likewise’? He is saying
‘not only does the future hope of the resurrection sustain us, but also Gods
Spirit helps us’! He knows how to make intercession for us in ways that we
cannot. I just finished an hour prayer time, not an ‘official’ intercession
time [which I do a few times a week now]. But an ‘unofficial’ time where I try
and hear what the Spirit is speaking. When you are ‘praying in the Spirit’
[which can include the charismatic expression of tongues] you are depending
upon the Spirit to transcend your limited ability to articulate what needs to
be said. ‘All things work together for good to them that love God, to them who
are ‘the called’ according to his purpose’. A very famous verse indeed. What
does it mean? It means what it says! Over the years I have heard so many
excuses for trying to get around difficult things. Why do the righteous suffer?
Some taught it was because of their ignorance of scripture. Why did the things
that happened to Job happen? Some said it was because he ‘feared’ that the
things would happen [this group seems to miss the whole underlying reason for
the book. Job’s friends are continually looking for a reason thru out the book.
The point is, sometimes there is no reasonable explanation. I realize you can
pick apart certain statements from Job and come up with ‘reasons’, but the
meaning of the book is God is sovereign and we shouldn’t always think we can
figure him out or ‘work the system’]. Here Paul says ‘whatever is happening to
you right now [even very bad stuff!] will eventually work out for you benefit’.
What about Hitler? Did he love God? I don’t believe so. This scripture says ‘to
them that love God’. Your only responsibility thru the difficulty is to ‘love
God’.
(846)ROMANS 8:29-30 ‘for whom he
did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed into the image of his
Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom he did
predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified:
whom he justified, them he also glorified’. Let’s talk a little. When I first
became a Christian I began a lifelong study of scripture, where I continually
read a certain amount of scripture every day for many years. Over the years I
have varied on how fast I should read [that is how many chapters per day and so
forth]. But during the early stages I always took these verses to teach
predestination in the classical sense. Simply put, that God ‘pre chose’ me [and
all whom come to him] before we ‘chose him’. The Fundamental Baptist church I
began to attend [a great church with great people!] taught that ‘classic
Calvinism’ [predestination] was false doctrine, and they labeled it ‘Hyper
Calvinism’. I simply accepted this as fact. But I never forgot the early
understanding that I first gleaned thru my own study. I also was very limited
in my other readings outside of the scripture. I did study the Great awakenings
and Charles Finney. I read some biographies on John Wesley and other great men
of God. These men were not Calvinistic in their doctrine [which is fine], as a
matter of fact Wesley would eventually disassociate from George Whitefield over
this issue. Whitefield was a staunch Calvinist! Over time I came to believe the
doctrine again, simply as I focused on the scriptures that teach it. Eventually
I picked up some books on church history and realized that Calvinism was [and is]
a mainstream belief among many great believers. I personally believe that most
of the great theologians in history have accepted this doctrine. Now, for those
who reject it, they honestly struggle with these portions of scripture. Just
like there are portions of scripture that Calvinists struggle with. To deny
this is to be less than honest. The Arminians [Those who deny classic
predestination- the term comes from Jacob Arminias, a Calvinist who was writing
and studying on the ‘errors’ of ‘arminianism’ and came to embrace the doctrine
of free will/choice] usually approach the verses that say ‘he predestined us’
by teaching that Gods predestination speaks only of his foreknowledge of those
who would choose him. This is an honest effort to come to terms with the
doctrine. To be ‘more honest’ I think this doesn’t adequately deal with the
issue. In the above text, as well as many other places in scripture, the idea
of ‘Gods foreknowledge and pre choosing’ speak specifically about Gods choice
to save us, as opposed to him simply knowing that we would ‘choose right’. The
texts that teach predestination teach it in this context. Now the passage above
does say ‘those whom he foreknew, he also did predestinate to be conformed into
the image of Christ’ here this passage actually does say ‘God predestinated us
to be like his Son’. If you left the ‘foreknowledge’ part out, you could read
this passage in an Arminian way. But we do have the ‘foreknowledge’ part. So I
believe Paul is saying ‘God chose us before we were born, he ‘knew’ ahead of
time that he would bring us into his Kingdom. Those whom he foreknew he also
predestinated to become like his Son.’ Why? So his Son would be the firstborn
among many. God wanted a whole new race of ‘children of God’. Those he predestinated
he ‘called’. He drew them to himself. Jesus said ‘all that the Father give to
me will come to me, and him that cometh to me I will in no way cast out’. Those
who ‘come’ are justified, those who are justified are [present tense]
glorified. Gods design and sovereignty speak of it as a ‘finished task’ like it
already happened. God lives outside of the dimension of time. I believe in the
doctrine of predestination. Many others do as well. You don’t have to believe
it if you don’t want to, but I believe scripture teaches it.
(847)ROMANS 8: 31-39 ‘What shall
we say then to these things? [what things? The fact that God predestined us and
has guaranteed completion of the purpose he has designed us for!] If God be for
us, who can be against us?’ Paul teaches that Christ is the only one with the
‘right’ or authority to pass judgment. If the only person in existence who can
‘officially’ condemn and pass legal judgment has actually died for us for the
purpose of ‘freeing us from a state of condemnation’, then who ‘gives a rip’
about others opinions and views of us? Most of us struggle with how others view
us. Paul did teach that Elders should have good character and a fine reputation
in the community. But there is another type of ‘persona’ that preachers can
fall into. A sort of ‘concern’ about what the critics are saying. In this
context Paul says ‘If the opinion of the only person in existence whose opinion
really matters, is one of “I accept you unconditionally, I declare you free
from what others think, you are my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. Ever
since I have known you, you have been pleasing in my sight” [all true
scriptures by the way] Then who cares what others think! Paul also teaches that
nothing can separate us from Christ’s love ‘not tribulation or distress or
famine or persecution’ IN all these things we are more than conquerors thru him
who loved us. Most times we view this passage from a ‘Calvinistic’ lens. I want
you to see the impact of this statement thru a different lens. In the American
church we have taught people ‘would a good father not pay the bills of his
kids? Would a good father allow his kids to suffer? If you were really
partaking of the New Covenant you would have it made’. While I do realize that
many well meaning ministers have taught these viewpoints with honest and
sincere hearts, I also have seen how this mindset accuses the saints. It
basically tells the struggling believer ‘what kind of father do you have? If he
really loved you would you be going thru these things’? In essence we are
saying ‘tribulation and distress and persecution’ are all signs that ‘you have
been separated from Gods love’! Paul blows this false [materialistic] mindset
out of the water. He says it is thru these things that we are more than
conquerors. It is the ability to look into the face of Pontius Pilate and say
‘you have no power over me, my father has permitted these things to take place.
I am here to lay my life down for his glory’. Paul said all these things we are
suffering are opportunities to glorify our father. To look into the face of
society and say ‘nay, we are more than conqueror's thru him that loved us’. The
early church set the world on fire when they were laying their lives down for
the cause, refusing to deny their Lord even at the point of death. They were
‘more than conquerors’.
ROMANS 9-
.PAUL- SPURGEON- AND DAVE HUNT-
DID THEY BELIEVE IN PREDESTINATION?
.HOW DOES PAUL DEFEND AGAINST THE
SEEMING ‘UNFAIRNESS’ OF IT?
.WHAT DID THAT RUSSIAN ATHIEST
SAY?
(848)ROMANS 9: 1-8 Paul returns
to an earlier theme ‘Christ came, as pertaining to the flesh, in response to
the covenants that God made with Israel ’ [my paraphrase!] Paul says
that natural Israel played a very important role in the coming of Messiah. He was
[is] the fulfillment of the prophecies that came as a result of Gods
interaction with ‘the commonwealth of Israel’. Now Paul again says ‘they are
not all Israel, which are of Israel, but “in Isaac shall thy seed be called’”.
Understand something here, Paul is not teaching ‘another’ natural lineage to
Christ. The mistake of the worldwide church of God [Herbert Armstrong] which
teaches British Israelism, trying to trace the natural lineage of Europeans and
saying ‘these are the lost tribes’. Paul is simply saying ‘those who are of the
Law, the natural tribe of Israel [Jews] are not automatically counted as ‘the
seed’ [children] but those who ‘are of promise’. Paul also uses this in
Galatians 3 and 4. ‘Of promise’ is simply saying ‘those who have been born of
Gods Spirit [Jew or Gentile] are the children that God promised to Abraham’ he
is the father of ‘many nations’. All who would believe. These themes are
building upon Paul’s earlier theology in this letter. This letter [Romans] has
a little more ‘weight’ than say a pastoral epistle [Timothy, Titus]. Now, I am
not saying it is ‘more inspired’ but I want you to see that even in the book of
Acts you see Paul place special emphasis on ‘I must make it to Rome’! Paul
fully realizes that this letter will be read among the believers and Jews at
Rome. Rome is the capitol city of the Empire. He wants the early believers to
understand the role and purpose of God for Israel. Paul’s efforts are being
seen by some Jewish believers [Jerusalem] as antagonistic. Paul wants to make
it clear that he was not trying to start some type of movement that rejected
natural Israel. At the same time he wants natural Israel ‘my kinsman according
to the flesh’ to receive their Messiah! So in this context Romans is a
theological treatise saying ‘God wants to bring both Jew and Gentile together
as one new man in Christ [Ephesians]’. When he argues ‘they that are the
children of the flesh ARE NOT THE CHILDREN OF GOD[verse 8] but the children of
the promise are counted for the seed’ he is simply saying ‘all people, both
Jews and Gentiles [which includes all races that are ‘non Jews’ even Arabs!]
can partake of this free gift by grace’. The promise is to all who ‘will
believe’.
(849)ROMANS 9:9-23 now we get into
predestination. Paul uses the example of Jacob and Esau [I spoke on this in the
Genesis study, see chapter 25], he says God chose Jacob over Esau before they
were born. He also uses the story of Pharaoh and says God was the one who
hardened his heart. Paul says these things show us that God’s mercy and choice
are a sovereign act. He specifically says ‘God chose Jacob, not on the basis of
any thing he did [or would do!] but because of his own sovereign choice’. Now,
this is another one of those arguments where Paul says ‘you will then say to
me, how can God find fault? If everyone is simply doing the things he
preordained, fulfilling destiny, then how can God justly hold people
accountable’? First, I want you to see that this statement, that Paul is
putting into the mouths of his opponents, only makes sense from the classic
position of predestination. Second, if predestination only spoke of Gods
foreknowledge of the choices that people were going to make [like asking Jesus
into their heart!] then the obvious response to the argument would be ‘Oh, God
chose Jacob because he knew what a good boy he was going to be’. Not only would
this be wrong, Jacob [the supplanter] was not a ‘good boy’, but Paul does not
use this defense in arguing his case. He simply says ‘who are we to question
God? Can the thing formed say to him that formed it “why have you made me like
this”? It seems as if Paul’s understanding of predestination was in the
Augustinian/Calvinistic Tradition. A few years back a popular author on the
west coast, Dave Hunt, wrote a book called ‘what kind of love is this’? He took
on the Reformed Faiths understanding of predestination. Dave was a little out
of his league in the book. He seemed to not fully grasp the historic
understanding of the doctrine. He quoted some stuff from Charles Spurgeon that
made it sound like he was not a believer in predestination. Spurgeon did make
strong statements against certain ideas that were [are] prevalent in classic
Calvinism. Some taught that Christ’s Blood was shed only for the elect. This is
called ‘particular redemption’ or from the famous ‘Tulip’ example ‘limited
atonement’. Spurgeon did not embrace the idea that Christ’s Blood was not
sufficient to cover the sins of the whole world. The problem with Hunt using
this true example from Spurgeon, is that he overlooked the other obvious
statements from Spurgeon that place him squarely in the Calvinistic camp. Some
refer to this as ‘4 point Calvinism’. I myself agree with Spurgeon on this
point. The reason I mention this whole thing is to show you that major
Christian figures have dealt with these texts and have struggled with the
obvious difficulties involved. I think Paul does a little ‘speculative
theology’ himself in this chapter. He says ‘what if God willing to show his
mercy and wrath permitted certain things’. He gives possible reasons for the
seeming ‘unfairness’ of this doctrine. The point I want to stress is Paul never
tries to defend it from the classic Arminian understanding, that says ‘God knew
the way people were going to choose, and he simply ‘foreordained’ those who
would choose right’. To be honest, this argument does answer the question in
the minds of many believers, I simply don’t see it to be accurate.
(851)ROMANS 9:24-29 Paul quotes
Hosea and Isaiah to show that God has a purpose for both Jew and Gentile. He
uses a few verses from Isaiah 10 and 13 to say ‘except the lord had left us a
remnant, no one would be left’. Now, once again we come up against the mindset
of always reading ‘saved’ as meaning ‘born again’. In context, God ‘saving’ a
remnant simply means ‘he spared them from ruin and total destruction’. There is
a verse in Revelation that says ‘the nations of them which are saved shall
enjoy the new heavens and earth’. Some commentators will show you how some
versions leave out ‘which are saved’ which would leave the text as saying ‘the
nations [that are left, remain!] shall walk in it’. This is the context here.
Paul is saying God always had a few from Israel that remained, he didn’t
utterly wipe them out. Now, this of course fits in with ‘having sins forgiven’,
being ‘saved’ or redeemed. There are prophets who say ‘the Lord will turn away
ungodliness from Jacob’ [delivered from sin] and ‘the lord comes to those who
have turned away from their sin’ speaking of Israel . So I want you to grasp the
biblical concept of God saving [sparing] a remnant. The word ‘remnant’ actually
speaks of the part of cloth/ material that is ‘left over’ from the whole piece.
Jesus also said ‘unless those days were shortened, their would no flesh “be
saved”’. Once again meaning ‘no human would survive unless God cut short his
wrath’. Paul also uses this language here ‘the lord will do a quick work on the
earth and cut it short [shortened!] in righteousness’.
(853)ROMANS 9: 30-33 ‘What shall
we say then? That the Gentiles which followed not after the law of
righteousness have attained it, even by faith’.
Paul concludes the chapter by summing up his ‘righteousness by faith’
argument. Natural Israel, who sought to become righteous by law, who were
always striving for perfection thru the keeping of the law. They did not attain
that which they sought after. Why? Because they sought it ‘not by faith, but by
law’. No law could ever make a man righteous. The Gentiles, which were not even
looking! They got it. Why? Because they simply believed in the Messiah, it was
the best message they ever heard. They were told their whole lives ‘you are
separated from Gods promises. You are not included in the commonwealth of
Israel’. They never dreamed that the Jewish Messiah would say ‘neither do I
condemn thee, go and sin no more’. They received Gods righteousness by faith.
Israel ‘stumbled’ at the stumbling stone. Jesus is called a precious stone and
also a rock of offence. To those who believe, he is great, precious. To those
who don’t believe he is this tremendous obstacle. The unbelieving world doesn’t
know what to do with him. I was watching Ravi Zacharias the other night. He is
a good Christian apologist. He was telling the story of being in Russia and
speaking to a large group of Atheists. During his talk they were really
aggressive, making motions with their hands and all. He was told ahead of time
to be prepared. At the question and answer time a Russian Atheist asked ‘what
are you talking about when you say God? I have no idea what you mean by this
false concept’. Ravi asked him ‘sir, are you an Atheist?’ He replied yes. ‘What
is an Atheist’? Ravi asked. The man responded ‘someone who denies God’. Ravi
said ‘what exactly is it that you are denying’? The unbeliever has come up
against this ‘rock of offence’. He tries to get around it, to develop all types
of systems and philosophies to deny it. The rock is there, you can either ‘fall
on it’. That is admit he is who he claims to be. Submit and be ‘broken’. Or it
will eventually ‘grind you to powder’. You will pass from the scene and the
next crop of Atheists will rise and face the same dilemma. This rock ‘aint
going away’.
ROMANS 10 [On the video I give a
broad overview of the doctrine ‘the salvation of the righteous’. I cover many
verses not in the post].
.DOES THE BIBLE TEACH ‘A SINNERS
PRAYER”?
.DOES THIS CHAPTER SAY ‘THOSE WHO
CALLED/ASKED- DID NOT GET IT?
.IS THEIR A ‘RIGHTEOUS MAN’S
PRAYER’ THAT BRINGS SALVATION?
. PLEASE- LETS STOP DIVIDING OVER
SMALL STUFF-
(854)ROMANS 10: 1-13 Many years
ago I referenced all the back up scriptures for this chapter [and book!]. The
study was intense because I saw a fundamental ‘fault line’ that ran thru many
in the Evangelical church [the revivalist tradition]. The ‘fault line’ was reading
this chapter as in if it were saying ‘ask Jesus into your heart, or you won’t
be saved’. Now, I have no problem with those who trace their conversion to an
experience like this. But I want to give you my understanding of this chapter,
based on the exhaustive study I did years ago. Also, I will probably quote some
verses and you will have to find them later [I forget where they all are]. Paul
begins with his desire for ‘all Israel
to be saved’. I taught in chapter one how come the gospel is the power of God
unto salvation. Because all who believe ‘become righteous’. After 9 chapters of
Romans, we have seen that when Paul refers to ‘justification by faith’ this is
synonymous with ‘believing with the heart unto righteousness’. Here Paul’s
desire is for Israel
to experience ‘all facets of salvation’ [present and future] to ‘be saved’.
Now, he will say ‘Christ is the end of the law to all who believe’ Israel did not
attain unto ‘righteousness’ because they sought after it by trying to keep the
law. But it comes only by faith. Then Paul quotes a kind of obscure verse from
Deuteronomy saying ‘Moses says the righteousness which is by faith’ [note- this
whole description that follows is describing ‘the righteousness that comes by
faith’] and says ‘the word is near thee, in thy mouth and heart’. Paul then
says ‘whoever calls on the Lord will be saved, with the heart a man believes
and becomes righteous [which according to Paul means ‘justified’] and with the
mouth confession is made unto salvation’. In this text, Paul once again is
‘dividing’ the common understanding of ‘salvation’ meaning ‘getting initially
saved’- which is ‘believing and being justified’. And simply saying ‘believers
will inevitably call and be saved’ [in a generic sense]. Why would he do this?
In the context of his argument, he is simply showing the ‘righteousness which
is from the law’ [the man under the law is described as ‘doing something’
continuing under the load and strain of law] versus the ‘righteousness which is
by faith’ [described as a person who believes and speaks, as opposed to ‘does
stuff’]. It is not inconsistent for Paul to use the term ‘confessing and being
saved’ as speaking of something different than meaning ‘accepting Christ into
your heart’. Paul is simply giving a description of those who believe ‘all who
believe will call’. And yes, they will and do experience ‘salvation’. It’s just
in this example Paul is not saying ‘they are saved initially upon confession,
calling’. At least not ‘saved’ in the sense of ‘getting justified by faith’.
Why? Because the rest of the chapter doesn’t make a whole lotta sense if he
were saying this. ‘How can they call on him in whom they have not believed’? He
already showed us that ‘believers are justified’. The very argument Paul makes
distinguishes between ‘believing unto righteousness, and calling unto
salvation’. You can see it like this, there is a verse I stumbled across years
ago. It is in one of the prophets [Old Testament] and it says ‘Gods wrath will
come upon all them WHO HAVE NOT CALLED UPON HIM’. In this context Paul can be
saying ‘whoever calls upon God will never enter judgment/wrath’ [a description
of a particular lifestyle, remember Paul said Gods Spirit makes us cry ‘Abba
Father’] in this light Paul can be saying ‘all who call [both Jew and Gentile-
simply making an argument for inclusion. God accepts ‘all who call’] will not
come under future [or present!] wrath’. This would be in keeping with Peters
scathing sermon in Act’s where he quotes the Prophet Joel and says ‘whosoever
calls upon the Lord shall be saved’. If you go back and read Joel you will see
that in context he is saying ‘at the future time of God’s revealed judgment,
those who cry for deliverance will be spared’. Peter quotes it in this context
as well. He shows Gods future time of judgment and ends with ‘all who call will
be saved’. How do we know that Peter was not quoting Joel for some type of
‘sinner’s prayer’ thing? Because after the Jews say ‘what should we do’? He
doesn’t lead them in a sinners Prayer! I don’t want to be picky, I simply want
you to see context. Paul has already established multiple times thru out this
letter how righteousness comes to those who believe. One of the descriptions of
‘those who believe’ are they ‘call upon God’. They even call upon God ‘to save
them’. In this chapter the reason Paul uses ‘whosoever calls upon the lord will
be saved’ is to simply show God will deliver both Jews and Gentiles. His
promise of salvation is ‘to all’. When he uses ‘believing and being made
righteous’ along with ‘calling and being saved’ he obviously can not be
speaking about the same thing! He even states it this way in his argument. ‘How
can they call unless they already believe’? He was simply giving a description
of ‘those who believe’. This ‘calling for salvation’ that ‘all who believe’
partake of can speak both of a ‘present tense’ being saved, that is from any
and all types of bad things, and a ‘future tense’ deliverance from wrath. Even
when Paul quoted David in Roman’s 4, he is ‘describing the blessedness of the
man unto whom God will not impute sin’ [Psalms 32] if you go back and read that
psalm David says ‘for this shall EVERY ONE THAT IS GODLY PRAY UNTO THEE’. David
uses this in the context of his confession of his sin. So the ‘everyone that is
Godly’ describes ‘the righteous’ and they WILL CALL! Also in 2nd
Corinthians Paul quotes Isaiah ‘now is the acceptable time, now is the day of
salvation’ in the context of ‘God heard you and saved you’. Why would Paul use
this in 2nd Corinthians? They need not be told ‘pray and get saved’. In context
he used it to encourage them to return back into full communion and fellowship
after their restoration and reproof he gave them in the first letter. He is
saying ‘I rebuked you guys harshly, you repented and asked for forgiveness. God
‘heard you’ in his acceptable time, now get over it and ‘be restored’.
Salvation to them came by ‘calling’ but it was not describing an initial
conversion experience. Well, I didn’t realize I would go so long, but this is a
good example of having a ‘holistic view’ of scripture. You try and take all the
quotes the writers are using, put them in context of the broad themes of
scripture. Add that to the immediate context of the letter [Romans] and then
come to a deeper understanding of truth. I am not against those who see this
chapter thru an evangelistic lens, I just think the way I taught it is more
faithful to the text. [NOTE- Thru out this site I have taught the doctrine of
‘the salvation of the righteous’. I mentioned it earlier in Romans and have
spoken on it before. If you can find these entries they will add some insight
to this chapter. NOTE- verse 20 actually has Paul quoting Isaiah ‘I was found
by them who did not ask for me’. This would sure seem strange to say in the
same chapter that taught a concept of ‘all who ask for me will enter the
kingdom’. It is quite possible to ask and pray and confess everything ‘just
right’ and still not find him. And according to this verse, the ones who did
‘find him’ [Gentiles] did not ask! After years of coming to the above
understanding I read a church council [Council of Orange?] and I was surprised
to see how they actually dealt with the issue of believing versus ‘calling upon
God’. They quoted some of these texts to show that before a person could call
upon the Lord, he first needed faith. They used this example to show Gods
sovereignty in salvation. I though it interesting that they came to the very
same conclusions that I did. They even used the same examples! This shows you
how the corporate mind of the church is manifestly expressed thru out the ages.
I think the council was in the 8th or 9th century?
(855)ROMANS 10:14-21 [Just a note
for the previous entry. In the conversions recorded in scripture [Acts] do you
know how many times there is a reference to ‘calling upon the Lord’ during the
conversion? Surprisingly one time. The conversion of Saul [Paul]! During one of
the ‘re-tellings’ of his own story he says ‘I was told to arise, and be
baptized. Washing away my sins while calling upon the Lord’. Wow, could we have
arguments over this one! Do you identify the ‘washing away of sins’ with
baptism or the ‘prayer’? I actually previously taught [somewhere on this long
blog!] how in the 1st century Jewish mindset ‘washing from
uncleanness’ and water were related. I taught it in a way that did not teach
‘baptismal regeneration’ but more along the lines of ‘discipleship’ you might
find the entry under ‘my statement of faith’. The point I want to make here is
Paul spent 3 days after the Lord appeared to him before he actually got
baptized and made an open confession of faith. Paul’s reputation was so bad [he
killed Christians!] that his conversion and confession needed to have all the
weight possible. Others needed to know that he now ‘confessed Christ’. Most
commentators will look to the appearance of Jesus to Paul on the Damascus road as his
conversion. The point I want to make is in the book of Acts, the main ‘altar
call’ was actually baptism. This was the normal means to identify with the
believing community. We also see the fact that once people believed, they then
were baptized. The same distinction can be made with ‘confessing’. Neither can
take place until one believes. I would assume that Paul said something like
this at his baptism ‘O Jesus, please forgive me for what I have done. I killed
your people and have committed a terrible crime’. There obviously were some
serious things he needed to confess! But the overall view of conversion in Acts
does not show a ‘sinner’s prayer’ type conversion.] Paul indicts Israel ‘The
word did come to you, you didn’t believe’. He also quotes Moses ‘God said he
would provoke you to jealousy by a nation who were “no people”’. We are
beginning a portion of Romans where Paul will try and explain the dynamic of
Gods purpose for Israel, and his ‘use’ of the Gentile nations to ‘make them
jealous’. When we studied the parables we saw this dynamic at work. Israel was
offended that God [Messiah] was offering equal access to the promises of Israel thru
Jesus. Israel
was jealous of this free grace. Paul shows them that Moses prophesied that this
day would come. You also see this in Stephens sermon in Acts chapter 7 ‘Moses
said the Lord would raise up a prophet like me [Jesus!]’ and then Stephen shows
how Israel
also did not recognize that Moses was the intended deliverer of the people. So
likewise 1st century Israel
also did not recognize their Messiah [the first time around!]. God’s acceptance
of the Gentiles was difficult for Israel to embrace. It took a divine
vision for Peter, and he still ‘fell back’ into a caste system mentality. God
is not finished with these dealings [Paul will say in the next few chapters]
and he will make every effort to show both Jews and Gentiles that they are both
important pieces to this ‘divine puzzle’. He will even warn the Gentiles ‘don’t
get proud, if God cut off the true branches to graft you in, watch out! He
might do the same with you.’ Paul is striving for both Jew and Gentile to live
in harmony as much as possible, he did not want to come off as a defender of
the Gentiles only. He was ‘defending the gospel’.
(857)ROMANS- Let me overview a
little. This entry goes along with the last one [#856- those of you reading
this straight from the Romans study will need to find it under one of the
‘teaching’ sections]. Paul deals with the issue of ‘being provoked by/to
jealousy’. Many times believers remain divided because of pride and jealousy.
We often do not want to accept the fact that God actually is working thru other
camps, groups of Christians who are ‘not like us’. It challenges our very
identity at times! We feel like ‘well, my whole experience with God has been
one of coming out of [name the group- for many it’s Catholicism] and I KNOW
that I have found and experienced God by leaving mistaken concepts about God.
Therefore any other ‘defender’ of Catholics is challenging my core experience’.
I myself attribute my conversion to ‘leaving religious ideas’ and reading the
bible for the first time. Though I had various believers witnessing to me, it
was the actual reading of Johns gospel [and the whole New Testament] that
clinched it for me. The reality of ‘whoever believes’ as opposed to religion.
But my own experience should not limit [in my mind] the reality of others who
also embraced the Cross without ‘leaving’ their former church. It is quite
possible that other ‘Catholics’ arrived at a serious level of commitment to the
Cross, while remaining faithful to their church. Now I realize this in itself
can become an issue of contention, all I want to show you is we should not
limit the power of the gospel to our own personal experience. During the recent
controversy [2008] over certain Pentecostal expressions of ‘revival’ some old
time churches simply made a case against all the Charisms [gifts] of the Spirit.
The fact is most theologians accept the gifts of the Spirit as being for all
ages of the church. Sure, there have been problems with them, even early on
[the Montanists] but the fact is there has always been some type of Charismatic
expression of Christianity thru out the church age. But the more Reformed
brother’s sound [and are often!] more ‘biblical’ than some of the crazy stuff
that happens under the banner of ‘Pentecostal/Charismatic’. So the divisions
exist. In this chapter [Romans 11] Paul is dealing with a very real dynamic
that says ‘I find my whole identity in the way God has worked with me for
centuries [Judaism]. The fact that he began a new thing with other groups who I
detest [Gentiles] has offended me to the point where I can’t even experience
God any more’. Israel could not see past her own experience with God. The fact
that God was ‘being experienced’ by other groups in ways that seemed highly
‘unorthodox’ did not mean that their former experience was illegitimate. It
simply meant that Gods experience with them was always intended to ‘break out’
into the broader community of mankind. They lost this original intent and used
their ‘orthodoxy’ as a means of self identification. An ‘elite’ religious
class, if you will. I find many of these same dynamics being present in the
modern church. We should stand strong for orthodoxy, we also need to expose and
correct error when it gets to a point where many believers are being led
astray. But we also need to be able to see God at work in other groups, we
should not use our own experience with God [no matter how legitimate it is!] as
the criterion of what’s right or wrong.
CATECHISM of the
Catholic Church-
1963 According to Christian tradition, the Law is
holy, spiritual, and good,14 yet still imperfect. Like a tutor15 it shows what must be done, but
does not of itself give the strength, the grace of the Spirit, to fulfill it.
Because of sin, which it cannot remove, it remains a law of bondage. According
to St. Paul, its special function is to denounce and disclose sin, which constitutes a “law of
concupiscence” in the human heart.16 However, the Law remains the first
stage on the way to the kingdom. It prepares and disposes the chosen people and
each Christian for conversion and faith in the Savior God. It provides a
teaching which endures for ever, like the Word of God. (1610, 2542, 2515)
1964 The Old Law is a preparation for the Gospel. “The Law is a pedagogy and a prophecy
of things to come.”17 It prophesies and presages the work
of liberation from sin which will be fulfilled in Christ: it provides the New
Testament with images, “types,” and symbols for expressing the life according
to the Spirit. Finally, the Law is completed by the teaching of the sapiential
books and the prophets which set its course toward the New Covenant and the
Kingdom of heaven. (122, 1828)
1977
Christ is the end of the law (cf. Rom 10:4); only he teaches and bestows the
justice of God.
1982 The Old Law is a preparation for the Gospel.
1983 The New Law is the grace of the Holy Spirit
received by faith in Christ, operating through charity. It finds expression
above all in the Lord’s Sermon on the Mount and uses the sacraments to
communicate grace to us.
I TALKED ABOUT THESE VIRTUES ON
THE VIDEO-
I. The Human Virtues
1804 Human virtues are firm attitudes, stable
dispositions, habitual perfections of intellect and will that govern our
actions, order our passions, and guide our conduct according to reason and
faith. They make possible ease, self-mastery, and joy in leading a morally good
life. The virtuous man is he who freely practices the good. (2500, 1827)
The moral virtues are
acquired by human effort. They are the fruit and seed of morally good acts;
they dispose all the powers of the human being for communion with divine love.
The
cardinal virtues
1805
Four virtues play a pivotal role and accordingly are called “cardinal”; all the
others are grouped around them. They are: prudence, justice, fortitude, and
temperance. “If anyone loves righteousness, [Wisdom’s] labors are virtues; for
she teaches temperance and prudence, justice, and courage.”64 These virtues are praised under
other names in many passages of Scripture.
1806 Prudence is the virtue that disposes practical
reason to discern our true good in every circumstance and to choose the right
means of achieving it; “the prudent man looks where he is going.”65 “Keep sane and sober for your
prayers.”66 Prudence is “right reason in
action,” writes St. Thomas Aquinas, following Aristotle.67 It is not to be confused with
timidity or fear, nor with duplicity or dissimulation. It is called auriga virtutum (the charioteer of the virtues); it
guides the other virtues by setting rule and measure. It is prudence that
immediately guides the judgment of conscience. The prudent man determines and
directs his conduct in accordance with this judgment. With the help of this
virtue we apply moral principles to particular cases without error and overcome
doubts about the good to achieve and the evil to avoid. (1788, 1780)
1807 Justice is the moral virtue that consists in
the constant and firm will to give their due to God and neighbor. Justice
toward God is called the “virtue of religion.” Justice toward men disposes one
to respect the rights of each and to establish in human relationships the
harmony that promotes equity with regard to persons and to the common good. The
just man, often mentioned in the Sacred Scriptures, is distinguished by
habitual right thinking and the uprightness of his conduct toward his neighbor.
“You shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great, but in
righteousness shall you judge your neighbor.”68 “Masters, treat your slaves justly
and fairly, knowing that you also have a Master in heaven.”69 (2095, 2401)
1808 Fortitude is the moral virtue that ensures
firmness in difficulties and constancy in the pursuit of the good. It
strengthens the resolve to resist temptations and to overcome obstacles in the
moral life. The virtue of fortitude enables one to conquer fear, even fear of
death, and to face trials and persecutions. It disposes one even to renounce
and sacrifice his life in defense of a just cause. “The Lord is my strength and
my song.”70 “In the world you have tribulation;
but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.”71 (2848, 2473)
1809 Temperance is the moral virtue that moderates the
attraction of pleasures and provides balance in the use of created goods. It
ensures the will’s mastery over instincts and keeps desires within the limits
of what is honorable. The temperate person directs the sensitive appetites
toward what is good and maintains a healthy discretion: “Do not follow your
inclination and strength, walking according to the desires of your heart.”72Temperance
is often praised in the Old Testament: “Do not follow your base desires, but
restrain your appetites.”73 In the New Testament it is called
“moderation” or “sobriety.” We ought “to live sober, upright, and godly lives
in this world.”74 (2341, 2517)
Down
the road I hope to teach a bit more about the Catholic teaching of ‘the working
of the work’- meaning the Church teaches that the Sacraments ‘work’ regardless
of the holiness/faith of those administering them. It’s a controversy that
dates back to the early centuries of the Church [the Donatist controversy]. The
point I want to make here is the bible teaches that there are things we can
train ourselves to do- acts of prayer- fasting- etc.- that over time will train
the mind to think Godly thoughts [these practices of discipline work over time-
regardless of the way you feel]. I think one of the drawbacks from the
Protestant Reformation was the neglect of ‘works’- the role that good works
play in the Christian life. Paul [in Romans] says ‘as you have yielded your
parts as instruments of unrighteousness to sin- so now yield them as
instruments of righteousness unto God’. I added this section about Virtues
because I felt it covered this theme well.
Proverbs 9:1 Wisdom hath builded her house, she hath hewn out her
seven pillars:
Proverbs 9:2 She hath killed her beasts; she hath mingled her
wine; she hath also furnished her table.
Proverbs 9:3 She hath sent forth her maidens: she crieth upon the
highest places of the city,
Proverbs 9:4 Whoso is simple, let him turn in hither: as for him
that wanteth understanding, she saith to him,
Proverbs 9:5 Come, eat of my bread, and drink of the wine which I
have mingled.
Proverbs 9:6 Forsake the foolish, and live; and go in the way of
understanding.
facebook.com/john.chiarello.5
ccoutreach87.wordpress.com
Note- Do me a favor, those who read/like the posts- re-post
them on other sites as well as the site you read them on. Thanks- John.#
Monday, February 23, 2015
[BOOK]
‘FURTHER TALKS ON CHURCH AND MINISTRY’
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER ONE
HOLY SITES AND HOLY PLACES.
CHAPTER TWO
AUTHORITY IN THE KINGDOM,
WHERE DOES IT COME FROM?
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE UNDER THE LOCAL CHURCH ?
CHAPTER FIVE
BUILDING THE CHURCH AROUND THE
PERSONA OF CHRIST, NOT MEN!
CHAPTER SIX
ORDINATION AND THE BIBLICAL
MODEL OF ACCOUNTABILITY.
CHAPTER SEVEN
EXAMPLES FROM PASTORS AND BELIEVERS FROM AROUND THE
WORLD.
CHAPTER EIGHT
ARE CHURCH BUILDINGS EVIL? [OR
THE GUY WHO WANTED TO CAST DEMONS OUT OF ME!]
CHAPTER NINE
WHAT IN THE WORLD IS ‘THE LOCAL CHURCH ’?
CHAPTER TEN
THE SPIRIT OF COMPETITION IN THE MODERN CHURCH .
CHAPTER ELEVEN
GODS PEOPLE ARE NOT SIMPLY
ASSETS TO AN ORGANIZATION.
CHAPTER TWELVE
WHAT MODEL OF CHURCH GOVERNMENT DO I ESPOUSE?
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
THE CAT CHAPTER. [I DID THIS
FOR MY KIDS!]
CONCLUSION
INTRODUCTION
Welcome back! I
hope those of you who are reading this booklet have read our other 2 books
first. Though it’s not necessary in order to understand this book, I prefer to
think of these little booklets as an on going conversation with our friends in
the kingdom. Those of you who are familiar with our ministry know that we view
‘ministry’ and ‘church’ in an unconventional way. I see church as the people of
God who are gathered together by Christ in various and unique ways. I see the
people that we associate with and minister to as a legitimate expression of
church. Therefore those of you who have been in conversation with us through
our various areas of ministry [radio,outreach,etc.]are a unique and vital
expression of Christ’s body. Our goal is to simply relate to you in such a way
that the end result would be for you to be built up in Christ and to find
fulfillment in him. In this book I hope to share a lot of personal thoughts
that the lord has communicated to me over a period of time. I feel that if I
can simply communicate to you the biblical idea of church/ministry and how we
all fit into this picture, that I will have in some small way accomplished the
goal of writing this third little ‘letter’ to the ‘churches’ that the lord has
called us to speak into.
CHAPTER 1
HOLY SITES AND HOLY PLACES
I recently have
been studying and speaking on the issue of church and ministry as seen in the
New Testament, as opposed to the way we as 21st century believers
view it. In this ongoing conversation [primarily through radio] I have been
talking about our tendency as believers to fall into a pattern of seeing
ourselves as spectators/funders of the work of professionals. We settle into
roles that relegate us into a nonfunctioning position of hearers of truth. We
generally believe that if we attend the church meeting on Sunday and give
financially to the church that somehow this has fulfilled our Christian
obligation and that we are free to do as we please with our time and resources
the other six days of the week. In this conversation there are those who feel
this whole ritual of Sunday church is wrong and should be totally abolished,
but there are others who are not quite that extreme but still see a need for a
radical rethinking of this whole process. I consider myself to be in the more
moderate class.
I personally
don’t find anything inherently wrong with ‘going to church on Sunday’ but the
general theme of New Testament Christianity is against the idea of believers
simply being hearers of the word only. Because of our limited understanding of
the word ‘church’ [ecclesia] in the New Testament we usually do not view
ourselves as Christians in a proper way. One of the main themes in the New
Testament is the idea of the church as community. That God intended for there
to be a body of people who would actually be the place where God would dwell.
He really lives inside the people who believe in Christ. Because of this the
old idea of God manifesting himself only at a certain location [like the
temple] is done away in Christ. If you remember the conversation Jesus had with
the Samaritan woman [John 4] she asked Jesus about the legitimacy of the
religious locations of her day. She wanted him to speak to the issue of which
physical location is the proper one in which people should go to worship. Jesus
reply was there is going to be a change in the whole system of so-called ‘holy
sites’. He tells her that the true worshipers of God will be accessing him in
spirit and truth. He is looking forward to the reality of the body of Christ
being a living temple of people who will be able to be in Gods presence all the
time regardless of there physical location. While most Christians believe this
truth, in practice we often deny it. We look to the religious activities that
surround our church day as some how being a more spiritual site or day of
worship. We gear up for religious meeting and then experience ‘coming down’
from the religious high point
of our week.
Now this is where I take a more moderate view than
some of my brothers. I too enjoy the day of worship and fellowship that takes
place on Sunday; I just wish that we could break the mindset that sees the
doing of this as the primary role for Christians. I wish we could see that God
is really with us on a daily basis as we interact as believers with each other.
There are many times in our focus of going to church on Sunday that we
unconsciously transfer the mindset of the Samaritan woman into the present day.
We tend to view both the place and the day of church as taking place at a set
location at a certain day. Jesus specifically told her that the day was coming
that true worship would take place at a temple in a set location, but that
temple would be the corporate people of God and that place would be wherever 2
or more are gathered together in his name!
CHAPTER 2
AUTHORITY IN THE KINGDOM,
WHERE DOES IT COME FROM?
Not only are we
hindered in our thinking by seeing church as something we go to on a special
day, but the whole idea of ministry being some kind of a corporation that
exists as a 501 c3 entity. Over the years of ministry I have personally come to
rethink this whole issue. I’ve come to view ministry primarily as the kingdom
works that God produces through his people when they are in right relationship
with him. If you think about it this goes right to the heart of the issue of
church being a living society of people. A functioning nation of Christ
followers. When Jesus commissioned his followers to go out into the world and
be witnesses for him, he told them to do kingdom works and to say to the people
that the kingdom
of God has come near to
them. The actual presence of Christ in his people carrying out his works is
true ministry. Later in the book of acts the Spirit falls on a bunch of people
and they go forth both speaking and doing things in the name of Jesus. Ministry
is primarily a function of God working through his people while bypassing all
the technical loopholes of religion. There are certain basic standards that
Christians who want to serve God should live by, but the whole idea of ministry
being this 501c3 entity that exists as a separate thing is really unscriptural.
Jesus not only challenged the idea of holy-sites being a special place, but
also the idea of God’s authority/legitimacy existing in certain religious
offices or institutions of his day.
The religious
class challenged the authority of Jesus. They were saying you have no right to
function as the Son of God. Who gave you this authority? Jesus answered in an
interesting way. He asked them who gave John the Baptist the authority to do
the things he did. Was it from heaven or of men? Well the Pharisee’s didn’t
answer. But Jesus showed us that there where 2 types of authority, or ways of
being legitimate in what you do. One way is that God directly gives you the
right to function as a kingdom person, or you derive your authority from other people.
You somehow seek legitimacy by going through the procedures of men. One of the
main truths of the New Testament is the incarnation. God becoming man in the
person of Christ. The very fact that Jesus was sent by his father, and being
God incarnate in planet earth was all the legitimacy that anyone would ever
need to do ‘ministry’. Any attempt from the religious mind to try and denigrate
his character, or de-legitimize his right to function was directly challenged
by the fact that he was sent by God. The works themselves were proof that he
was legitimate! Now when we in the church seek to become legitimate, or to
derive authority to do ministry through all sorts of natural procedures, we are
in essence saying ‘we get our authority through man’. Its o.k. to become a 501c3 organization if it’s
simply a matter of necessity [you need it to accomplish mission] but if it
becomes a means whereby we feel ‘more legitimate’then we’ve simply jumped thru
a hoop that will become a hindrance down the road.
The pouring out
of the Spirit at Pentecost was more than an event by which the church would
enjoy charismatic gifts. In the Old Testament the Spirit of God would come upon
certain individuals at certain times to give them authority to function in
their offices [kings and prophets]. The fact that the Spirit came upon them was
proof of their legitimacy to function in that office. The day of Pentecost was
a ‘pouring out’ of the anointing on a whole body of people as opposed to a
particular office. God was fulfilling the words of Jesus when he said ‘all
authority is given to me go ye therefore’. Jesus was ‘legitimizing’ a whole
society of people to go forth and do his works. No special class or office, but
the whole body would now have this priestly/kingly anointing. If anyone would
question their authority, or right to do what they were going to do, they would
respond by saying we derive our authority through Jesus. They understood that
their ordination came by the very fact that Christ poured out his Spirit upon
them. Any challenge to who gave them the right to function was seen as a direct
challenge to Christ’s authority. In the Old Testament when you challenged an
emissary of the king you were directly challenging the king, so likewise when
we question the legitimacy of fellow believers because they don’t seem to fit
the ‘normal’ way of doing things, we’re unconsciously saying ‘who gave you this
authority’. Now I am not saying that every Christian has the right to do
anything he feels like doing, but there is a difference between seeking the
legitimacy of man and simply doing the works of Jesus!
CHAPTER 3
I just finished
doing a teaching on the radio on the book of Exodus. We covered the story of
the children of Israel
as they progressed in time from a few people into a whole nation of people. If
you remember your bible well, you can follow the original desire for God to
have a family of people who would inhabit earth and live in fellowship with
him. As man sinned and rebelled against God he became separated from God, but
the desire to build and make a name for himself still existed within man. The
story of the tower
of Babel speaks of this.
Men tried to come together as a corporate group, and even were willing to have
unity [as opposed to ‘doing their own thing’] but it was for the purpose of
building to the glory of man. It was ‘legacy building’. A desire that’s in all
men to ‘leave a name for myself’. In the corporate world of business you find
this mindset existing in a very strong way. In 21st century American
society we call it ‘keeping up with the joneses’.
There is a popular commercial on TV at this
time that shows an average Joe living high on the hog in order to keep up a
certain image in the community. It shows ‘Joe’ as possessing a lot of things in
order to live up to the image of the people around him. At the end of the
commercial the question is asked ‘how does Joe manage to live like this?’. The
answer is ‘he’s in debt up to his eyeballs’. This little commercial captures in
a nutshell the attitude of trying to create an image of ourselves so others
would think more highly of us, or so we can feel vindicated in the sight of our
critics. Now many times in modern ministry and ‘church’ building we give in to
this desire without even realizing it. We build facilities or large
organizations in order to prove to those around us that we can really do this
thing [tower building mentality]. We seem to loose sight of the great reality
that Gods ‘institution’ or
‘organization’ which he uses to carry out his will is the church. It is a
family of people [a holy nation, temple, city, body] that God freely dwells in,
in order to advance his ‘cause’ throughout the earth.
When we
unconsciously develop systems of ministry that we feel are the ‘church’, that
is if we follow certain patterns and models of ministry and then begin to build
these entities with the belief that these models are actually ‘the church’ then
what we’ve done is transferred Gods true desire to build his kingdom [a rule in
the earth that would give glory to his image] and replaced it unconsciously
with a natural desire to build something that gives testimony to our image
[i.e.: ‘look what I’ve done, look at the big legacy I will leave when I’m
gone’]. Jesus warned the disciples that this desire to have authority and be
‘in charge’ of people would not be acceptable in true kingdom building. He was
showing us that this desire for success was nothing different than what already
exists in lost society. Many men sacrifice a lot in order to build institutions
or businesses. People regularly sacrifice their time and resources in order to
get their business going. Often times they even work in unity with many other
people [staff, employees] to accomplish their goal. Now I'm not saying this is
wrong in and of itself, there are many good businesses and institutions that
have started this way. But when we transfer this mindset into the church we can
confuse the energy and excitement that naturally comes with any true adventure
and begin building ‘at all costs’. We can loose sight of the ‘entity’ that God
is building and get caught up in the natural desire to ‘image’ build and become
sidetracked.
In extreme cases this actually leads to
abusive church situations where the leader[s] are so focused on building the
ministry that they begin to unconsciously manipulate people in order to fulfill
the vision. This is why it’s so important to see that the church exists as a
community of people in the earth whom God lives in and interacts with in
various ways in order to build his image in the earth. God wants the knowledge
of the glory of ‘the lord’ to cover the earth as the waters cover the sea. The
‘tower’ that all men will see is the ‘Cross’. God will draw all men to the
image of his Son as opposed to some great edifice of man. Gods Spirit wars
against the natural desire in man to ‘legacy’ build to his own image. We as
believers need to reevaluate the motivations behind our outward enthusiasm to
‘press ahead’ at all costs. When we examine ourselves and make adjustments in
our thinking I believe God will allow us to participate in great works for his
name.
CHAPTER 4
WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE UNDER
THE LOCAL CHURCH ?
Over the years
of seeing the freedom that we have in Christ, especially as it pertains to
functioning in church and ministry, I have met other believers who have seen
and grown in the same understanding that the lord has given us. I believe this
to be a natural process of the body of Christ coming to maturity. When the head
[Jesus] is communicating with the body [the church] you often find different
members seeing and functioning in the same truths, though they have never
personally met each other. Some of these experiences are lessons for the whole
church. Many times in trying to express truth there is a natural tendency for
fellow believers to respond in a unified way in defense of a wrong [or
misguided] way of seeing things. I remember sharing with a missionary family
how the New Testament teaches a greater freedom for the functioning of
missionaries/apostles than what we put on them today. I showed how Paul simply
operated under the spirits guidance and practiced giving and receiving in a
voluntary way with all the believers he was spending time with. I showed how
even though Paul was an apostle sent out of the church at Antioch [acts 13]
that this didn’t mean he was under some type of 501c3 entity at Antioch that he
was sending his tithes to in order to be in obedience to the ‘New Testament
pattern.’ If you read the story in acts all the apostles and believers
functioned as citizens of a heavenly city and saw themselves all equally as
part of this new community of Christ followers.
The idea that
Paul [or any other New Testament minister] had some type of structural
relationship with his ‘home church’ in the sense that he was sending tithes
back to his ‘home church’ on a regular basis is simply reading 21st
century American patterns into the story that doesn’t exist. You would think
that the missionary family would have rejoiced to have seen this truth, as it
would have given them freedom in moving forward in new ways in the kingdom. But
contrary they were offended in a sense because they truly felt the role of
tithing to a specific group of Christians who meet in a building in there area
was a New Testament pattern that must be adhered to. While its ok to give to
groups of Christians in this way, but to see this as a pattern that if violated
would bring the curse in Malachi upon a person is ridiculous. These are ways
that we confuse the spiritual temple of believers with the entity/501c3
structures that exist in ministry today. While the obtaining of the 501c3
status, or the purchasing of a building for believers to meet in is not
inherently wrong [remember, if its needed for mission it’s o.k.] but to then
view that as ‘local church’ which the missionary needs to tithe to in order to
be in obedience to the ‘local church’ is confusing the spiritual entity of
Christ’s body with the physical entity of American ministry.
When we view
‘ministry’ as a separate organization, we sacrifice the freedom to directly
build into people. I was driving through town one day with a friend and as we
passed by a certain business I mentioned that I needed to go in at a later time
to purchase some equipment. My friend asked why I needed it and I explained I
felt the Lord wanted me to buy it for a friend in order to help him in
ministry. He questioned why I would spend money on someone who had no type of
relationship with us, like a ‘part of our church/ministry’. I explained how
believers should be willing to spend time and money for the benefit of others
regardless of whether or not they are ‘part of our organization’ [by the way we
have no ‘organization’ that someone ‘joins’]. I should mention that the person
I wanted to spend the money on was one of our original friends/converts that we
worked with in the early days of ministry. So the benefit would be purely
spiritual, that is I would receive a reward from God in the sense that one of
‘our disciples’ would benefit directly from this purchase. Paul told the
Corinthians that he would gladly spend and be spent for them. He said the
fathers spend for the children, not the children for the fathers. He was
showing the attitude of building people up for their sole benefit, not simply
building staff or employees but giving yourself away solely for the benefit of
‘spiritual children’.
Many times people will unconsciously do the
things I advocate, without realizing it! Recently there have been many examples
of God working supernaturally in the area of finances. Many people who disagree
with my teaching on grace giving have actually been blessed by doing it the way
I teach it! People have been giving testimonies of how God would move on them
to freely give [apart from the tithe concept] and how after they obeyed his
voice to MEET THE NEED OF ANOTHER PERSON, versus ‘paying the tithe’ that the
Lord would move supernaturally on their behalf by another person [not
institution] being moved to give to them in return. I have been teaching this
for years! How when Jesus rebuked the Pharisees for ‘corban’ giving that he
told them their mindset of dedicating money to the temple [institution] caused
them to neglect giving directly to people [their parents]. So the recent
breakthrough in giving that people are experiencing is what I have been saying
all along. God wants us to give spontaneously to directly meet the needs of
people! I realize this doesn’t mean we shouldn’t also give regularly, but the
point is sometimes we reject what a persons saying [like me!] without realizing
that what their saying is right!
I should note something here; over the years I
have consistently taught and believed in the concept of giving as God leads.
There have been many times where the Lord would move on me to meet the needs of
people. Just a few days ago one of my homeless friends asked me if I was still
buying tents for people, I said sure. There was really no second thought or
feeling of ‘I already gave the required amount this week, and this is going out
of the way’. I simply felt it to be in keeping with the New Testament to give
to someone in need. A few weeks back I ran into one of the original homeless
friends that I met many years ago. The first thing he remembered and couldn’t
stop talking about was how when I first met him I was giving away clothes in
the winter to him and a bunch of other people. Theses simple acts of charity
are in keeping with the teaching of Jesus on giving. The New Testament says
‘give to him that asks of thee’ ‘if you have the ability to help your brother
and don’t how dwelleth the love of God in you’ ‘if someone comes to your door
in need and you don’t help, it profits nothing’ ‘let him who is not working get
a job so he MAY HAVE TO GIVE TO HIM THAT NEEDETH’.
All these verses [which I just paraphrased off
the top of my head, you’ll have to look them up for yourself] speak clearly to
the issue of God wanting us to give to meet the needs of others spontaneously
and freely. No sense of ‘I already tithed this week to the church’. This
legalistic mindset actually works against the spirit of New Testament giving. I
am not saying Christians shouldn’t give regularly for the functioning of
Christian ministry, I put aside money on a bi-weekly basis in order to fund
Christian works. It is because of my priority of doing this that enables me to
meet the needs of people when they come up.
I believe
Christians should regularly give to the work of the kingdom, I also believe
that many people would experience breakthrough in their giving if they truly
practiced the New Testament doctrine of grace giving. All the communities of
the New Testament [churches] gave this way. There simply was no tithing concept
taught to the gentile believers. The scripture says the Corinthians gathered on
the 1st day of the week and gave Paul an offering to BRING BACK TO
THE POOR SAINTS AT JERUSALEM. Do you see this ‘THE POOR SAINTS’. They were
giving to meet the needs of people here. We use these verses to tell Christians
if you put in the required amount on Sunday then you’ve met your obligation. We
distort scripture to fit into our way of seeing things. I believe its O.K. to
put money in the offerings on Sunday, many times the work of ‘building based’
churches is good. Supporting missionaries, planting churches and many other
good things. It’s just that we shouldn’t use this as an excuse to by pass all
the other instructions in the New Testament to freely give to others in need!
I want to note
something here, this is a good example of how are ‘seeing’ church as the Sunday
meeting as opposed to the corporate group affects us. The issue of ‘how much
should I put into the basket on Sunday’ was a NON ISSUE in the New Testament.
There were times where all the believers in a community [the church] gave in a
corporate way[ Acts 6, 1 Cor. 16] but there was no ‘Sunday church offering’
that all the ‘New Testament’ churches gave into. Why? Because the New Testament
churches are all the believers in any given community. The focus wasn’t ‘going
to church on Sunday’ that is our ‘thoughts’ or ways of seeing things [it’s O.K.
to go to church on Sunday] but the focus was a community of people living and
sharing on a daily basis. So when Paul writes these churches, or when Jesus
tells us to give to him in need, they are addressing people directly. It’s not
like the focus was on an institution. This is why ‘how much should we give, or
should Christians tithe?’ is not seen in the New Testament like we see this
question today. The bible speaks of ‘churches’ as communities of people; we
speak about them in terms of ‘the church I go to on Sunday’. This basic
misunderstanding of church causes us to hold onto a less than ideal view of
Christian giving.
CHAPTER 5
BUILDING THE CHURCH AROUND THE
PERSONA OF CHRIST, NOT MEN!
In the early
days of ministry I remember listening to some tapes on apostles and how they
build Gods church. Later I came to see ‘church planting’ as apostles [or
evangelists, or just Christians] going to areas and simply preaching Christ to
groups of people. After the people believed there was a natural development of
family and community that took place as Christ’s Spirit develops the body of
Christ. So the New Testament churches are simply bodies of believers in these
location’s who came to know Christ. God’s authority and the works of his
kingdom are simply a natural expression of Christ’s Spirit through his body. As
time progressed in church history people later developed all sorts of offices
and institutions that they incorporated into the church. Eventually people
began viewing the institution or 501c3 entity as a separate thing called
‘church’.
With this
mindset people began seeing apostles and ministers and people who plant these
entities as ‘CHURCH PLANTERS’. Church planting then began to be looked at as
C.E.O.’s who are starting corporate entities with all sorts of projects to do.
The entity itself became the focal point of all ministry and authority in any
given community. The actual people [the real church] simply became servants to
the entity’. The 501c3 itself became the thing that we saw as having the actual
conferred authority of God upon it. The people who did not conform to the
‘system’ in many different generations of Christians were seen as being
rebellious or not coming under the authority of the church [system separate
from the people] though many of these people were truly Gods corporate
community [church] they were looked at as in opposition to the church because
the understanding of church evolved [or devolved] from the original meaning. We
then put expectations on church leaders to build big facilities and to try and
fill them up.
I want to make a note here; I am not against
the modern phenomena of mega churches. If they are growing as a natural
outgrowth of healthy evangelism it is a good thing. Where we often miss it is
when we begin seeing the goal as having the big thing and then pressuring the
flock because they’re not helping us obtain the big thing. Well the original
tapes I listened to from the brother who was teaching on apostles eventually
visited Corpus Christi and he spoke on his vision to build a 7 thousand seat
auditorium and having 100,000 dollar faith and then a million dollar faith and
having faith to build it and that people will want to hear him speak [the money
stuff was spoken at a different time, but this is the context]. While this
minister meant well he simply was not speaking New Testament language. True
apostolic church planting is the natural outgrowth that takes place in
communities of people when they come to know Christ. When we as leaders begin
seeing the entity [501c3] as the goal, and the people as the tools, or fellow
helpers and financial supporters of the entity, we’re then relegating the body
of Christ to simple servants of the system. Sort of like the children of Israel in Egypt . They
were multiple [big numbers] but they were under constricting styles of
leadership that caused them to build the cities of man [Pithom, Raamses]. God
raised up prophetic leadership [Moses] to bring them out of bondage so they
themselves would become a self functioning society on their own, without being
subservient to another system.
The unhealthy
focus of ‘church’ that centers around the high-powered personas of men is in
direct violation of the spirit of the New Testament. Church today too often has
become a community of people whose ‘common bond’ is found in the personality of
the pastor. All healthy groups of people in society will have stages of growth
where they go through the process of leadership bringing them from dependence
to independence and finally to interdependence [the stage where I don’t need
you to survive or find my identity through you, but I need you as a coequal
member in order for us both to function in a healthy way]. The New Testament
ecclesias were groups of believers whose leadership [elders] functioned as
mature guides and facilitators of this corporate experience. This leadership
style is far removed from the present mindset of church leadership, which
patterns itself after the predominant personality of one individual. While its
O.K. at certain stages of group development to have periods of time where one
person is the main influence in an individuals life [like a mentor/big
brother], but if this relationship between mentor [pastor/leader] never grows
to a stage where the ones being mentored do not eventually develop to the point
where they are no longer dependent on the mentor, then you have the danger of
the leader and his personality becoming the central figure that the disciple
organizes his life around. We unconsciously repeat this cycle in the church
without realizing it.
The simple truth of the churches of the New
Testament having no central office where a person [no matter how well meaning
he is] is the primary figure of the community should cause us to rethink our
present mindset of church and ministry. It is inherently dangerous for any
group of people to hear and see and be centered around the giftings of one
person [the exception being Christ]. The gifts of the Spirit that freely
operate through all of Gods children are powerful. God designed a safety
mechanism in the church [body] to prevent the power of these giftings from
causing people to become to oriented around one individual. The method God
chose was ‘body ministry’. That is Gods pattern of all the people of God
corporately sharing and giving to each other would prevent the unhealthy focus
on one persons personality. Any group of people, no matter how well intentioned
they are, put themselves in an unhealthy position when they violate this principle.
We often confuse the New Testament doctrine of leadership and replace it with
the charismatic individual. We don’t realize that we are violating the intent
of scripture when we do this! All biblical leadership should bring people to a
point where ‘He must increase and I must decrease’. Leaders need to be the ones
who take the bold initiative to ‘wean’ people off of our personalities.
Children in a natural home environment will go
through stages in their relationship with their parents that hopefully bring
them to a point of independence. Though they are your children when there
12,25,or 55 yet the way you relate to them will be different as they mature.
The mistake we make in present models of church leadership is we think it’s
healthy to relate to the people the same way throughout their entire lives. If
you hear me preach or function in some prophetic gift week after week for 30
years, and my primary relationship with you is this way, then its only natural
for you to develop an unhealthy view of me. It’s inherent in the gift of the
Spirit to cause people to be drawn to the persona of Christ, when we violate
the principle of body ministry [that is where all the people give and receive
from each other] we unconsciously set up an unnatural environment where people
are eventually drawn to the wrong persona [the person who they see functioning
in the gift all their lives]. Many well-meaning pastors do not realize what a
basic violation of scripture this is. Our goal should be bringing people to a
point in their lives where they need us less and less as they develop a greater
trust in God.
I know that it’s
difficult to embrace these truths, even if they are true! I myself had a hard
time seeing the reality of the present day mindset of ‘pastor/minister’ as a
basic violation of the intention of God for the church [body] to be an
environment where people are centered around the persona [identity] of Christ.
Many times well-meaning pastors become the central personality of the group in
an unintentional way. Out of a sincere desire to ‘protect’ the flock they
unintentionally become the central attraction of the local community. They feel
that if there were too much freedom the people could go off track. This
possibility does exist, but the primary method of preventing people from going
off track is to allow them to develop into mature saints who need not be
dependent upon us. The example of the parent/child relationship. It would be
‘safer’ to allow the child to never leave the home and for you to always be the
child’s main source of comfort and identity, but it would not be right! So
likewise in the church leadership needs to re-examine our proper roles and
responsibilities. If we have embraced
roles of ‘pastor’ that truly violate this most basic principle, then it is
incumbent upon leadership to recognize this and to make the proper course
corrections as God would direct.
I really want to
emphasize the truth that the church is a community of people whose environment
tends to the exalting of the personality of Christ at the expense of the
personality of the individual leader. God intended the Church to be a place
where gifted individuals WOULD NOT come to the forefront in the minds of the
group, but would recognize the fundamental nature of servant leadership and
willingly take the position of humility. [John 13, 1Cor. 12:22 -25]
We don’t seem to
understand that the way modern Christians relate to leadership in the present
day is in many ways a violation of the spirit of the New Testament. Today it is
common in any city to have many churches who all have their own pastors with
believers attending the church of their choice. While all of these people [both
the pastors and believers] are for the most part well intentioned, they
unconsciously develop a mindset that Paul rebuked in the Corinthian church. The
church at Corinth
[all the believers living in the city!] got to a point where they began
identifying themselves by the people they followed. Some said they followed
Paul, while others were following Apollos. The actual seeing of the individual
leader, and identifying around him was rebuked by Paul.
Now I know that we don’t realize this, but for
us today to have many thousands of believers in many cities actually saying ‘he
is my pastor’, to the point where all the believers have one main personality
that they look to and identify with is not the intent of leadership in the New
Testament. The biblical model of believers in any location is to have a plural
group of elders that are viewed as trusted community leaders; this is more in
keeping with the intent of the New Testament. If you later were to visit these
New Testament communities and found them saying ‘he is my elder, or I go to
elder so and so’s church’ this would be seen as division resulting from having too
high of a view of Christian leadership. I know it’s difficult to realize we
have done these things, and I’m not advocating getting rid of all the good men
who serve as pastors today, but if we begin to see the basic violation of
scripture in our present models of leadership this will allow us to take a more
humble approach and hopefully facilitate a greater spirit of unity in the
Church.
What I want you
to see is how we in the church have a view of ‘local church’ that causes us to
have a misplaced loyalty that is inherent in Christ’s brotherhood. Because we
view ourselves as ‘members’ of so and so’s church, as opposed to truly being
one body in Christ, this breeds a spirit of disloyalty to our fellow brothers
in Christ. We tend to hold to the view that if your not a part of ‘my local
church’ [meaning the individual meeting I attend] that somehow I am truly not
responsible to you. While in reality I really am supposed to have the same care
and concern for you as my brother in Christ, regardless of whether or not you
attend my ‘church’ [group I meet with]. In the New Testament there are
references to the ‘church in your house’ and things of this nature.
Where we usually ‘miss it’ is when we think
that somehow these statements violate the concept of our oneness in Christ.
When the bible speaks like this, it is not saying that all the believers in one
location have separate ‘churches’ that they belong to. It is simply saying
‘that part of Christ’s body that meets in your house’. It would be wrong to
view statements like this and then develop an ecclesiology that ‘sees’ a
hundred different independent ‘churches’ [entities] in your city. While there
very well might be a hundred different groups of believers in your city, you
should be committed to these believers just as much as the people you meet with
every Sunday. While God recognizes different groups of believers in each city,
He also lays down guidelines for our mutual care and concern that we are all to
have for one another. Our dividing over ‘who’s church I attend’ creates a false
mindset of a lack of loyalty to our brothers because ‘they don’t go to my
church’.
I just read a
verse in Isaiah [55: 8] ‘My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your
ways my ways, saith the Lord’. I want you to see that when we view things from
our own perspective [our thoughts] we often violate Gods ways [his thoughts].
Many times when dealing with issues that would personally affect an
individual’s present mindset, or the lifestyle that he’s living [like when I
deal with the subject of tithing, or the lack of the full-time paid minister in
the New Testament story]. People will often reject the truth of scripture [Gods
thoughts] simply on the grounds that they are already practicing ‘church’ in a
certain way [their thoughts] and have no desire to ‘give up’ their present
practice of doing things. Many times it’s simply a matter of personal survival.
‘If you are right John, then it will affect me too much, and I am not willing
to ‘die to the way I see things [my thoughts] because it will entail too much
pain [I think they used to call this ‘bearing our cross’]’.
So while I don’t want to personally condemn
any brother for his views on church and ministry, I want us all to see how we
are subject to preferring our own views to Gods [even me!]. It’s a natural
tendency of the sinful nature to presume ‘our thoughts’ [our way of seeing
things] are ‘Gods thoughts’. It’s when we take this presumption to the extreme
that we get into trouble. We get to the point of seeing others who don’t hold
to ‘our thoughts’ as violating scripture [Gods thoughts] and then we
unconsciously fall into the category of the Pharisees where we condemn those
who don’t ‘see things our way’.
CHAPTER 6
ORDINATION AND THE BIBLICAL
MODEL OF ACCOUNTABILTY.
In the 1st
century Jesus showed up in the midst of a religious system that had a voice of
its own and refused to acknowledge anyone who did not submit to its authority.
This system [religious Judaism] not only resisted Christ and the disciples, but
would later resist the freedom and growth of the New Testament churches
established by the apostle Paul. The leaders of this system actually said that
they feared loosing the influence they had in society if the young church
continued to experience success. They were already showing signs of the
kingdoms of men resisting the kingdom
of God . The Pharisees had
their position that religion gave them and they were unwilling to give it up,
even if it meant their rejection of messiah. The Pharisees used the law and
religious protocol as a means to de-legitimize those who would not jump through
the hoops of their day. Many of our modern concepts of church and ministry
unconciously produce the same results. The very idea of ordination in the new
testament was simply the public recognition [through the laying on of hands] of
those leaders [elders] in the Christian community [not some non profit entity]
who were deemed grounded in the person of Christ and could be looked up to as
spiritual guides in a voluntary society of believers.
Over the years
ordination has evolved into a ritual of licensing and certification from a
religious institution in order to be legitimate to function in church circles.
So the simple concept of all believers having the ordination of God [John 15]
has now developed into a system of approval that one must have in order to
function in the church [as a full time minister]. Now while I personally have
no problem with ordained ministry, we must see that what we call ordination
today is a more developed concept than was originally intended in the New
Testament. It can become wrong when we begin to limit the function of all
believers as ordained priests under God and use the modern concept of
ordination to de-legitimize those who don’t have it. The 1st century
Pharisee saw Jesus ministry as a direct violation of their understanding of
legitimate ministry. They were using law and religious regulation to exclude
people from feeling accepted in Gods society. Jesus way of doing ministry not
only violated the current standards of the day, but also opened up a whole new
realm of people who would be able to function in Gods kingdom. All who would
simply accept him and become a follower were now given legitimacy to spread
God's kingdom despite their unwillingness to submit to the system of their day.
This is what offended the religious mind of the 1st century
Pharisee. They spent years jumping through the hoops of religious protocol in
order to function as religious leaders, Jesus comes on the scene and bypasses
all their procedures and vests authority to do kingdom works to the common
people.
There was a
spirit present in both the mind and religion of the 1st century
Pharisee. They had an intellectual knowledge of scripture that focused on
particular aspects of scripture while never being able to comprehend the ‘body
of truth’. Their religious position in society gave them a greater degree of
responsibility to be able to understand that Christ himself was the goal and
result of all religious learning. In essence they were guilty of possessing a
special position in society and because of there unwillingness to loose the
‘honor’ that came from this position they committed the worst type of offense
that leaders could commit. They actually rejected the person of Christ in order
for there own personas to continue to be at the forefront. If you remember when
Paul speaks of antichrist [I am not saying here that present Christian leaders
are antichrist!] Paul says that ‘he sits in the temple of God
showing HIMSELF to be God’ 2 Thes.2: 4]. There is an aspect of ‘anti-christ’
that rejects the development of the person of Christ in the Church [body] in
order for mans persona to remain at the forefront. He sits [antichrist-not
wanting Christ to be seen!] in the place of God taking the glory
[adulation/honor] to his persona that belongs to Christ.
I want you to see that no matter how well we
know scripture, we really know nothing until the actual person of Christ is at
the forefront [Jesus being Lord]. When man persists in his pride to continue to
hold on to a position of attention in the Christian community that rightfully
belongs to Christ, he unknowingly is violating one of the most fundamental
truths of the church. What I want you to see, without getting too much into the
whole subject of antichrist, is that he wants the place that rightfully belongs
to Christ. In the Christian community Christ’s rightful place is the center of
our attention. True worship is Him actually being the focus and center of
attention. The unhealthy attention that we often see given to people’s
personalities is a subtle way the enemy uses from keeping Christ’s image and
person from being the center of community.
Recently there
was a Christian brother who fell in a very public way. It was a situation where
he admitted to certain sins [adultery] and it was very public. While I wont use
his name, he was a very influential leader in charismatic circles. He held the
title of ‘arch-bishop’ [I don’t understand why we do this stuff!] Well as usual
when word got out about his fall, people began to expound on why this happened.
Some explained that they thought it was because he wasn’t ‘accountable enough’
[he was archbishop to more than 200 churches!] We never seem to think that if
we allow individuals to be exalted above measure, that this itself is a
violation of the principle of New Testament leadership. Jesus said whoever
exalts himself will be humbled. Many times in Christian circles we don’t
realize that we are doing this!
We often blame
the fall on ‘lack of accountability’. True accountability is submitting to each
other in love. It is not some unnatural structure that we create. I have heard
it taught in the way that if some outside person is our ‘covering’ and they
call us once a month and yell at us, that some how this is being humble and
being accountable. You can’t be accountable without true friendship and
relationship. We often jump to the conclusion that when one of our brothers
fall that it’s a result of a lack of accountability, when it just might be that
we allowed them to be lifted up to a place where the Lord had to humble them.
[I don’t want to judge this man, I didn’t even realize I was going to share
this but during my prayer time early this morning I continued to pray for him
and some other brothers who have fallen, and then I felt the Lord permitted me
to share this!] When we allow leaders to attain honorific titles in violation
of scripture we are unknowingly placing them in a position where Christ must
humble them.
Let me mention here the interesting
phenomena of Christians [charismatic and others] seeing the ‘need’ for
believers to revert back to ecclesiastical structures. During the Jesus
movement of the 70’s, as well as the charismatic movement, there were well
intentioned brothers who felt like the freedom of ‘simply following Christ’ and
the working of the Spirit were not enough to keep the movements from going off
track. They sensed the need to have ‘structure’ for the new believers. Jack
Sparks, a brother who felt this way, eventually reverted all the way back to
Greek orthodoxy and is an orthodox priest today in California . Others like Bob Mumford and Ern
Baxter became involved in the discipleship/shepherding movement which placed an
overemphasis on the concept of covering and being in submission to authority.
These men were well intentioned, but it is my feeling that there is a degree of
arrogance and elitism that causes people to believe that somehow through
establishing ‘structure’ that they can safeguard the new Christians who where coming
to Christ at this time.
The whole phenomena of reverting back to
previous church communities is nothing new. You had the ‘oxford movement’ after
the reformation where many Anglican scholars became Catholics after studying
the church fathers and other early sources and felt that the earliest Christian
witness was Catholic. You had cardinal Newman later on also becoming catholic,
or a Frances Schaffer jr. leaving evangelicalism in order to become eastern
orthodox. In all these scenarios these are good men who are finding refuge in
‘structure’. While I consider all of these faiths to be Christian, I believe
the error of this type of thinking is we seem to believe if we add structure to
new believers this will keep them from going off track. The ‘structure’ of the
New Testament churches was nothing like this. Their safeguard was in keeping
Jesus pre-eminent in their lives and living together in Christian love and
brotherhood. When a Paul or other Christian leader saw them getting off track
[Galatians/Corinthians] the answer was not more structure, but simply refuting
the error and re-presenting Christ. It was ultimately being able to trust God
to finish the work that He started in them.
CHAPTER 7
EXAMPLES FROM PASTORS AND
BELIEVERS FROM AROUND THE WORLD.
I recently did a
study on the whole phenomena of the house church movement. Many of the stories
I encountered while doing research went along theses lines. You would find
various groups of believers who felt disenfranchised with their roles in modern
church systems; they felt like they were professional spectators. The whole
concept of church became to them a place where you go to hear lectures. The
only one who finds fulfillment in expressing themselves are the professional
clergy [and a few rebellious prophets who could muster up the nerve to stand up
and speak!] but the overall sense was these people were simply filling roles of
listening to preaching week after week without ever truly functioning. Many of
these people left their churches to form house/cell type churches. There were
also many traditional pastors who saw this same restricting style of
contemporary church and also left the whole concept of professional pastor and
simply became a bi-vocational leader in a voluntary based movement of believers.
Some of the
movements I studied were tremendous in their ability to rapidly spread
throughout regions without the drag of salaries, buildings and all the other
usual things associated with full time ministry. I find these movements to be
exciting and biblical. The whole idea of average believers advancing the kingdom of God without all the trappings of modern
religion is truly getting back to the heart of New Testament Christianity. Many of their stories shared a common theme
of being seen as rebellious or not willing to submit to authority because of
their willingness to break out of restricting mindsets in order to advance the
kingdom. Many of the pastors who also left traditional church roles found
freedom in not having to raise huge amounts of money for salaries and
buildings, they testified of a freedom that came with their not having to
sermonize on tithing and other money raising efforts. There was a real sense of
effectiveness in the reality of the ‘church’ being vibrant groups of believers
who can rapidly expand across a region without having to stop and build
structures and set in order clergy and all the other trappings associated with
modern day church. While I personally don’t advocate one form above another to
the degree that some house church enthusiasts do [it can be just as bad to
focus on the ‘house’ in house church as in the building in modern church] but I
do see in this movement a return to the simple reality of Christ moving and
expanding through his people [true church growth].
As you read the New Testament you never get
the feeling that Jesus or the apostles were going to areas to start some type
of meeting that they would get people to attend. They were being sent out to
spread the great message of Gods kingdom. All the sermons in the book of acts
focus on Jesus and his great work for us. After people in these various regions
came to the reality of Christ they were then considered to be the church. The
actual reality of Jesus living in them through his Spirit is the entity that God
recognizes as legitimate to carry out his works. There was no magical element
of organizing under a particular form that would then become the ‘church’. They
were church by virtue of the fact that Christ dwelt in their hearts by faith.
As these
communities spread throughout the earth they would have more mature leaders in
their midst who gave guidance and direction to the flock in a voluntary way,
but the concept of one professional minister who was hired to perform religious
functions for the community was absent from these New Testament ecclesias. The
whole mindset of ‘church-planting’ was simply the natural outgrowth of people
coming to know Christ. There wasn’t a separate calling to start churches apart
from the great commission to go and tell all people about this great gospel of
Christ. Apostles had a special gifting to help build these communities, but in
no way is this separate from the calling to preach the gospel. It is simply the
proclaiming of Christ to communities of people that holds the power of ‘church
planting’. And the thing that we’re planting is Christ in the hearts of people.
I think if we can get back to seeing things on these terms there will be less
of a pressure to go and make something happen, and more of a balance on Christ
in us, the hope of glory!
CHAPTER 8
ARE CHURCH BUILDINGS EVIL? [OR
THE GUY WHO WANTED TO CAST DEMONS OUT OF ME!]
Many years ago
before I really understood the truths of ecclesia and the communal aspect of
the church, I was introduced to the belief that the ‘church building’ itself
was wrong. I don’t personally adhere to this belief, but let me share the
story. While ministering as a new believer in Christ and learning ‘the ropes’
of ministry, I remember driving past a brother who was a street minister from Mexico . It was
unusual in the way he was conducting his street meetings. He would get
permission to use an empty lot and then set up actual church pews in the lot
without walls or any type of cover over it [even if it rained!]. Well one day
on my daily rounds of visiting people and witnessing for Jesus [because this is
what ministers are supposed to do, right?] I stopped by this brother’s lot and
figured I would bless him with some lunch and listen to him preach [I felt
sorry for the brother because no one else was attending his meetings]. After he
spoke I had a chance to fellowship with him. After hearing his thoughts I
realized it was on purpose for him to have no walls or cover over the pews
[these were actual church pews that were out there in the open!].
He shared with me the verse in Hebrews [13:10 ] where it says that those who
worship at the sanctuary have no right to partake of the altar of Christ [the
cross]. He saw this as meaning that all Christians who meet in buildings [the
sanctuary] were lost! Well, even as a young believer in the lord I was smart
enough to know that this verse had nothing to do with ‘church buildings’. I
showed the brother that in context the verse simply meant that those Jews
[remember who the book of Hebrews was written to] who were not willing to leave
the old covenant system [the sanctuary] could not move on with the new covenant
truth of Christ and his cross. The sanctuary represented the whole concept of
law and Judaism. This verse had nothing to do about the inherent nature of
church buildings! Buildings themselves are neutral ground; it’s the style of
one person functioning [the pastor] at the expense of the rest of the body that
I see as less than ideal.
Well after seeing the obvious error of the way
this brother was reading this verse, I began to ‘expound unto him the way of
God more perfectly’. When he finally understood what I was saying [you could
tell by the look in his eyes that he saw the truth] instead of repenting of his
distorted view, he became irate and began to cast demons out of me [hey, I
didn’t think there were any in me!]. The reason I share this example is because
there are those in the house church movement, while not as extreme, seem to
view the church building itself as an evil thing.
My personal view is the church building can
become a hindrance when we view it as part of a system that makes up ‘church’.
We seem to see the whole concept of the church building and the pastor as the
weekly speaker and all the other things associated around this structure [like
tithing to the storehouse] as ‘the system’ that God instituted to carry out his
work in the earth. Remember Gods inherent authority resides in no human system
or mode of religious worship. His authority resides in the church, the actual
people of God in any given community on earth. So if there are believers
carrying out Gods purpose, whether they have the whole system that we deem
‘local church’ or not, is irrelevant. Remember what we said about Jesus and the
1st century religious mind? They were finding fault with Jesus and
his disciples because they were not following the religious protocol of the
day. When we embrace certain mindsets that see ‘local church’ as the limited
system of Sunday worship and all the other usual things associated with it,
what we’re unconsciously doing is vesting authority in a style, or form of
religious worship while by-passing the true legitimacy of Gods people. Its not
to say that Gods people who function in the whole system of Sunday church are
illegitimate [that would be making the same mistake as the brother who wanted
to cast the demons out of me!] but this shows us how we unconsciously make the
same mistake as the 1st century Pharisee by seeing as illegitimate
those who don’t follow certain protocols.
It was a common thing during the 90’s to speak
about the ‘changing of the wineskin’ in order to receive the new wine [the new
move of God]. Many of theses thoughts were helpful in causing us to re-think
the way we ‘do’ church. I also remember a common theme being ‘God wants to pour
out his Spirit, but the wineskins are not ready’ in some of these examples the
ministers actually meant that we don’t have big enough buildings to put all
these new converts so God is ‘withholding the new wine until the new buildings
go up’. At this point you should begin seeing how once again this is confusing
the reality of Christian community with ‘the church building’. I find it
interesting that the pouring out of the Spirit at Pentecost was not delayed
because of the lack of facilities to put all the new converts in.
Also the great missionary journeys of Paul
were not delayed ‘until the new wineskins were in place’. This shows us how
we’ve come to view the people of God as being dependent on the present system.
Could it be that God withholds His Spirit because the ‘new wineskin’ could
refer more to believers seeing themselves as the actual church that God wants
to fill? If we are not rightly discerning Christ’s community as a
self-sustaining society of people then the church really isn’t able to contain
the new wine. If we are so limited in our thinking to view the new wineskin as
larger facilities, as opposed to a rethinking of what it means to truly be
Christ’s body, then maybe the holdup has more to do with a change in the way we
view ‘church’ then it has to do with bigger church buildings!
CHAPTER 9
WHAT IN THE WORLD IS ‘THE LOCAL CHURCH ’?
Growing up as a
catholic boy [though not a good one] I remember when I came to know the lord I
started reading through the bible and found how the bible contradicted many of
the religious beliefs I held to as a boy [this is not to say Catholics are not
Christian]. Later while attending a good Baptist church I naively believed that
good Baptists must have it right because they do read the bible! Well now I see
that none of us have everything right [including me!] but some of us are closer
to truth than others.
One of the traditions I saw with my Baptist
friends was their whole concept of ‘local church’. They seemed to see it as the
actual process of ‘going to church on Sunday’ and all the things associated
with that particular form of worship. Many of them found fault with the
Catholic Church and her traditions, but could not see how their own limited
view of ‘local church’ was just as religious as some of the Catholic teachings
that they so often criticized. Till this day I still cant see how so many of my
brothers in Christ view a particular form of modern church service as ‘the
local church’. Some brothers view it to a degree where they really do harm to
the rest of the body of Christ.
When any system
of church or worship is embraced to the degree of seeing others who don’t
embrace it as lost or in rebellion, then we unconsciously are saying that all
others are illegitimate. While the practice of Sunday church and the other
expressions of it are o.k. with me [to a degree], I still couldn’t see how
bible believing Christians could view this form as ‘the’ legitimate form of
church that Jesus established 2000 years ago. The ‘church’ in the New Testament
are all the communities of believers in any area where they reside. She is not
some limited form of worship or specific social group that someone joins. How
arrogant would it be for me to teach that the meetings or expressions of my own
ministry were ‘the’ local church, and then tell people if they do not put 10%
of their money into this expression that they would be under a curse! This
really is wrong at the heart of it. Its o.k. for Christians to associate in
this Sunday church way, but its not o.k. to view this form as ‘the local
church’ to the exclusion of all the other varied forms of ‘church’ that exist
in a living organism [the real ecclesia].
I recall reading
an article from one of the leaders of ‘youth with a mission’ [ywam] this is a
great organization. This leader is seeing many of the truths I’m expressing in
this book. He went on to explain how in the early years of ywam that they would
lead many college students to Christ, and these students would naturally form
on campus Christian associations/bible groups that would flourish naturally as
any living organism should. But they would then tell their students that in
order to not be in rebellion they needed to be ‘part of a local church’ [not
realizing that they already were ‘part of the local church’ by virtue of the
fact that Christ was dwelling in them and having expression through them as
they met together]. Well the brother explained how they would then send them
into ‘the local churches’ [which really meant lecture hall/church building environments
in order to hear sermons]. And how these young groups of students would
stagnate by being told to be under this type of authority. So what they viewed
as being in submission to authority and being ‘under a local church covering’
was really a violation of the true expression of church that already existed in
the on campus meetings. The brother also shared how they felt constrained to
send the students to ‘the churches’ in order to appease the egos of the men who
led the churches. This little example shows us how the mindset of viewing one
form of religious expression as ‘the local church’ can actually hinder ‘the
local church!’
One night I
attended a fellowship group where a bunch of Christians ‘unofficially’ met
together to eat and share and just have a good time [much like the early
atmosphere of the Lords supper/love feast]. During this time of fellowship
everyone just shared, sang and enjoyed themselves in a very relaxed atmosphere.
The place we were at is a beautiful environment out in the country that is
dedicated to the body of Christ. This place is not considered ‘a local church’,
though every aspect of our meeting fit the criteria of ‘local church’ to the
tee. On our way back to Corpus Christi
the friend I was with had recently read some of our books and sincerely asked
me about my views on the ‘local church’. This brother is a mature older prophet
in the Corpus Christi
area with a proven track record of faithfulness to the Lord.
He couldn’t understand why I saw very little
distinction between the ‘local church’ and para-church ministries. Well as we
were driving back into town it was late in the evening and all the lights of
C.C. could be seen, it was a great view of the city. I explained to my friend
how what we just experienced at the ‘para-church’ ministry was a real
expression of ecclesia and Christian unity. Two or more were gathered together
and Christ was present. As we drove back into town I explained that today [it
was Sunday] many various groups of believers met in many different locations
and that this was also an expression of the Body of Christ. And as we looked
over the city I told him that my understanding of all the various ‘churches’
that met together in all the different locations were in Gods eyes one church.
That the New Testament doesn’t show them to be 100 different separate entities
that we call ‘local church’, but that all the believers who gathered in this
day were ‘local church’ [ecclesia] even the ones who met at the Christian camp
[actually the style of meeting at the camp was more in keeping with the 1st
century model].
God sees his church as one entity, not as many
different entities all with their own separate identities. There are many
church buildings going up in our city [nothing wrong about this], while driving
to work not to long ago I noticed how one of the churches is building within a
few hundred feet of another church. They are both good churches, but God simply
doesn’t see these brothers as separate entities. It would be like the kids
living in your home, they might be in different rooms right next to each other,
but they don’t ‘operate’ as unique entities apart from the other siblings [at
least I hope not!].
I was
fellowshipping with a friend and sharing with him some of the thoughts in this
book. During our discussion he was struggling with the concept of ‘the church’
being a free society of Christ followers [a brotherhood] as opposed to the
normal way we see church today [the whole concept of Sunday church as the
‘church’ we go to]. While trying to explain myself [or should I say ‘defend’] I
noticed that there was a picture of the last supper on the wall. I then used it
as an illustration of ‘local church’. I showed him how this ‘supper’ was one
aspect of Jesus sharing of his life with the disciples. Jesus lived and walked
daily with his disciples for three years and is now going to leave them for
their benefit [even though they don’t see it yet!].
During this final meal he rightfully is the
center of their attention. He has already taught them the principle of calling
no man on earth ‘father’ or ‘master’ or ‘rabbi’, because they are all brothers
and their master/rabbi is Christ himself. So the atmosphere of them all being
equal at this supper with him being the focal point is an intentional lesson for
them. He then does the unthinkable, he gets up from the table and puts on a
servants garb [towel] and begins to wash their feet! He tells them he is giving
them an example of what it will mean to be a leader in the church. He shatters
the gentile idea of leadership [being at the top] and once again shows them
that the last will be first is a real mindset that is to be lived out in
Christian community. True ‘local church’ is the common sharing of the life of
Christ [the Eucharist is a picture of this] in Christian community where we all
are equals [this means all, do you see how there was purposely no man or office
that was predominant here, apart from Christ] and where leadership is
identified by a servant’s heart!
CHAPTER 10
THE SPIRIT OF COMPETITION IN
THE MODERN CHURCH
Over
the years while working with brothers who were addicts or ex-cons we would
spend a lot of time just fellowshipping and spending time together as friends.
Jesus was actually accused of being a friend of sinners. This accusation seemed
to imply that it was all right to view people as a thing to be ministered to,
but to actually befriend sinners was a violation of the religious world of
separation between sinner and saint. The religious mind views people as a
resource pool to accomplish ministry goals. People are viewed as being
expendable. I have often seen the example used where if people are in the way
of accomplishing religious goals then you must avoid them. While the principle
of not allowing critics to stop us from accomplishing God given goals is
important, yet we must put in perspective that the actual city/building that
God desires to build is the community of people herself. Many times while
working with these friends of mine we would run into or have experiences where
other pastors would interact with them in efforts to ‘get them into their
church’. Some would visit one church or another and then later tell me how the
one pastor would be offended that they went to the other ‘church’. They seemed
to be able to see right through the church games that these men were playing.
The goal of these well meaning
pastors was to get people to go ‘to their church’ which in many of these
scenarios simply meant attending a building to listen to someone preach. If the
many ‘churches’ are simply competitive lecture halls from which men find
personal fulfillment by having people come and listen, then in these scenarios
the struggle or guilt that we put on people to make them come is an actual
violation of the true church, which after all is made up of all these various
believers in our communities. I am not saying that in all of these types of
situations that there are never legitimate expressions of church, but the
actual spirit of this type of thing goes on a lot in the average city. The people
can fall into mindsets of where their simply being viewed as tools to
accomplish religious goals. In the New Testament the mindset of ministry and
‘church planting’ had nothing close to this sort of attitude. The New Testament
Churches were simply communities of people who gathered around the reality of
Jesus. In these communities church was a daily way of life, it was not focused
around meetings at all.
This is why I take issue with the
strong house church emphasis that actually sees a pattern of ‘house church’ as
the only legitimate expression of church. This is the same mistake as the
building centered approach. They are both focusing on the wrong thing, where
the people meet. The focus in the New Testament is not on where or even how
they meet, but the emphasis is on the reality of all the believers in any given
location as being the corporate expression of Christ in all types of
situations. The fact that Christ lives in all of us is the great mystery. It’s
really insignificant in my thinking on exactly how we meet. Now I know that
some styles are better than others. For instance a meeting where all the
believers function by sharing and caring for one another is much more edifying,
but the daily reality of Christ manifesting through us as we interact in
community is the true church. This obviously includes our meetings, but like I
said earlier the New Testament thrust was preaching the gospel to people. It
wasn’t on setting up meetings at all. The meetings were a simple outgrowth of
true church life. When we loose the reality of this we digress into this
competitive approach that causes pastors to compete with one another in a
childish way. Paul told the Corinthians that their sectarian attitude to gather
around the personas of men was a sign of their immaturity.
I can’t believe how immature we are in our
thinking. I was having a discussion with a mature leader in the church and when
I shared some of these truths he actually said ‘my pastor knows how to spot
wolves who try to come in and harm us’ [or something to that effect] the
feeling I got was he was feeling threatened. Now this was a mature believer in
his 50s[I’m 43 as I write this book]. The reason I say this is because it
seemed so unnatural for a mature saint to even use the term ‘my pastor’. In the
body of Christ there are many different gifts, some are apostles others
prophets, some evangelists, but out of all these gifted ones it would be highly
unscriptural to refer to any of these in this way. Just try it, do you feel
comfortable saying ‘my prophet’ or ‘my apostle’ then why do we think ‘my
pastor’ is not indicative of our immature thinking. I am not advocating the
doing away of this term [pastor] but this language should cause us to rethink
our immature ways of seeing church. Church is not an endless series of
religious meetings whereby people ‘attend’ in order to listen to bible words
being spoken. The practical instruction and teaching that are operating in any
healthy group of people will allow there to be room for the functioning of all
the people in the group. This codependence that we’ve developed with the
emphasis on one persons persona is in direct violation of the function and flow
of New Testament thought.
The phenomena of
one person being the primary voice and expression in the group [ecclesia] are
an immature result of not rightly discerning Christ’s body. When people are
together at social functions there is usually at least one person who has had a
few drinks. You can identify that person by the way he acts. He wants to dominate
the conversation, if you try and talk back he’ll cut you off because he derives
enjoyment when the conversation centers around himself. He actually feels good
about being the predominant voice in the group, to the exclusion of every other
voice! I don’t know if we realize it or not, but in many modern church
scenarios this is what the world sees. They frankly don’t want to ‘go to
church’ because it has become an environment where one person is doing all the
talking, and a lot of times it’s about him! People are tired of this. Our
conversation [more than one person speaking] should revolve around the person
of Christ as opposed to the persona of any one person.
Grasping the
biblical truth of leaders choosing between effective ministry or ministry for
the honor of men is a hard pill to swallow if you are involved with the ‘honor
of men’ mode at the present time [if you are now reading this and it describes
you!]. What I want us all to see is that it takes true courage to walk in truth
in every generation of believers from the 1st. century until today. There were
many well-meaning Christians during the time of the reformation who were
serving God as priests in the Catholic church. Many felt it to be a disruption
to go on in the new truths of the reformation [justification by faith] and
simply remained faithful to God in the majority position of their day. These
priests were still Christians [for the most part] and many of them sincerely
followed Christ to the best of their ability without embracing the new truths
that God was bringing forth in their day. I mention this because there are many
well-meaning brothers in Christ who see the things in this book as truth, but
choose to stay in the majority system of contemporary church and will continue
to be used by God to a degree. The real question for us is do we want to be a
part of ‘modern reformation’ or just be faithful to the system [after all our
brothers have been doing it this way for years!].
CHAPTER 11
GOD’S PEOPLE ARE NOT SIMPLY
ASSETS TO AN ORGANIZATION!
Getting back to the story of the
children of Israel
in the book of exodus. If you remember the story God took his society of
people, who were many [big numbers] and he brought them through stages to lead
them into a place where they would become a self-sustaining entity on their own
[with God as their king!]. They were living in Egypt and being ruled over by
taskmasters. The bondage they were under was an expectation to produce a
certain amount of building materials in order for the cities of man to be built.
The cities represented the images and personas of men. In the process of God
delivering them from this bondage of image building he raises up Moses [a type
of Christ]. Moses God given prophetic authority begins to confront mans
authority [pharaoh] and begins a process of freeing the people from this
mindset of being ruled over in order to produce things so the images of men
would be glorified [ouch!].
As Moses confronts mans authority, he at the
same time leads the people on a journey. The journey is exciting and life
changing, but it also has many risks and pitfalls. The children of Israel ’s
response determined how long this journey would take. The more they complained
about this new walk and all of the difficulties involved with it, the longer it
would take before they could enter a place of rest and true self rule [under
God]. During this season of testing and trial in the wilderness they actually
longed to go back into a system of being ruled over because the old system
provided a sense of stability and structure that they were comfortable with,
despite the fact that they were slaves in it! In process of time they [their
children] eventually do enter into the promised land of self-rule.
They obtain their own national
identity [the nation of Israel ]
apart from simply existing under another’s identity [Egypt ] and God begins leading them
with the assistance of prophets and judges and elders [a type of plural
leadership flowing freely in society]. During process of time they reach a
stage where they see how all the other nations are ruled [watch out!] and
decide that they too want a king [man] to rule over them. Wow, after all that
God brought them through to deliver them from mans control you would think they
wouldn’t have done this! Well God actually says that by doing this they are
rejecting his leadership for the leadership of men. He even warns them that
this type of ‘mans rule’ will take of their best men and use them for the
self-advancement of his dynasty. God says this king will even demand the tithes
of the people in order to fund his kingdom [wow]. I guess when God says that
the things that happened to Israel
were for a sign for us so we don’t make the same mistakes; he really means it
[1st cor.10]!
Many times in our present
understanding of church we view people as assets to our ‘organization.’ ‘Wow if I could just get that talented person
as a staff member in our church’. This way of viewing people as things that can
help our organizations grow is the ‘Saul’ mindset ‘he will take of your best
men’ mentality. People have intrinsic value, they are valuable in Gods eyes
because of the simple fact that Christ died for them and has purchased them
with his blood. People are not objects or tools to be looked upon as assets to
an organization. If you were to adopt a child [a very noble task] hopefully you
would do it because you loved the child and wanted to be with them. If this
child later found out that you did this in order to gain some type of benefit
[like a tax deduction or something of this nature] your child would be
devastated. So when we view Gods children [the true church] as objects that
will help advance our ‘churches’ [organizations] we devalue them.
I am not saying
here that all present models of leadership in the church are ‘mans rule’, but a
large degree of it is. There is so much image building that goes on in the
church that it’s not even funny. Much of the collecting of tithes is simply a
process where one leader is in competition with the other in order to ‘out
build’ him, and a lot of times the people begin to simply be weekly attendees
of our meetings who we deliver messages to and then hope to bring in a huge
offering so the image of ‘our church’ can gain a degree of respect in the
community. Like I said before, there is nothing inherently wrong with ‘big
churches’ or ministries, but we must be careful that as we build we are not
doing it at the expense of Gods true heritage [the people of God!].
If we can grasp
the concept of Gods people actually being the vehicle that God uses to express
His image and purpose in the earth, then we will stop viewing them as being
simply a resource pool to accomplish ministry goals. My own prayer time has
evolved as I began to see these truths. I used to spend a lot of time praying
for the success of ‘my ministry’ but as I’ve come to see these truths I focused
my prayer time more on the actual purposes of God to be made manifest through
all the people we relate to. I began praying for God to accomplish and activate
his purposes directly through his people. I began viewing ministry as not so
much ‘something I am building for God’ but as the expression of his Son being
developed and manifested through the people I relate to. If the people you
influence over your life are truly impacted by the person of Christ, then in
essence you have had a successful ministry. Many of these approaches to
ministry will obviously not have the same amount of outward ministry things to
look to [like buildings] therefore the concept of not building for the honor of
men must be fully grasped by those who take on this style of ministry. This way
of seeing and doing ministry also allows you to be free from having to raise
large amounts of money in order to accomplish ministry goals. God truly can and
will use any believer to expand his kingdom in the earth as you begin to see
ministry this way.
Jesus simple way
of sending the disciples out and telling them not to worry about purse or scrip
[money. I like the way the message bible puts it ‘don’t think you need a lot of
extra equipment for this, you are the equipment. No special appeals for funds,
keep it simple’ Mark 6] shows us the simplicity of all believers being able to
carry out ministry by virtue of the fact that Christ is in us. This is what I
tried to stress earlier, that as you begin to view ministry as a simple
function of Christ revealing and manifesting himself through his people, then
this is something we all can do all the time. No big process of raising money
[no special appeals for funds] but simply being a Christian in society and
interacting with God and fellow believers in all types of situations makes the
presence of Christ manifest [where 2 or more are gathered there am I in the
midst]. It is common today to view ministry as a function of professionals and
the need for them to raise money for projects causes there to exist in the
Christian community a mindset where good Christians are always appealing for
funds in order to accomplish some project. This actually projects the image
that ministry is some type of a separate function apart from us. This really
violates the whole concept of ministry being a natural outgrowth of believers
being in right relationship with God [John 15].
CHAPTER 12
WHAT MODEL OF CHURCH
GOVERNMENT DO I ESPOUSE?
Over the years
when dealing with these types of issues I have found it difficult to break
through the ‘normal’ way and pattern of thinking that most Christians have. For
instance some times people will ask me the question ‘what type of church
government do you believe in’? Most Times in their minds they’re really asking
me ‘what type of order, or pattern of Sunday church do you espouse’. While I
also understand that they are including the concept of government that applies
to the broader association of the various denominations, to me they are still
‘seeing’ church government as a particular order imposed by the ‘separate
entity’ of their denomination. Let me try to make this a little clearer
[hopefully].
If I were to
explain to someone the reality of natural human life, I would go through the
process of showing how life starts between a healthy relationship of 2 people
coming together by Gods design [I hope I don’t have to get to detailed here!].
As children are born they will go through various stages of development and life.
They will encounter many different situations as they proceed along this thing
called life. One of the many things that most children will have [though sad to
say, not all] is a home environment. This home environment is just one of the
many things that make up their lives. In this home/house they will at different
times and in different settings be taught all types of things, both by example
and through actual instruction [I thought I told you to clean up your room! 2
days ago!].
In this home environment you might have a
special day where you all come together in the family room for devotional time
[this day varies with my younger girls but I try to do this on a weekly basis].
While this devotional time is important, it is only one small aspect of their
entire lives. If you were to refer to this one day of teaching as ‘the life/the
church’ I would correct your thinking and say this small area of Christian
activity, though important, is only one aspect of their lives. Life itself is
the actual organic reality of them being human beings who were birthed and grew
up as real human beings. The sum total of all their experiences have shaped
them, but they themselves, by virtue of the fact that they were born and
actually [really] exist as human beings, is life. Life does not describe the
home/house environment only. Or just one specific way in which we do our
devotion time. It consists of the fact that they are truly alive!
So getting back to the question
of ‘what type of church govt. do I believe in’ I often answer ‘none’, to the
surprise of the person asking the question. I then go on to explain that I view
‘church’ as the actual living/organic entity of Gods people. God’s people are
Gods people by virtue of the fact that they were born into his family; they are
children of God, really! They are ‘church’ because of this fact. They will
experience many good [and sometimes bad] things along the way. Most of them
will find a ‘home/house’ environment to go to in order to associate with other
believers [what we often describe as church] during these times of fellowship
there will be certain days in which instruction is given [normally Sunday]. And
they will experience many other types of situations throughout their Christian
experience. So when someone asks me what type of church govt. do I believe in,
I usually see the question to mean ‘what type, or style of Sunday church
meeting do you espouse’. I try to make an effort to explain that I believe in
the ‘actual church govt.’ that is I believe that all the people of God, all the
time make up the church everywhere they are [remember Jesus answer to the
Samaritan woman].
As God is daily communicating and interacting
with his people by his Spirit this is an actual real existence that we share
both with our creator and all of our brothers and sisters in Christ. This type
of ‘church govt.’ is what I espouse. The ‘ordaining’ of elders in the New
Testament was simply the recognition of more mature/grounded spiritual leaders
who the early Christian communities could look to for guidance and direction
[or correction] as they experience and live out ‘church life’. We have such a
legalistic mind that as Christians we have changed church govt. to describe a
certain form, or way of doing religious meeting while it originally referred to
God ‘governing’ His people through the ‘govt.’ of Jesus being at the right hand
of glory!
CHAPTER 13
THE CAT CHAPTER [I DID THIS
FOR MY KIDS!]
Whenever I have this type of discussion I
usually receive different responses from well meaning Christians in defense of
the old way of seeing church. Some feel it is total rebellion to even dare
question the system [my pastor knows how to spot wolves mentality, which
usually means me!] sometimes people try to devalue this message by saying ‘oh,
that brothers one of those theologian types’ which I assure you I’m not! [never
been to bible school, never been ordained [by men]]. Some feel that this way of
seeing ‘church’ is impractical. I believe that seeing all of Gods people as the
actual entity in earth that God has ordained to advance his kingdom is the most
practical thing you can do. I personally have been active and involved as a
believer in all sorts of practical charitable outreach. I do this by virtue of
the fact that I’ve been ordained by God to go into all the world and make
disciples. Whether you realize it or not, so are you!
All the ‘ministry’ stuff I do is not some
higher calling that I have in which others need to recognize and support in
order for them to get some type of reward simply because they support me [by
the way we do not accept financial support]. This mindset creates a false
barrier that causes Christians to see ministry as something separate from
themselves, that somehow relieves them from their own personal responsibility
to spread the kingdom. We sort of give the attitude that if the ‘average
Christian’ simply supports the pro’s that he’s fulfilled his obligation. I
often tell people that I am no different than them. God requires all believers
to reach out and touch society around them in real practical ways.
No one is to simply be a book writer, or radio
speaker or any other ‘thing’ we see as ministry. But we are all responsible to
reach out in real practical ways, touching the lost world around us. Our real
message as Christians is that God so loved the world that He gave His only Son.
The message that the world needs to hear from us is that God is not mad at
them, or trying to make them conform to some church standard. But God has
already embraced and accepted them through Jesus Christ. Our message is one of
total reconciliation and forgiveness. We all bare a responsibility to give our
lives away for the sake of others. This whole book is to emphasize the reality
and responsibility we all share in the great commission. The great truth of God
‘legitimizing’ all of us bares with it a great responsibility to touch the
world. Jesus said to whom much is given much will be required.
This book
hopefully opened your eyes to some degree to how much has been given to you.
Much is now required. All the ‘ministry’ things that I personally do, working
with homeless people, ex-cons [or present ones!], doing radio, personal
outreach/evangelism, all of these areas are a natural function of trying to
hear God and respond. I’m not saying I do everything right, I’m sure I don’t
[really sure!] but I try to view ministry as simply hearing and doing the works
of Jesus. If the verse in Mark says to
‘make no special appeals for funds, travel light because you are the
equipment’ then my first reaction to God calling me to do something in ministry
is to simply act. This is a forgotten doctrine of the old traditional church; I
think they used to call it ‘obedience’. So my response to God should be ‘Lets
go’.
Now I realize practically there are many contemporary
building based churches that are hearing and responding to God, and that many
of these pastors are obviously not going to personally fund everything they do.
But I’m trying to show how we often respond to God’s call on us by perceiving
that ‘God wants me to start a ministry’, once again falling into the trap of
seeing ministry as some type of entity [usually a 501c3] that God wants us to
start. God isn’t telling the ‘entity’ to do it, He’s telling you! [Or me] do
you see this? So all the ministry stuff I do is without a board, no 501c3, and
no separate entity at all. Just do it! [I should make a note here, in the early
days I did incorporate and had a name, Corpus
Christi outreach ministries, but this now is simply
the name of our radio program. It’s more humble to leave it like this then to
tell everyone ‘you’re listening today to John Chiarello’]. Now the principle of
team work is important, after all this book is about the Church, Gods corporate
people, but what I want you to see is you are free to do kingdom works without
starting some ‘thing’.
I have also
sensed at times that when I share this simple approach I take concerning
ministry, that it will offend others who have gone the more traditional route.
Sort of like a feeling of ‘how dare you think that you can just do these things
on your own, who is your covering!’. This attitude is what I was trying to
express earlier when I shared how the mindset of the 1st century
Pharisee was offended at both Jesus and his disciples simply doing kingdom
works because they were sent by God. There seems to be a lack of understanding
of the true nature of our sonship in Christ. While God doesn’t want Christians
to be rebellious or out of order, we often use this type of language in order
to challenge true believers who are walking in the will of God.
If you think
about it all of the commands in the New Testament are given to believers in
order for us to actively participate in kingdom works. Jesus says when he
returns that all nations will be judged on whether they fed him when he was
hungry, or visited him when he was in prison [actual things that Christians
should do]. He gives instructions on when we invite people for a meal to invite
the down and out because they cant repay us [no political lobbying here!] but
how many times have we actually done these things? We seem to read the new
testament and confer the responsibility of these things on ‘the church’ as in
if she were some type of separate institution that if we just give money to
that we will be relieved of our responsibility to act!
Jesus rebuked the Pharisees for this type of
thinking. Jesus also taught that there would be people who at the judgment
would be rejected because they never knew him, these people primarily focused
on ministry as being ‘performance’ [have we not prophesied in your name type
mentality]. This shows us that true ministry are the works done as a response
of the compassion of Christ being expressed through us. Ministry is primarily
not a function of religious performance. In American Christianity we often view
ministry as a time were someone will be performing in an audience type
atmosphere. Either a great sermon or fantastic singer, while there are times
where these types of gifts edify, we often view ministry in these ways not
realizing that for the most part this is simply ‘performance’. [I don’t want to
sound mean here, but I really don’t know how else I could say this!]
A few weeks ago
I took a trip to the New York City
area, before I left I gave specific instructions to my kids to not bring home
any more cats! I told them that they all ready had enough pets and I didn’t
want them to have any more. My daughters have been involved with a lot of pet
rescues where they find strays and get them fixed and get all their shots and
find them homes. The only problem is some times the home they find is mine! To
be honest they have done pretty well. I also now have two dogs living with us
[it’s a long story]. So when I arrived back from my trip I was greeted by the
whole family and I noticed there was a strange looking kitten, I wasn’t really
sure if it was new or one that I just didn’t remember. Well as the puppy is
playing with the kitten my daughter says ‘oh, daddy did you see the new kitten,
she belongs to the puppy’ in essence they were telling me that they really
didn’t get any new pets, but that one of the pets got a new pet! This is what
you would call living up to the letter of the law while violating the spirit of
the law. This is what we do in our understanding of church and ministry. The
whole intent is to build and edify people. They are the valuable object to God.
In our efforts to ‘build ministry’ we often devalue them [most of the times
unconsciously]. As we re-examine our ideas and concepts of church it is my goal
to lead us to a place where people are valued again, even if it’s at the
expense of the institution!
Let me end this
chapter with one more ‘cat’ story. One day one of our cats was killed by a car.
My kids were upset so I violated the rule of not bringing any more cats home
and went to the local shelter and adopted this real cute kitten. Well being I
was the first voice that this kitten would hear [from my family] she became
closer to me than normal. After a few more bad experiences with cats getting
out my kids took 3 new stray kittens [recently rescued] and put them all in
their room for months. The litter box, food and everything they needed was in
this little isolated closed environment [watch out], well they stuck my little
kitten in there too!
After a few months
I told my kids that this isn’t right. I haven’t seen my kitten for so long, she
used to play with me and really liked me a lot, being I was the first voice
she’d grown accustomed to. Well my kids warned me that she isn’t like that
anymore, she’s been with the little scared strays in the room for so long that
she’s picked up the scared attitude and is afraid of people. Well I couldn’t
believe that she would have forgotten my voice, I know its been a long time
since she’s heard it, but after all I am her ‘daddy’ and she was a special
kitten to me. Well I finally broke this little secluded environment that they
were living in and went into the room. Sure enough all the cats were scared of
this type of forced intimacy. I was just to close! They all had this scared
look and ran under the bed. I couldn’t believe that even my little kitten was
so affected by the natural fear that these strays had, that she too thought it
necessary to hide from the face of her father.
Well after a few
seconds my little cat came running out from under the bed and into my arms, as
if to say ‘yes I remember you, your that first person that rescued me that day
a long time ago, Its been so long since I saw you that I had forgotten your
voice. I have been living with these unwanted strays for so long that I was
afraid to approach you anymore’ well I think this is what happens to Gods kids
sometimes. They start out at ‘the day of rescue [salvation]’ with the joy of
hearing His voice, but after living our lives out in unnatural environments
[closed rooms] for so long we forget what it was like to truly hear his voice
and to commune with him. Often times there needs to be an intrusion into our
closed environments before we can recognize the voice of our father once again.
[NOTE; when I told my girls I was going to put a story about our cats in the
book, they said ‘wow, our cats are going to be famous’ we just cant seem to get
away from this desire to legacy build!]
CONCLUSION
Leadership is primarily the function of
helping people ‘get out of their rooms’. It is the process of leading people
away from feeling content and satisfied in our little rooms of fellowship and
doctrine, which cause us to feel superior to our brothers and sisters in
Christ. The end result of this little book shouldn’t be ‘now that I see these
things I have found a ‘new’ room to dwell in [the room of the doctrine of
ecclesiology/house church] but the result should be seeing ourselves as free in
Christ and being built up as co-equal members of Christ’s body, Paul said
knowledge puffeth up but charity buildeth up [edifieth]. As we all come out of
our peculiar rooms of various doctrines [some of which are true!] we don’t
advocate the belief that doctrine is not important but want to bring people to
a place where we find our identity in the person of Christ as opposed to the
doctrines of men.
I would like to end this little booklet in an
unconventional way. I want to simply share some thoughts from my own personal
mission statement. Also I want to speak directly to all of our friends who
either listen to us on radio or who I relate to in some way in the kingdom.
Over the years of sharing these truths I would often have people who have heard
us or read one of our books and after seeing certain truths would express their
concern about their church, or so and so’s church. I without fail have always
defended the church or pastor. The reason is I feel that the truths in these
books are not to be used to personally come against a particular church or
pastor. I do believe we all need to examine our motives and readjust our
thinking when it comes to why we do the things we do ‘for God’. Its possible to
be involved in church building and without realizing it, to be building
monuments that will burn up in the day of judgment. All true church building
consists of unselfishly depositing into other people for their growth and
benefit. Ministry is not a ‘career choice’ as if someone were choosing between
auto mechanic/fire-fighter/pastor. Ministry is a gift that God deposits in all
his people for the mutual edification of the whole body. What we fail to see in
many present forms of church is how we are simply empowering a few individuals
at the expense of the people in the pews.
I have seen many well-meaning men go into
ministry and immediately feel a sense of fulfillment because they are flowing
and speaking and giving out of themselves to others. The writing of this book
as well as the radio programs I do give a sense of fulfillment in that we are
all created to give ourselves away. But in many current situations the main
speaker is finding fulfillment at the expense of the rest of the body. God
designed the church to be a place where all of Gods people would find
fulfillment in giving themselves away. The unnatural act of submission that we
often teach is not true biblical submission. We often tell people if they are
not satisfied with their passive role as listeners that they are in rebellion.
While in reality true rebellion is not developing into the mature functioning
person that God wants all of us to be. My purpose is not to give Christians
excuses to ‘not go to church’.
The mindset of
‘I can worship God on the golf course’ mentality. But to cause us to radically
rethink what we’re doing and why we’re doing it. The Pharisees of Jesus day
were involved in all types of religious activities, but Jesus said their main
motivation was to simply attain a certain status amongst their fellow peers. He
said that’s what they were in it for and that they already received their
reward [the honor of men]. Why do we want to build big ministries? Is it truly
for the glory of God or are we unconciously enjoying the natural success that
comes with the adventure of any big project? I’m not against big projects in
and of themselves, but we must examine our motives for doing the things we do. True New
Testament Church
planting is simply depositing Jesus image into the people we relate to over our
lifetime. What legacy did Paul leave behind? Was it some huge earthly
institution? We find him at the end of his life living in a rented house,
receiving visitors and declaring the kingdom
of God [Acts 28; 30-31]
he left behind a legacy of gentile communities who believed in Christ!
Here are some of
my own personal thoughts from my mission statement.
1 spend time making quality
friends, all ministry takes place in this type of atmosphere.
2 true leadership is relating
directly to groups of people in cities, not starting some type of organization.
3 the apostle Paul had
relationship with believers in different locals, but he didn’t own them.
4 don’t try to produce only one
type or way of church, but allow Gods natural process to work in various ways.
5 relating to areas/groups of
people regularly is building the body. Either a church building, home or any
regular place of contact can be the format for building the house of God.
6 planting churches in the New
Testament sense was not the concept of setting up regular meetings in which
Paul would preach to them week after week as a pastor, but planting churches was
an apostle going to a location and making believers of the gospel of grace, and
then trusting the Spirit in them to continue his work. Paul did speak of
recognizing and ordaining elders in these cities, but it wasn’t a weekly church
concept.
7 in the book of acts the focus
wasn’t on setting up meetings, but sharing Christ with groups of people and
relating to them as a family of children of whom you will always have
relationship with, but allow them to mature and grow up on their own and
eventually become independent.
8 the focus isn’t meetings but
ecclesia. That is the actual people you disciple. when Jesus sent them out 2 by
2 it wasn’t to start home groups, but to bring the kingdom to regions. Don’t
sacrifice the freedom of touching people directly. Jesus and those he sends
simply speak, do, share and communicate with people. His great commission to go
and make disciples and baptize. Direct authority to do kingdom without having
to start or set up a movement. The movement itself is ‘Jesus family’ [ecclesia].
You will meet with people, but the focus is the people not the act of meeting.
Learn to relate to people without having an agenda. Simply be free to love
people.
9 look at Jesus and the 12. Later
in acts, even Paul when going to a region, he holds meetings for a limited time
[though the longest was around 2 years] preaches Christ, has a give and take
with the community and then leaves. No ‘starting’ of anything, but a revolution
in the hearts and minds of people. Later when re-visiting these communities,
these are the ‘churches’ of the New Testament. We must see and operate in this
simple way. This simple way is New Testament church planting.
10 his yoke is easy and burden
light. Go into all the world and preach the gospel. Don’t loose the simplicity
of doing Gods will. He requires nothing more than to go and touch and share and
love. The people you touch are the ecclesia.
11 in these friendships the main
truth will be Jesus and his grace, these friends will be encouraged to continue
in Jesus and his grace. Prayer, bible study, fellowship and their journey with
God. Be available to baptize and communicate with them, but allow God to grow
the seed.
12 you never get the
sense/feeling from Jesus or Paul that they were going somewhere to recruit
people to their ministry. The sense was bringing this great message and kingdom
to people! The people continued in the apostles doctrine and fellowship with
each other and later Paul would come back to see how they were doing, not to
start some type of ministry, but true long term friendships in the kingdom.
13 the freedom isnt 'house
church’ or ‘temple worship’ but the kingdom being amongst us now! Obeying Jesus
command to love! This command is free from all forms and structures of
ministry, and allows us to daily love in action, always sharing in word and
deed Jesus. A willingness to baptize those who believe and share and love and
relate on a friendship basis. Jesus style.
I would like to
note here that at the present time [2000’s] there are many worldwide Christian
movements that are actually doing many of the things that I mentioned in this
book. There are many ‘ex-pastors’ who have left their former roles as the
central figure of the people they were pastoring and have continued to serve
the body of Christ in a bi-vocational way [not getting paid to pastor!]. While
I am not advocating this for every pastor who might read this book, I share
this to emphasize that these thoughts are presently being practiced on a large
scale worldwide [I do a lot of research!]. When people are confronted with new
truth there is a tendency to discredit the messenger, so I wanted you to see
that there are many thousands of believers who are walking this path right now.
There are also many brothers who have seen these things before I did and I
appreciate the role they played in helping me to see new truth. In many cases
the believers who have left there former churches to live in simple community
have been ostracized and looked upon as backslidden rebels. This has created in
some a resentment in those who are technically correct in their seeing the
church as the community, but many wont hear their voices because of the barrier
of resentment that they pick up from them. So you have some who remain in the
old way of seeing church and justify it by the fact that some who moved on have
a bad attitude. We are all responsible before God to respond to truth when
confronted with it, regardless of how much we resent the messenger! I
personally believe that after reading this little book that your level of
responsibility has gone up. You must ask God how He personally wants you to
respond to the truths presented to you.
A few weeks ago
I had a dream that I felt was prophetic, over the years I have had many
interesting dreams and visions. I have never shared any of them in book form,
but have spoken about them through our radio program. I dreamt that I was going
to a Christian university, when arriving at the university there were many
scholarly people dressed in suits and ties. There were many classes going on
and discussions taking place about theological subjects. As I continued on my
tour of the university there was a classroom where all the professors were
gathered in a circle examining something. As I got closer I saw in the middle
of these scholars there was what looked like an Indian warrior, he was crouched
and just sitting there as something to be examined. He was severely scarred,
not just normal scares but sort of a grotesque mutilation. He was there as
something to be examined [I thought of the verse in Isaiah where it says he was
marred more than any man, that he was wounded to beyond the point of
recognition]. Later when I woke up I felt part of this dream spoke to the
danger of us as Christians being able to learn and study truth, while never
fully embracing the mystery in Christ. We have a tendency to build people up
with all sorts of doctrines and never arriving at the point of fully grasping
Him. My goal is after reading this book that your focus will not be ‘now I am
going to go do the things in this book’, but that you would be able to see Him
to a greater degree. Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith.
Let me close
with this, the apostle Paul told the Corinthians that he was given authority by
God to build them up and not to tear them down. He actually regretted being so
hard on them in his 1st letter, but later said he was glad he made
them sorry for a season because it would later bear good results. While I'm not
comparing myself to the apostle, I do see a similar situation in some of the
teaching we do. Its seems to upset people initially but after a while it will
produce good fruit. My intent in examining our whole idea of church and
ministry is not to give people ammunition to fight against their church, but
rather to cause us all to embrace a more biblical concept of church and
ministry. I personally do not advocate the total deconstructing of all present
day church practices. I personally believe there is room for both building
based churches [the church building] and the house church movement. My appeal
is for us to look at all these issues and come to our own conclusions on how to
embrace these truths at our own pace. I thank the lord that he has been patient
with me as I walk this journey and I want to give you all the same room and
grace he has extended to me. May God bless you guys until the next book!
In Christ
John Chiarello