Real prophets pay the price for truth …
Rather than expect you to pay them for it.
“Progressive,” “Red Letter,” “Emergent,” “Insurgence” and “Deeper Life” – oh my!
Such post-modern, existential “Christians” know not Christ.
Instead of submitting their perceptions and sensibilities about Christ to all of Scripture …
They submit all of Scripture to their own perceptions and sensibilities about Christ.
In contrast, real disciples have a vibrant relationship with the Living Word …
In submission to the authority and discipline of His written Word.
Don’t settle for anything less.
Although the Trinity is a great mystery, here’s how I’ve come to understand – in practical terms – one aspect of it …
Not just in creation, but throughout Scripture and in our lives today.
The Father wills.
The Son reveals.
The Spirit enables.
Some proclaim that “Christ is All” in an attempt to deny all of Christ.
Typically, they reject the plenary authority of Scripture as His written word …
By claiming that their personal revelation of “Christ” supersedes all of the commands, precepts, propositional truths, narratives and moral imperatives He chose to reveal there.
As a result, they are left with a false “Christ” of their own creation.
The only thing their false Jesus really is all about is them …
And their own subjective follies and sensibilities.
Be discerning …
Deceptive cults love to use pithy but misleading slogans to promote unspoken premises and hidden agendas.
Unless compassion is combined with steely-eyed realism, I trust neither.
God never intended for either of those gifts to work in isolation.
The question “Christian” existentalists avoid at all costs and never want to answer:
If “all Scripture is God breathed” (2 Tim. 3:16), then what part of it isn’t His authoritative Word?
“Red letter” Christians only follow selective, out-of-context quotes by Jesus which conform to their own sensibilities …
While discounting the rest of Scripture.
Theirs is a pick-and-choose Jesus, supported by a fractured logos as they seek to divide the Living Word from His authority of Scripture as His written Word.
As a result, they know not Christ …
Which may explain their habitual existential angst and inability to create either viable disciples or functional churches.
It’s no accident that the four Gospels …
Are immediately followed by “Acts”.
Who deceived you into believing “church” is where you go to encounter God’s presence?
The New Testament says that if you belong to Christ, YOU are God’s temple and His presence now dwells in YOU …
And that we should gather to mutually build up each other by expressing His presence already in us and thus among us through ministry one to another as the multi-gifted, multi-functional, multi-part Body of Christ.
The idea of instead going to staged “services” so religious professionals can usher us into His presence is NOT found in the New Testament.
Nope, not, nada …
Just ain’t there.
So let’s shift our understandings and start being the church …
Once again.
Those who habitually are unable to start, sustain or successfully be part of a simple, participatory church in their own lives, home towns or anywhere else …
Often promote the published “organic church” writings of Frank Viola, Milt Rodriquez, Jon Zens and their buddies.
This is hardly surprising, because those authors and seminar speakers habitually haven’t been able to either.
Be discerning, because without authenticity …
Simple church simply doesn’t work.
You can’t love Jesus …
And dismiss the plenary authority of His written Word.
An attitude of gratitude is a mile marker on the road to emotional health and spiritual wholeness.
Let’s be honest:
Our prevailing concept of “the Pastor” who presides over a church …
Does not exist in the New Testament.
Yet it has become the lynchpin for “church” today.
How is that even Biblical?
Church traditions and cultural presumptions read back into Scripture …
Often become more sacred than Scripture itself.
The two biggest obstacles to simple, relational, participatory church like commanded in the New Testament:
1. Thinking it’s all up to you.
2. Thinking it’s all up to everyone else.
The typical American Christian blindly accepts what is labeled “church,” rather than studying what the New Testament actually says …
Leading to stagnation and deception on a grand scale.
When governments usurp God’s sovereignty and delegated responsibilities …
There is no liberty.
Biblical love turns its own cheek …
While protecting other cheeks.
To guilt you into going to their “church,” sit in their pews and listen to their oratory each Sunday …
Preachers be like “don’t neglect to assemble together.”
But they distort Scripture by ignoring the whole passage …
Which is about gathering for ministry and encouragement by one another to each other – not by the one.
“Let us take thought of how to spur one another on to love and good works, not abandoning our own meetings, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging each other, and even more so because you see the day drawing near.” Heb. 10:25-26
Let’s find the courage to move on from such preachers and their “churches,” pulpits and pews.
Let’s instead gather together simply – face to face – to build up each other through ministry to one another.
Let’s be the church, as Scripture shows it, once again.
It may seem trite, but it’s true:
Moving forward only happens …
One step at a time.
If your concept of Christ causes you to be offended by portions of His written Word …
You know not Christ.
We have reduced love to what we feel.
Scripture elevates love to what we do.
It’s nearly impossible for those feeding at the trough of “church” as they’ve come to know it …
To embrace church as Scripture actually shows it.
They just can’t get past all their conjectures and rationalizations …
And all the post-New Testament assumptions and traditions they keep reading back into original New Testament words and meanings.
Sometimes you just need to bless ’em, shake off the dust and move on.
Corrosive compassion does for others what they otherwise should do for themselves.
Although trying to solve another’s problems may provide short term help …
People ultimately learn best when allowed to own the consequences of their own decisions.
It may seem harsh, but in the long run it’s often the most compassionate and loving thing you can do.
Plumbline Faith 