Category: Simple Faith
After 300 years, New Testament mandates about being the multi-gifted, multi-functional, multi-part Body of Christ that builds up each other by gathering for ministry one to another …
Morphed in the 4th Century into pastor-centric, podium-focused institutional “services” with spectator seating that we now call “church.”
So tell me again how you’re gonna suddenly fix that entrenched, man-made system???
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As Jesus said, speaking of the tradition-bound religious folk of His day:
“You will be ever hearing but never understanding; you will be ever seeing but never perceiving. For this people’s heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes …” Matthew 13:14–15 (citing Isaiah 6:9–10)
“And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the new wine will burst the skins; the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined… And no one after drinking old wine wants the new, for they say, ‘The old is better.’” Luke 5:37–39
If we’re not willing to truly give to the Lord our hurts, regrets, agendas and non-essential pet doctrines that have come to define us …
We’ll never truly succeed at finding, starting or experiencing relational participatory church.
You know:
A community of believers who gather for ministry one to another as they mutually build up each other through love and the many diverse gifts God distributes among us …
Just like the New Testament commands.
Instead, it will be impossible to truly submit to one another or prefer each other above ourselves …
Because we’ll remain stuck with ourselves.
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“Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.” 1 Peter 5:6-7
I’ll never forget going to jail years ago to visit a dozen men who had become one of many relational participatory churches that some of us helped start there.
For several months, we had poured our lives out for them through intense discipleship.
Most were brand-new believers, and from those efforts a church had emerged in their housing unit.
This time, as I joined them, I sat quietly and watched as they gathered and engaged in powerful ministry to one another, just like we had taught them.
After nearly two hours, they suddenly stopped, saying that after all I had done for them they had decided earlier that week to do something for me.
Continue readingGod has the unfettered right and ability to do whatever He wants.
But it is a non sequitur to then fall into the trap of Calvinistic determinism.
Because God also has the right and ability to grant us the option – as we see throughout Scripture – to reject Him and His will.
To say otherwise is to diminish, rather than affirm, His ultimate sovereignty …
Which is the ultimate irony of Calvinism.
Church as human tradition designed it or the New Testament defines it?
As Moses learned, it’s easier to take the slave out of Egypt …
Than Egypt out of the slave.
It’s a hard transition.
Some will make it …
Most will not.
Did you know that our English word “sermon” originated from the Latin word “sermo,” meaning “conversation or discourse.”
In Classical Latin, sermo applied to common speech, or “the way people talk” with each other.
Hmmm …
Over time, it morphed into weekly staged, monopolizing, monologue lectures by a professional, institutional class of churchmen called “clergy” who arose in the 4th Century.
Unfortunately, they quickly corrupted not only our words, but so much more, by switching the New Testament focus from relational participatory gatherings for ministry to one another …
To scripted, spectator “church services” that focus on them.
Continue readingWhen I hear someone say “by faith alone,” I sometimes ask them to define what faith is. Often, they’re stumped and can’t give a cogent answer.
Although it includes the concepts of “believing” and “trusting,” if you study the Greek word for faith in the New Testament, it ultimately means a faithful allegiance to someone or something.
So “putting our faith in Christ” is far more than what we feel, think, or believe.
It’s also our loyalties …
And how we act in fidelity to them.
When I took the time to study this decades ago, it changed my whole theological framework.
It also finally resolved so many theological debates that revolve around oft-repeated slogans …
Without understanding the underlying words as Scripture actually meant them.
These days, “discipleship” seems more about prepared messages …
Than prepared people.
And the problem is …
Most folks seem to want it that way.
The building is not the church.
The stage and the spectator seats are not the church.
The “worship service” is not the church.
The preacher and his pulpit are not the church.
But we – yes we – might actually become the church …
When we start gathering to mutually build up each other through ministry one to another.
You know, like the New Testament explicitly says.
Do this …
And all that other stuff becomes just a distraction.
The highest expression of Christ’s Lordship is not just personal but rooted in community.
For example, Paul only refers to Jesus once as “my Lord” …
But fifty-three times as “our Lord.”
The implications of this are profound.
Continue readingIt is unfortunate that so-called “reformed” theologians have such a low view of God and His sovereignty …
That they implicitly believe He’s incapable of choosing to let us reject His grace when offered.
It’s not that they are bad Christians, but on this key doctrine they presume to confine God’s will to a theological cage of their own choosing.
Much to their chagrin, however, God presumes, wills and chooses differently.
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Speaking to Christians in Laodicea, Christ says: “Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent. Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in and dine with him, and he with Me.” Rev. 3:19-20
As we all know, the New Testament teaches:
That church services are where we go to hear a sermon and worship God;
At a church led by a senior pastor who preaches from a pulpit;
With everyone reverently assembled before him and his worship team to receive ministry each week;
And place their tithes in a collection plate to help pay for it all.
Really?
Where do you actually find any of that in the New Testament???
You don’t.
Sigh.
It’s time to stop being led astray by unexamined presumptions …
And start being the church once again.
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Worship?
I don’t know anyone who denies the New Testament imperatives that we sing God‘s praises together when we gather.
But in addition to the vertical component of directing our praises to God, we’re also seeing a growing acknowledgement of the horizontal component …
Which is the explicit, additional New Testament command that we do it for the purpose of encouraging one another.
As a result, there’s a renewed recognition that such praises – although commanded of us in our gatherings – are not defined in Scripture as worship.
Rather, true worship is another, separate aspect of our walk with the Lord.
Continue readingI don’t care if someone’s non-essential pet doctrine is pro or con:
Once saved always saved;
Calvinism vs Arminianism; or
Some particular end time timeline.
It’s not that I don’t have my own views. I do.
And it’s not that I’m never willing to talk about them. I am.
But when someone is always making everything about their own non-essential theological fixations, rather than learning to humbly prefer each other above ourselves …
Then they’re not yet ready for relational participatory church like commanded in the New Testament, where we gather for the mutual edification and building up of one another.
In fact, they shouldn’t even try.
They’ll only do more harm than good.
Want to restore New Testament power, form and function to the Church?
Then stop giving post-Biblical meanings to original New Testament words …
Based on post-Biblical presumptions, traditions and agendas.
For example, the predominant current meanings of English words like church, pastor, worship and tithe (to name just a few) …
Have nothing to do with their original meanings and use in the original language of Scripture when originally written.
Maybe that helps explain why “church” as we’ve now come to know it …
Looks nothing like “church” as the New Testament actually commands it.
Nope, not, nada …
It just ain’t there.
So let’s let Scripture once again stand authoritative as God actually intended …
Over all presumptions, traditions and agendas to the contrary.
Maybe then we’ll learn to actually be the church once again, as God commands …
With relational participatory gatherings where we minister one to another for the mutual building up of each other.
The reason the New Testament commands us to gather together is not for worship services.
Such a concept is utterly missing from the New Testament.
I know that seems shocking …
But hear me out.
In fact, that concept didn’t arise until the 4th Century as a new self-interested class of hierarchical, professional “clergy” emerged and sought to justify their growing power and privilege as unbiblical mediators between us and God …
By turning “church” into a “worship service” with associated special buildings containing altars, spectator “sanctuaries,” and elevated platforms for the special few – all under their control and patterned after Old Testament temple concepts – where they could convince people to come and encounter God through them.
Continue readingWhat’s one of the greatest impediments to simple, relational, participatory church as actually commanded in the New Testament?
Finding your validation in your gifts – including your spiritual motivations and abilities.
Rather than the One who gave you those gifts.
Because you then prioritize yourself …
Over Him and His equally valid gifts in others.
After decades of ministry to those in jail, discipleship when they got out, and helping to start indigenous churches within communities with high rates of addiction …
I’ve never seen an exception to this regarding the roots of addiction (of any kind).
Ignore it, and any hope of redemption will be fleeting.
Touch not God’s anointed?
Other than “judge not,” I doubt any other passage in Scripture has been so misused and misquoted.
As an attorney (now retired) and local elder, over the years I’ve voluntarily helped victims and their families by investigating and confronting more than a few predatory and abusive church leaders.
I even helped put some in jail.
In every single instance, however, I’d hear from misguided people quoting King David’s admonition in 1 Chron. 16:22 and Psalms 105:15 to “touch not mine anointed, and do my prophets no harm.”
Here’s one typical response someone actually sent to me in one of those cases:
“In my opinion Jim, you should seek God and HIS word. Does not the bible say ‘touch not mine anointed and do my profits no harm.’ Pastor [Name Removed] is anointed and is right where he should be.”
When I first read it, I couldn’t help but chuckle at the misspelling of “profits” for “prophets,” because protecting the income of a church or ministry is often a key motive for those who want to sweep allegations of pastoral abuse under the rug.
Maybe that was a proverbial Freudian slip!
Regardless, even if you get past the exegetical hurdle of somehow saying those verses apply to an unrepentant predatory church leader, the Hebrew word for “touch” means to physically assault.
I can assure you, I have never physically assaulted any church leader – predatory or not!
Nonetheless, 1 Tim 5:19-21 commands us to confront abusive church leaders – on behalf of their victims and ultimately to protect others – by investigating, exposing, and stopping them.
So don’t let the bad exegesis of one part of Scripture keep us from obeying the clear mandate of another part of Scripture …
Which commands us to protect His church from those who use their positions of authority and influence in the church to exploit others.
In the original Hebrew and Greek language of Scripture, the primary words translated as “worship” refer to the temple ritual prostration and temple ritual sacrifices – but not to what we call “worship” today.
For example, singing praises to God is certainly important, but that’s never called “worship” in the Old or New Testament and the original meaning of the words translated as ”worship” don’t include music or singing.
Nor are those words for “worship” ever applied in Scripture to an assembly of believers, and our gatherings are never called a “worship service” in the New Testament.
In fact (and I know will shock many), the New Testament- although it has a lot to say about why and how we gather as the church – never says to gather for “worship” or a “worship service.”
Nope, not, nada …
Just ain’t there.
Continue readingSo you’re tired of attending an impersonal Sunday event each week designed to build up a “church” …
And wanna find a relational community of believers who gather together to build up one another instead?
That’s great, but let’s start with understanding the differences between them, otherwise it’s too easy to drift back into old, unbiblical habits …
Rather than pressing forward towards actually being the church as specifically commanded in Scripture.
Continue readingIn 2004, I came down with a rare, degenerative autoimmune disease called scleroderma (also known as systemic sclerosis).
With it, the Lord has taught me that sometimes He loves us enough to nearly kill us. And I’m not talking metaphorically.
Yet, as Job proclaimed when everything good in his life also was being stripped away, “Though you slay me, will I trust you Lord.” Job 13:15.
When the disease first hit me, I nearly died and I lost everything – and I mean everything – dear to me. It was a difficult transition, but God used it to kill what needed at the time to die in me and around me.
Continue reading
In this photo, Nicky Cruz – a former gang leader in New York City who came to the Lord through the ministry of David Wilkerson – is praying for men and staff at the recent annual banquet for the Delmarva Adult & Teen Challenge, headed by Bob Carey.
Over the years, I’ve occasionally sent men coming out of addiction to Bob Carey for help if they needed more intense, initial discipleship than we could offer.
Although I wasn’t at last night’s banquet, it reminded me of a personal story about Nicky Cruz and my family as I was growing up.
Continue readingGod is a polyglot:
He speaks and relates to different people different ways.
If, however, we don’t respect how others hear and relate to God differently than us …
Then relational participatory church – with ministry by one another to mutually build up each other – will sputter and die.
Plumbline Faith 