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Results from: Answered Bible Questions, Answers, Unanswered Bible Questions, Notes Ordered by Verse | ||||||
Results | Verse | Author | ID# | |||
1 | Offices today? | Matt 15:9 | charis | 14505 | ||
Dear Sir, No apologies are necessary, my friend. My point (my bent) is that it seems that more focus is made these days on the religious, institutional aspects of office, rather than the simple, Biblical aspect of servitude. Indeed, huge religious organizations have done great works, but I consider these minor in comparison to the work of the Holy Spirit through humble individuals to God-seeking individuals. Mega-churches, power-evangelism, super-revival, universities and hospitals cannot hold a candle to faith and ministry. The sin of the Pharisees is subtle, and may have a beautiful facade, but Jesus never once spoke of 'power-in-size or numbers.' He never once endorsed institutionalized religion, but admonished us to beware of it time and again. To say that the modern version of ministry is 'such and such' frightens me. I would prefer the original, unadulterated version. I am certain that the Holy Spirit is capable of giving us the same spirit of the early church, today, if we allow Him to do so. But, for the most part, present -day religion is so organized (into complete confusion, by the way!) that there is little room for the Spirit to work in our lives. My proof is in the state of the church. Though we 'enjoy' all of these institutional 'blessings' and trappings, the simple faith in God is at an all-time low. Our enemy is not stupid! He is aware that the best offense is side-tracking us with bits and pieces of outward 'blessing.' And much of the church is swallowing it, hook, line, and sinker. The present-day church is obviously polarized into the comfortable, (humanly) organized religious persons, and the emotionally-starved experience-seekers, BOTH devoid of the Spirit, while claiming to be filled by Him. The church is in need of repentance, to return to Christ, away from the uninspired religion of this age. I must say that I have never seen a true 'large number of people are working together for the same goal.' I agree that we must have a church, the local church and the universal church. But the government of His church must rest upon His shoulders, not our divided misinterpretation of His Word. Our sin is that if something works once or twice, we say that it is God's will, and close the doors for the Spirit to do something different in the future. We call this 'organization.' Truly, God loves order, but He demands the right to lead things! This is what is missing, balance. The balance of order and dependence on the Spirit of God. The Word of God is *active,* not predictable. When we 'extrapolate' our faith, it is no longer faith, but religion. That is why we need ministers, not administrators; Spirit-sensitive servants, not officials. Indeed, Christ alone holds 'office' since His resurrection. We should relenquish these things to the Holy Spirit, and be blessed thereby. Forgive the 'ranting,' a.k.a. preaching. :-) In Jesus' name, charis |
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2 | Offices today? | Matt 15:9 | Hank | 14508 | ||
Charis, beloved brother in the Lord Jesus, it's good to read a post by an old and trusted friend of the forum, one of the pioneers..... I've a quirky mind to be sure, and your post somehow sparked two items to remembrance. One concerns structured churches and one concerns members of churches....... Some years ago I served in some menial capacity as a lay leader under the auspices of an associate pastor whose main raison d'etre was to investigate the functions of the dozen or so standing committees within the church. So she (that was before I became a Southern Baptist) created another committee to investigate and co-ordinate the functions of the other committees and named me its chairman. Thus I became the head of what was possibly the first committee committee in the history of the church! It was along about then that it dawned on me that the mission of the church surely is not the busy work of organizing and investigating of committees. There just must be more to it than that. And yet I fear that, to more of a degree than we like to imagine or are willing to admit, it is for many churches just that and little more. Wooden churches. Bland. No Spirit. No Zeal...... And now to my other spark, the one about members of churches. In his book "Tobacco Road" about Georgia share-croppers, Erskine Caldwel depicted a crusty old farmer named Ty Ty who with the greatest of difficulty managed to eke out a living on the parcel of George red clay he called a farm. During a drought than which Georgia had seen no greater in 50 years, Ty Ty is out in the middle of his parched tobacco field, his arms pointed toward heaven, and he is praying. "Now, look here, Lord," he says, "You know good and well I need rain and I need it bad. I been praying all week and you ain't done nothing about it yet. So listen to me. I'm giving you till Sunday to send some rain, and if'n you don't, I'm going to take matters into my own hands."....... So how many members of churches are like Ty Ty? Rather than pray earnestly and wait on the Lord to send his Spirit into their midst to guide, goad, inspire and revive the wooden churches, are they not all too eager to take matters into their own hands? And they are acting every bit as ridiculous as Ty Ty. --Hank | ||||||