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NASB | Matthew 15:9 'BUT IN VAIN DO THEY WORSHIP ME, TEACHING AS DOCTRINES THE PRECEPTS OF MEN.'" |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | Matthew 15:9 'BUT IN VAIN DO THEY WORSHIP ME, FOR THEY TEACH AS DOCTRINES THE PRECEPTS OF MEN.'" [Is 29:13] |
Subject: Offices today? |
Bible Note: 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 |