Encouraging One Another

[Christsfreeservant]

“For I long to see you so that I may impart some spiritual gift to you, that you may be established; that is, that I may be encouraged together with you while among you, each of us by the other’s faith, both yours and mine. I do not want you to be unaware, brethren, that often I have planned to come to you (and have been prevented so far) so that I may obtain some fruit among you also, even as among the rest of the Gentiles.” (Romans 1:11-13 NASB1995)​

In what ways today are any of us being prevented from giving and receiving biblical and spiritual encouragement to and from the rest of the body of Christ? What kinds of things are standing in our way which are blocking our ability to be heard by the people? And for us to hear from the rest of the body of Christ who are walking in obedience to the Lord in surrender to his will and purpose for our lives?

Now, I live in the USA, so my experience may be completely different from some of you who live in other nations throughout the world, so your answers may be different from mine. So, I will share what I have experienced and you can answer these questions based on your own experiences.

One of the biggest ways that this is happening in America is via the partnership the church at large has made with the government, so that most of what is called “church” here in America is in covenant relationships with the government via the 501c3 incorporation status as non-profit religious organizations. About the same time that this took place is when government worship also entered into the gatherings of “the church” via the pledge of allegiance to the US flag, the singing of patriotic songs of worship of the government, and the honoring of our military as our heroes and saviors.

If not before this, this also began a massive movement to alter the divine character and will of God – Father, Son Jesus Christ, and Holy Spirit – and to alter his church and his gospel message, to make them all more appealing and acceptable and pleasing to human flesh and to the ungodly of the world – a deliberate decline. For “the church” at large in America began, more than ever before, to make themselves into human-based businesses designed to attract and to draw in large crowds of people from the world. And so they began patterning their gatherings after the world to attract the world.

And so many of these gatherings now are following after business marketing models for how to “draw in large crowds of people from the world” into their gatherings. And so many of their gatherings have been turned into stage productions to entertain the audience. And so a small number of people from “the church” put on the show while the rest sit as spectators and not as participants, other than the audience can sing along with the songs performed by the “worship team” (the musicians singing and playing the songs). But not every gathering of “the church” follows this model.

Usually, in today’s world, they now meet once a week on a Saturday or a Sunday for an hour and a half service (+/-) in a building called “church,” and that may be it for most people until the following week when they repeat the same routine. And they call that “going to church.” So, when the service is over they have “left the church.” Some of them do have weekly small group gatherings which can vary much in content and purpose and which may or may not be modeled after the model of the Scriptures at all. So many of these are highly structured to follow a particular book of some kind.

So, in order to gather in large crowds from the people of the world, they have altered the message of the gospel of our salvation, which comes in many different levels, in order to attract the world and to not offend the ungodly. The biggest and most popular gospel message being taught today is that you can make a verbal confession of faith in Jesus Christ once in your life and now you are saved, done deal, and heaven is guaranteed you when you die, but regardless of how you live. Some may teach holiness, but not as a requirement for salvation from sin and for eternal life with God.

So, what all this does is cut off the possibilities, within the gatherings of “the church” for the body of Christ to function biblically as it ought. So many people push Hebrews 10:25a (“not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some”) to pressure people into “coming to church,” i.e. to attend these institutional market-driven “church” (businesses) gatherings. But they leave out “let us consider how to stimulate ONE ANOTHER to love and good deeds.. but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the day” (of judgment) “drawing near” (see Hebrews 10:23-25).

So, what is happening to prevent us from being “encouraged together with you while among you, each of us by the other’s faith” is all of the above. Since so many are believing in a diluted gospel message, taught deliberately out of context, they are not willing to give or to receive messages about the true gospel that Jesus and his New Testament apostles taught (in context). And since the concept of church is these institutional gatherings, not patterned after the biblical body of Christ and what our relationships to one another should look like, there is no place for us, the body, to be mutually encouraged by one another in these market-driven “church” gatherings.

So, this is why the Lord sent me to the internet where I have been able, so far, to share what the Lord is giving me to share with the body of Christ and to hear from others of like faith in what God is giving them to share to encourage the body of Christ, as a whole. But even on the internet we experience some of these same road blocks because so many people are believing the lies and not the truth, and so the truth to them is foreign, and it is odd to them, and so not all will gladly receive it, either. So what is the truth? I have summarized Romans 6:1-23 which says it all:

By God-persuaded faith in Jesus Christ, which is not of our own doing, we are crucified with Christ in death to sin and raised with Christ to walk in newness of life in him, no longer to live as slaves to sin but as slaves to God and to his righteousness in walks of obedience to his commands. Thus, we are no longer to allow sin to reign in our mortal bodies to make us obey its desires. For if sin is what we obey, it results in death. But if obedience is what we obey, it results in sanctification and its end is eternal life with God.

[Matt 7:13-14,21-23; Lu 9:23-26; Jn 10:27-30; Ac 26:18; Rom 2:6-8; Rom 6:1-23; Rom 8:1-14; Rom 12:1-2; 1 Co 6:9-10,19-20; 1 Co 10:1-22; 2 Co 5:10,15,21; Gal 5:16-24; Gal 6:7-8; Eph 2:8-10; Eph 4:17-32; Eph 5:3-6; Col 1:21-23; Col 3:1-17; Tit 2:11-14; Heb 3:1-19; Heb 4:1-13; Heb 10:23-31; Heb 12:1-2; 1 Pet 2:24; 1 Jn 1:5-10; 1 Jn 2:3-6,15-17; 1 Jn 3:4-10]

As the Deer

By Martin J. Nystrom
Based off Psalm 42:1

As the deer panteth for the water
So my soul longeth after You
You alone are my heart's desire
And I long to worship You

You alone are my strength, my shield
To You alone may my spirit yield
You alone are my heart's desire
And I long to worship You

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Encouraging One Another
An Original Work / April 22, 2025
Christ’s Free Servant, Sue J Love

 

[Smeadly]

My unworthy opinion? , it surrounds a very simple word yet inflames and paralyzes people,

You're raising a strong and much-needed warning, and I agree with much of what you’ve said. But if we trace this decline back, I believe it began long before the rise of 501c3 status or marketing models. It began when the church lost sight of what an elder truly is.

An elder isn’t created by a church board, a seminary degree, or a hiring committee. He’s not someone you vote in. Biblically, an elder is simply an older man—a head of a household—someone who has youngers under him. He might be respected, or he might not. He might be righteous, or he might be a real skunk. But if he’s got youngers looking up to him, he’s an elder by nature. That’s how the early church understood the term. From among these elders, the apostles appointed certain men to roles of oversight (bishops) and service (deacons), but the office never made the man an elder.

What we’ve done today is reverse that. We give the title “elder” to a man who may not even have children, who might be young, unknown, and unproven in family or community. Meanwhile, the real elders sitting in the pews—the older men with families and years of life behind them—are called "laymen." And then we wonder why the body can’t speak to itself anymore.

Because if you're not on the stage, you’re not “leadership.” And if you’re not leadership, your words carry no weight. But Scripture says otherwise—we’re meant to encourage one another daily, teach and admonish one another, speak to one another in psalms and hymns, and build one another up in the faith. That only happens when every elder is seen as what he is, and every believer is welcomed as a full participant.

Here’s a little truth wrapped in rhyme:

Call him a rascal, call him a brute,
But if he’s got youngers, the point is moot.
An elder’s not made by a vote or a tie—
He’s made by time and those nearby.
Now double honor? That’s a prize,
For the elder who serves and walks upright-wise.

The church doesn’t need a new system—it needs to remember what a household looks like. The church is the family of God. Elders are already there. We don’t need permission to be the body—we need the clarity to recognize it.

 

[Christsfreeservant]

My unworthy opinion? , it surrounds a very simple word yet inflames and paralyzes people,

You're raising a strong and much-needed warning, and I agree with much of what you’ve said. But if we trace this decline back, I believe it began long before the rise of 501c3 status or marketing models. It began when the church lost sight of what an elder truly is.

An elder isn’t created by a church board, a seminary degree, or a hiring committee. He’s not someone you vote in. Biblically, an elder is simply an older man—a head of a household—someone who has youngers under him. He might be respected, or he might not. He might be righteous, or he might be a real skunk. But if he’s got youngers looking up to him, he’s an elder by nature. That’s how the early church understood the term. From among these elders, the apostles appointed certain men to roles of oversight (bishops) and service (deacons), but the office never made the man an elder.

What we’ve done today is reverse that. We give the title “elder” to a man who may not even have children, who might be young, unknown, and unproven in family or community. Meanwhile, the real elders sitting in the pews—the older men with families and years of life behind them—are called "laymen." And then we wonder why the body can’t speak to itself anymore.

Because if you're not on the stage, you’re not “leadership.” And if you’re not leadership, your words carry no weight. But Scripture says otherwise—we’re meant to encourage one another daily, teach and admonish one another, speak to one another in psalms and hymns, and build one another up in the faith. That only happens when every elder is seen as what he is, and every believer is welcomed as a full participant.

Here’s a little truth wrapped in rhyme:


The church doesn’t need a new system—it needs to remember what a household looks like. The church is the family of God. Elders are already there. We don’t need permission to be the body—we need the clarity to recognize it.

Smeadly, I agree with part of what you have said here, but I don't agree with your understanding of who an elder is within the body of Christ. In the Scriptures, elders were chosen by the apostles according to particular spiritual qualifications. They had to be mature in their walks of faith and godly, moral, and upright men of God who were above reproach. So the qualifications were very strict. And if you read the New Testament Scriptures, in context, you might come to realize that these elders were overseers over the entire body of Christ in a whole city, so they were not necessarily present in every gathering, for the gatherings were often in people's homes, and their homes were probably not mansions, and so they had limited capacity. And they also met daily from house to house. And that really is a much more fitting setting for the entire body of Christ to be able to contribute to the ministry of the body. In large group settings there is not room for the entire body to participate in encouraging and exhorting and ministering to one other. So we should get back to home gatherings, but there has to be at least one man mature in the faith to lead these gatherings so that they stay on course. And he has to be a student of the Scriptures to make sure what is being shared is what the bible actually teaches, in the appropriate context. Sadly, it seems we have a severe lack of such godly men in our church gatherings today.

 

[Smeadly]

Christfreeze i appreciate your answer, but are you divining the scripture through tradition? To keep this civil get one of those proof text, any of them and i will prove to you that at the minimum you could be wrong

That is the wanting error of american church

Titus 1:5–7 (KJV):

5 For this cause left I thee in Crete, that thou shouldest set in order the things that are wanting, and ordain elders in every city, as I had appointed thee:
6 If any be blameless, the husband of one wife, having faithful children not accused of riot or unruly.
7 For a bishop must be....

The error is in halfheartedly reading it he becomes a bishop from the pool of elders just as elect citizens in every city for the councilman....

the elder is a man that has qualifications but is not an official but rather a rank and file man and is ordained as a bishop. go ahead and look and pull one up to keep it simple.

An elder that rules his house well gets a first honor because his children honor him, and he is worthy of double honor because the church notices his house and asks him to serve the church. Men wiith haywire children and from broken marriages though fine christians should not be in the oversite or ministry.