- Mar 4, 2012
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I have to admit I was wrong... as usual. All my Christian life I, like my peers, have compared the modern church with the New Testament church in order to be certain of the biblical conformity to Gods design. I dont think thats wrong, but on the other hand, after getting over the romantic image of a perfect model of church life that Ive always perceived the apostles churches to be, I realize that they had all the very same issues that we do. Nothing has changed at all. The only advantage they had was that the apostles were present to personally be sure that they at least return to adherence to Jesus design. But even that wasnt as effective as we might think!
I want to start right there.
The apostles themselves had issues, you know. They even disagreed with each other, suspected each other, and had to be corrected by one another. They made mistakes. They had to learn. Jesus didnt just tell them everything. Some things He was content to allow them to work out through debates over the information they had been given. They were also victims of false teachers in their churches and leadership, and there is no evidence that they did anything to remove them! They had to fight for the purity of the church - not moral, though that too, but doctrinal.
One thing I must say, has always bugged me about Gods intention for the church, is that it is based on the design of Israel itself; and no one seems to see that but me! Things would function so much better. I mean, we are brethren. That is what the 12 tribes called each other. Even the apostles were told by the Lord that they would sit on 12 thrones ruling the 12 tribes of Israel! Often the apostle Paul, though he was the apostle to the Gentiles, used the statement, As also says the law. Very strange, coming from someone who so vehemently taught that we were now dead to the law, and that it had been nailed to the cross of Christ, or that all things are lawful for me. The holidays are a big issue for me, because both the calendar of the Jews which is based on the lunar cycle, whereas the pagan calendar we use is based on the worship of the sun, and the holy days and seasons were shadows of spiritual events to come - events that we are experiencing in the church. Every event of the church falls on a Jewish holiday. Jesus was killed on Passover, to become our Passover lamb. The church was born on Pentecost - the second of three great feasts (Lev 23), and the next great event is to be the Feast of Trumpets, an event on the Jewish calendar that has no apparent purpose at all, but to the church it means everything, because it is the also the Feast of Harvest - the harvest of the church, and the trumpet of God to announce this.
But we have replaced all these things with Pagan holidays and lost them. I have a Jewish friend who street preaches zealously, after he was saved by seeing the story of the gospel perfectly portrayed through Jewish feasts. Some have even tried to overlay the covenants and their own 12 apostles with the Gentile church.
I say all this because maybe I was wrong about this too. I mean, as the gospel went to the Gentile lands, these former pagan people developed the same kind of romance with the Jews that I did, and they tried to adopt that portrait so much that they re-instituted the law. It didnt help that there were Jews who took advantage of this obsession to make themselves into teachers who were to lead the Gentiles back into this romantic image by teaching filling in all the traditions and legalism that the apostles hadnt.
This was so effective that it went right back into the circle of the apostles themselves, and this was the stage for the memorable confrontation between Paul and Peter recorded in Gal 2:11-. Amazingly, the apostles and James, brother of Jesus, the great elder of the church, assembled a great council to resolve this issue, and there is no mention of so much as a prayer or Umim and Thumim to get the Lords opinion of the matter (Acts 15).
When Paul was converted, it took one bold, loving saint to step forward, though he was not an apostle, to receive the poor new believer, or suspicion might never have allowed him a place in the church.
But the very first issue in the church started with the rift between Hebraic Jews, and Hellenist Jews. It was a cultural thing that carried over from the Babylonian captivity, and had been the very vehicle for the destruction of Jerusalem by Antiochus Epiphanes, who favored the Hellenists and removed every trace of conservative Judaism down to the sacrifices and Sabbath, on penalty of death. (Please dont quote me. Im going on memory, and Im too lazy to refresh my studies.) There is a saying among the Jews even today: If there are two Jews in Jerusalem, there will be 3 parties. Personally I had no idea the Jews couldnt get along; but even now there is a war between the Zionists and Rabbis, among many others.
In any case, Acts 6 tells how the fledgling church would handle its first real test of cohesiveness and love. We also see one of those examples of the traditions of Israel carried over into the church - something that is totally forsaken in todays church. It was the welfare program for the widows. But because of the prejudicial hatred between these two cultures at war with each other since ancient days, and evidently the ones in charge of the distribution were of the Hebraic persuasion, the poor Hellenist widows were being denied their provisions. What a dark cloud was coming to shadow the believers who only recently were selling their properties to make sure that everyone in the church had financial equality!
I just cant say enough for how wonderfully the apostles came through on this one, because they were not too proud to admit that on their watch, something was going wrong with the body of Christ. Rarely does this happen today! But rarely is there a care for the poor in the church, where the offering is given for the care of the institution rather than alms for the needy according to the command of the Lord. The government is given that charge, while there is financial inequality in the church till the Lord returns.
But the apostles went so far as to swiftly appoint a stewards to handle the matter, then they returned to the spiritual care of church. How humble. How involved and concerned even for little things. Good shepherds are not above hearing complaints, nor for addressing them, even when it takes away from the more lofty concerns like prayer and teaching. How commendable! They did not complain that the sheep are always complaining about something!
Well, Im beginning to disagree with my own point! But lest I give the wrong idea, lets remember that John complained about one leader in particular, apparently under his itinerant care, named Diotrophes (3 Jhn), who likes to have preeminence. I often wonder what kind of clergical arrangement Johns church had where one person could have total control of the congregation. I have never agreed with the Pastor setups we have today, because it seems quite obvious from the Jerusalem church, and from Pauls command to Timothy and Titus to appoint elders (plural) in every church, that such an arrangement never existed in the original church. This problem in Johns church seems the Holy Spirits way of forecasting the damage that would come if such a set up existed. Diotrophes was bad, and in charge, and no one could challenge him without being cast out of the church. Why were they being kicked out? Because they were giving assistance to the missionaries and apostles whom Diotrophes was bad mouthing! The devil himself was in the pulpit! How did this happen?!
But John had bigger problems because all over the church world there were, not just pew-sitters, but leaders in the church who were taking the doctrines of Christ and blending them with ancient Satanic doctrines of Gnosticism, and effectively leading the sheep from Christ, yet in the name of Christ. It was so persuasive that Johns letters are written wholly to address this. We can see that there were several other cults that had risen by the time John wrote the Revelation, where the Lord himself addresses them by name.
Paul had his hands full with issues in the Gentile churches, where he dealt with immorality and conflicts that made the Jerusalem problem seem very minor by comparison. It was hard for these former pagans who had literally grown up steeped in abominable idolatries that even make the inappropriate contentographic culture of today innocent really. We still have enough influence of the church in the world to hold back that approaching tide. It forms a moral dam in the global conscience that few recognize. But in the Greco-Roman world, only the Jews subscribed to such moral prudery.
Everyone remembers the Corinthian man who had relations with his mother-in-law openly, but fail to see Pauls closing statement where he remarked that he wasnt alone: For I fear, lest, when I come, I shall not find you such as I would, and that I shall be found unto you such as ye would not: lest there be debates, envyings, wraths, strifes, backbitings, whisperings, swellings, tumults: And lest, when I come again, my God will humble me among you, and that I shall bewail many which have sinned already, and have not repented of the uncleanness and fornication and lasciviousness which they have committed. (2Co 12:20-21)
But it wasnt just a problem in Corinth. Take Crete for example: For there are indeed many insubordinate men, empty talkers and mind-deluders, especially those of the circumcision, whose mouth you must stop, who overturn whole houses, teaching things which they ought not for the sake of ill gain. One of them, a prophet of their own, said: Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons. This testimony is true; for which cause convict them severely, that they may be sound in the faith, not listening to Jewish myths and commandments of men, having turned away from the truth. Truly, all things are pure to the pure, but to the ones being defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure, but even their mind and conscience has been defiled. They profess to know God, but by their works they deny Him, being abominable and disobedient, and worthless to every good work. (Tit 1:10-16)
Even the blessed Ephesian church that saw Paul off for the last time with tears wasnt exempt: For I know this, that after my departure grievous wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and out of you yourselves will rise up men speaking perverted things, in order to draw away the disciples after themselves. (Act 20:29-30)
I have long had another romance with the persecuted church of the world today, figuring that when you are under constant threat of torture, prison, butchering, and violation, the mind cannot afford such sinful luxuries of this world; however, I had forgotten that the New Testament church was always under persecution as well. All these things they did, they did while fleeing and huddling in fear. I saw this first hand when ministering to refugees. A friend of mine lamented because some African brothers for whom he had provided cable to watch soccer games had somehow run the bill up to 300 dollars in a month! How? Well, they found out that they could order inappropriate contentography on demand with the push of a remote button. The english speaking children of these families learned quickly about the temptations of chat and hip-hop sites, and mtv, and the parents seemed to be oblivious to the immorality of these scenes in the background. Id like to have preached on holiness and the dangers of America, but then I would have been a hypocrite myself. So I have to concede that they are us, and the New Testament believers are us, and we are them, and somehow the Lord reconciles our failures with the fact that we are His. But dont say, Well, the Lord knows those who are His, and only some will keep their robes white. I thought this way too, but when I recognize that Paul did not accuse the sinning saints in his care of being damned or reprobate (rather, he urged them to examine themselves), but he warned them that he would discipline them, and the Lord would discipline them. While he testified that many were weak, sick, and some have fallen asleep (dead!) as a result of the Lords discipline, but never said that they were false believers. False believers do not receive the discipline of the Lord. The Lord disciplines those He loves... everyone He receives as a son/daughter.
I want to start right there.
The apostles themselves had issues, you know. They even disagreed with each other, suspected each other, and had to be corrected by one another. They made mistakes. They had to learn. Jesus didnt just tell them everything. Some things He was content to allow them to work out through debates over the information they had been given. They were also victims of false teachers in their churches and leadership, and there is no evidence that they did anything to remove them! They had to fight for the purity of the church - not moral, though that too, but doctrinal.
One thing I must say, has always bugged me about Gods intention for the church, is that it is based on the design of Israel itself; and no one seems to see that but me! Things would function so much better. I mean, we are brethren. That is what the 12 tribes called each other. Even the apostles were told by the Lord that they would sit on 12 thrones ruling the 12 tribes of Israel! Often the apostle Paul, though he was the apostle to the Gentiles, used the statement, As also says the law. Very strange, coming from someone who so vehemently taught that we were now dead to the law, and that it had been nailed to the cross of Christ, or that all things are lawful for me. The holidays are a big issue for me, because both the calendar of the Jews which is based on the lunar cycle, whereas the pagan calendar we use is based on the worship of the sun, and the holy days and seasons were shadows of spiritual events to come - events that we are experiencing in the church. Every event of the church falls on a Jewish holiday. Jesus was killed on Passover, to become our Passover lamb. The church was born on Pentecost - the second of three great feasts (Lev 23), and the next great event is to be the Feast of Trumpets, an event on the Jewish calendar that has no apparent purpose at all, but to the church it means everything, because it is the also the Feast of Harvest - the harvest of the church, and the trumpet of God to announce this.
But we have replaced all these things with Pagan holidays and lost them. I have a Jewish friend who street preaches zealously, after he was saved by seeing the story of the gospel perfectly portrayed through Jewish feasts. Some have even tried to overlay the covenants and their own 12 apostles with the Gentile church.
I say all this because maybe I was wrong about this too. I mean, as the gospel went to the Gentile lands, these former pagan people developed the same kind of romance with the Jews that I did, and they tried to adopt that portrait so much that they re-instituted the law. It didnt help that there were Jews who took advantage of this obsession to make themselves into teachers who were to lead the Gentiles back into this romantic image by teaching filling in all the traditions and legalism that the apostles hadnt.
This was so effective that it went right back into the circle of the apostles themselves, and this was the stage for the memorable confrontation between Paul and Peter recorded in Gal 2:11-. Amazingly, the apostles and James, brother of Jesus, the great elder of the church, assembled a great council to resolve this issue, and there is no mention of so much as a prayer or Umim and Thumim to get the Lords opinion of the matter (Acts 15).
When Paul was converted, it took one bold, loving saint to step forward, though he was not an apostle, to receive the poor new believer, or suspicion might never have allowed him a place in the church.
But the very first issue in the church started with the rift between Hebraic Jews, and Hellenist Jews. It was a cultural thing that carried over from the Babylonian captivity, and had been the very vehicle for the destruction of Jerusalem by Antiochus Epiphanes, who favored the Hellenists and removed every trace of conservative Judaism down to the sacrifices and Sabbath, on penalty of death. (Please dont quote me. Im going on memory, and Im too lazy to refresh my studies.) There is a saying among the Jews even today: If there are two Jews in Jerusalem, there will be 3 parties. Personally I had no idea the Jews couldnt get along; but even now there is a war between the Zionists and Rabbis, among many others.
In any case, Acts 6 tells how the fledgling church would handle its first real test of cohesiveness and love. We also see one of those examples of the traditions of Israel carried over into the church - something that is totally forsaken in todays church. It was the welfare program for the widows. But because of the prejudicial hatred between these two cultures at war with each other since ancient days, and evidently the ones in charge of the distribution were of the Hebraic persuasion, the poor Hellenist widows were being denied their provisions. What a dark cloud was coming to shadow the believers who only recently were selling their properties to make sure that everyone in the church had financial equality!
I just cant say enough for how wonderfully the apostles came through on this one, because they were not too proud to admit that on their watch, something was going wrong with the body of Christ. Rarely does this happen today! But rarely is there a care for the poor in the church, where the offering is given for the care of the institution rather than alms for the needy according to the command of the Lord. The government is given that charge, while there is financial inequality in the church till the Lord returns.
But the apostles went so far as to swiftly appoint a stewards to handle the matter, then they returned to the spiritual care of church. How humble. How involved and concerned even for little things. Good shepherds are not above hearing complaints, nor for addressing them, even when it takes away from the more lofty concerns like prayer and teaching. How commendable! They did not complain that the sheep are always complaining about something!
Well, Im beginning to disagree with my own point! But lest I give the wrong idea, lets remember that John complained about one leader in particular, apparently under his itinerant care, named Diotrophes (3 Jhn), who likes to have preeminence. I often wonder what kind of clergical arrangement Johns church had where one person could have total control of the congregation. I have never agreed with the Pastor setups we have today, because it seems quite obvious from the Jerusalem church, and from Pauls command to Timothy and Titus to appoint elders (plural) in every church, that such an arrangement never existed in the original church. This problem in Johns church seems the Holy Spirits way of forecasting the damage that would come if such a set up existed. Diotrophes was bad, and in charge, and no one could challenge him without being cast out of the church. Why were they being kicked out? Because they were giving assistance to the missionaries and apostles whom Diotrophes was bad mouthing! The devil himself was in the pulpit! How did this happen?!
But John had bigger problems because all over the church world there were, not just pew-sitters, but leaders in the church who were taking the doctrines of Christ and blending them with ancient Satanic doctrines of Gnosticism, and effectively leading the sheep from Christ, yet in the name of Christ. It was so persuasive that Johns letters are written wholly to address this. We can see that there were several other cults that had risen by the time John wrote the Revelation, where the Lord himself addresses them by name.
Paul had his hands full with issues in the Gentile churches, where he dealt with immorality and conflicts that made the Jerusalem problem seem very minor by comparison. It was hard for these former pagans who had literally grown up steeped in abominable idolatries that even make the inappropriate contentographic culture of today innocent really. We still have enough influence of the church in the world to hold back that approaching tide. It forms a moral dam in the global conscience that few recognize. But in the Greco-Roman world, only the Jews subscribed to such moral prudery.
Everyone remembers the Corinthian man who had relations with his mother-in-law openly, but fail to see Pauls closing statement where he remarked that he wasnt alone: For I fear, lest, when I come, I shall not find you such as I would, and that I shall be found unto you such as ye would not: lest there be debates, envyings, wraths, strifes, backbitings, whisperings, swellings, tumults: And lest, when I come again, my God will humble me among you, and that I shall bewail many which have sinned already, and have not repented of the uncleanness and fornication and lasciviousness which they have committed. (2Co 12:20-21)
But it wasnt just a problem in Corinth. Take Crete for example: For there are indeed many insubordinate men, empty talkers and mind-deluders, especially those of the circumcision, whose mouth you must stop, who overturn whole houses, teaching things which they ought not for the sake of ill gain. One of them, a prophet of their own, said: Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons. This testimony is true; for which cause convict them severely, that they may be sound in the faith, not listening to Jewish myths and commandments of men, having turned away from the truth. Truly, all things are pure to the pure, but to the ones being defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure, but even their mind and conscience has been defiled. They profess to know God, but by their works they deny Him, being abominable and disobedient, and worthless to every good work. (Tit 1:10-16)
Even the blessed Ephesian church that saw Paul off for the last time with tears wasnt exempt: For I know this, that after my departure grievous wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and out of you yourselves will rise up men speaking perverted things, in order to draw away the disciples after themselves. (Act 20:29-30)
I have long had another romance with the persecuted church of the world today, figuring that when you are under constant threat of torture, prison, butchering, and violation, the mind cannot afford such sinful luxuries of this world; however, I had forgotten that the New Testament church was always under persecution as well. All these things they did, they did while fleeing and huddling in fear. I saw this first hand when ministering to refugees. A friend of mine lamented because some African brothers for whom he had provided cable to watch soccer games had somehow run the bill up to 300 dollars in a month! How? Well, they found out that they could order inappropriate contentography on demand with the push of a remote button. The english speaking children of these families learned quickly about the temptations of chat and hip-hop sites, and mtv, and the parents seemed to be oblivious to the immorality of these scenes in the background. Id like to have preached on holiness and the dangers of America, but then I would have been a hypocrite myself. So I have to concede that they are us, and the New Testament believers are us, and we are them, and somehow the Lord reconciles our failures with the fact that we are His. But dont say, Well, the Lord knows those who are His, and only some will keep their robes white. I thought this way too, but when I recognize that Paul did not accuse the sinning saints in his care of being damned or reprobate (rather, he urged them to examine themselves), but he warned them that he would discipline them, and the Lord would discipline them. While he testified that many were weak, sick, and some have fallen asleep (dead!) as a result of the Lords discipline, but never said that they were false believers. False believers do not receive the discipline of the Lord. The Lord disciplines those He loves... everyone He receives as a son/daughter.
