Why We Love Jesus' Church Part 2: Can You Authentically Be Healed to Love Jesus' Church? Jesus Answers, "Ask Me and Be Healed."
The series of posts this month is focused on Why We Love Jesus' Church. Here is a link to the first post: Because God Wants Us to Be Transformed to Be Like Him in Community.
This series of posts is based on my own discovery of learning that in God's faithfulness to help me grow to become more like Jesus, He has somehow graciously ignited in me and fanned into flame a love for His Church. I can honestly say that His transformative work, slow as I can too often make it, has been interconnected with how much He has taught me to love, serve, and be faithful to His bride. The post below features excerpts and ideas from Why We Love the Church: In Praise of Institutions and Organized Religion by Kevin DeYoung & Ted Kluck.
Is Loving Jesus and Ignoring His Church Similar to Open Basements, Slandering Friends' Spouses, and Decorpulation?
Is a basement still a basement if there's no house on top? Is a friend really your friend if you can't stand his wife? Is a head still a head if it doesn't have a body?
According to 1 Corinthians 3:9-17, the church is God's building, with Jesus Christ as its foundation. To be sure, there can be no superstructure without a solid foundation. That's obvious. But it should also be obvious that no one lays a foundation unless he plans to build on it. No one drives past a cement foundation in the dirt and thinks, "Looks like they're about ready to move in." We know that a foundation exists to be built upon, not lived in all by itself. Who wants to live in a basement without the rest of the house on top? No one except maybe when we say and act like we want Jesus, but not the church.
More common than describing the church as God's building is the imagery of Christ and the church as husband and wife (Eph. 5:23; Rev. 19:6-9). Christ loves the church, gave Himself up for her, and makes her beautiful. The church submits to Christ, grows in beauty before Him, and obeys His commands. The two are one – now in preview, and later in fullness, but still they are one. They are inseparable as husband and wife. And any husband worth the paper his marriage license is printed on will be jealous to guard the good name of his wife. She may be a lying, no good, double-crossing poor excuse for a wife, but if she's your wife, you'll protect her honor, whatever may be left of it. And woe to the friend who comes around your house, hangs out, and expects to have a good time, all the while getting digs in on your bride. Who wants a friend who rolls his eyes and sighs every time your wife walks into the room? Apparently, we imagine Jesus wants friends like that when we roll our eyes and sigh over His church.
The Bible also tells us that the church is the body of Christ, with Jesus Himself at its head (Eph. 1:22-23). Every body needs a head to rule over it – to give it direction and purpose, to instruct it in the way it should go, to hold things together and give life to its members. Likewise, every head needs a body. Most of us don't see too many heads bobbing along apart from their bodies, except for maybe in science fiction. If we ever did, I imagine our first instinct would not be to cuddle with the little cranium and sing it a love song. Strange though it may be, it is not unusual for how we can view Jesus separate from His Church. Increasingly, we hear (and can contribute to) glowing talk of a churchless Christianity. Both inside the church and out, organized religion can be seen as oppressive, irrelevant, and a waste of time. We like Jesus but not the church. We think we can do just fine with God apart from the church. If decapitation, from the Latin word caput, means to cut off the head, then it stands to reason that decorpulation, from the Latin word corpus, should refer to cutting off the body, which is what we're doing when we say we're healthy with Jesus, but not His church.
But while the church we love is as flawed and messed up as we are, she's Christ's bride nonetheless, and we might as well have a basement without a house or a head without a body as despise the wife our Savior loves.
Do We Make Visible Our Invisible God as the Visible Body of Christ?
The very word ekklesia where we get our word "church" from means "public assembly" and speaks to the necessity of our Christian commitment being made visible. Christians throughout the world, in persecuted regions especially, are generously giving to us when they identify with the visible church as they provide us with insight and beauty from varied expressions of our common faith.
Only the church together (not individuals themselves) constitutes the body of Christ. While it is true that Christ establishes life in every believer, the church alone is "the fullness of Him who fills all in all" (Eph. 1:23). Churchless Christianity makes about as much sense as a Christless church, and has just as much biblical warrant. Anglican Priest John Stott's assessment in The Living Church of evangelism in Acts is right: The Lord "didn't add them to the church without saving them, and he didn't save them without adding them to the church. Salvation and church membership went together; they still do."
Can we be authentic when we look at ourselves and our criticisms in the mirror? Let's start by asking these questions: Do we not like the church because it's too hierarchical, but then hate when it has poor leadership? Do we wish the church could be more diverse, but then leave to be with people who feel like us, think like us, and look like us? Do we want the church to know that its reputation is terrible with outsiders, but then are critical when the church is concerned with how it welcomes those who are different than us? Do we want church unity and decry all denominations, but then fail to see the irony when we leave to "find a better church" because we can't find one to satisfy us? Do we want leaders with vision, but don't want anyone to tell us what to do or how to think? Do we want a church where the people really know each other and care for each other, but then complain that the church pays too much attention to its faithful family members? Do we call for not judging "the spiritual path of other individual believers who are dedicated to pleasing God and blessing people," but then blast the church, a collection of individuals in the harshest, most unflattering terms?
Next post: CN | Jesus Calls Us to Embody His Righteousness & Justice TogetherAccording to 1 Corinthians 3:9-17, the church is God's building, with Jesus Christ as its foundation. To be sure, there can be no superstructure without a solid foundation. That's obvious. But it should also be obvious that no one lays a foundation unless he plans to build on it. No one drives past a cement foundation in the dirt and thinks, "Looks like they're about ready to move in." We know that a foundation exists to be built upon, not lived in all by itself. Who wants to live in a basement without the rest of the house on top? No one except maybe when we say and act like we want Jesus, but not the church.
More common than describing the church as God's building is the imagery of Christ and the church as husband and wife (Eph. 5:23; Rev. 19:6-9). Christ loves the church, gave Himself up for her, and makes her beautiful. The church submits to Christ, grows in beauty before Him, and obeys His commands. The two are one – now in preview, and later in fullness, but still they are one. They are inseparable as husband and wife. And any husband worth the paper his marriage license is printed on will be jealous to guard the good name of his wife. She may be a lying, no good, double-crossing poor excuse for a wife, but if she's your wife, you'll protect her honor, whatever may be left of it. And woe to the friend who comes around your house, hangs out, and expects to have a good time, all the while getting digs in on your bride. Who wants a friend who rolls his eyes and sighs every time your wife walks into the room? Apparently, we imagine Jesus wants friends like that when we roll our eyes and sigh over His church.
The Bible also tells us that the church is the body of Christ, with Jesus Himself at its head (Eph. 1:22-23). Every body needs a head to rule over it – to give it direction and purpose, to instruct it in the way it should go, to hold things together and give life to its members. Likewise, every head needs a body. Most of us don't see too many heads bobbing along apart from their bodies, except for maybe in science fiction. If we ever did, I imagine our first instinct would not be to cuddle with the little cranium and sing it a love song. Strange though it may be, it is not unusual for how we can view Jesus separate from His Church. Increasingly, we hear (and can contribute to) glowing talk of a churchless Christianity. Both inside the church and out, organized religion can be seen as oppressive, irrelevant, and a waste of time. We like Jesus but not the church. We think we can do just fine with God apart from the church. If decapitation, from the Latin word caput, means to cut off the head, then it stands to reason that decorpulation, from the Latin word corpus, should refer to cutting off the body, which is what we're doing when we say we're healthy with Jesus, but not His church.
But while the church we love is as flawed and messed up as we are, she's Christ's bride nonetheless, and we might as well have a basement without a house or a head without a body as despise the wife our Savior loves.
Do We Make Visible Our Invisible God as the Visible Body of Christ?
The very word ekklesia where we get our word "church" from means "public assembly" and speaks to the necessity of our Christian commitment being made visible. Christians throughout the world, in persecuted regions especially, are generously giving to us when they identify with the visible church as they provide us with insight and beauty from varied expressions of our common faith.
When we support the organized church, we emphasize the spiritual essence of God's gathered people as the body of Christ. The church makes visible our invisible God. "The Body of Christ takes up space on earth," argued the German Lutheran martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer. "The Body of Christ can only be a visible Body, or else it is not a Body at all. The Body of Christ becomes visible to the world in the congregation gathered around the Word and Sacrament." Without the institutional church there may be less to despise about Christianity, but there would also be more of an invisible bride to love and less of a visible Christ to see. "Theologically, we have been discovering anew that the Church is not an appendage to the Gospel," says Scottish Anglican missiologist Stephen Neill, "it is itself a part of the Gospel. The Gospel cannot be separated from that new people of God in which its nature is to be made manifest."
Only the church together (not individuals themselves) constitutes the body of Christ. While it is true that Christ establishes life in every believer, the church alone is "the fullness of Him who fills all in all" (Eph. 1:23). Churchless Christianity makes about as much sense as a Christless church, and has just as much biblical warrant. Anglican Priest John Stott's assessment in The Living Church of evangelism in Acts is right: The Lord "didn't add them to the church without saving them, and he didn't save them without adding them to the church. Salvation and church membership went together; they still do."
Is Jesus' Church Both Organism and Organization with God-Appointed Servant Leaders?
The church as the people of God is both organism and organization. The church is a breathing, growing, maturing, living thing. It is also comprised of a certain order (1 Cor. 14:40), with institutional norms (1 Cor. 5:1-13), doctrinal standards (1 Cor. 15:1-5), and defined rituals (1 Cor. 11:23-26). The two aspects of the church – organism and organization – must not be played off against each other, for both are "grounded in the operations of the glorified head of the church through the Holy Spirit." Offices and gifts, governance and the people, organization and organism – all these belong together. They are all blessings from the work of Christ.
God could rule His church in a different way, but He chose to use means. We see throughout the Bible the "divine preference for human agency." Instead of pitting Spirit against the Scriptures or structure, Christ's care against pastoral care, or God's authority against human authority, we see that God chose to use His Spirit to organize and work through the Scriptures and structures, that chosen shepherds' care is empowered by the Chief Shepherd's care, and that God has raised up leaders to take care of His family. "To say that Christ has founded a church without any organization, government, or power is a statement that arises from principles characteristic of philosophical mysticism but takes no account of the teaching of Scripture, nor of the realities of life."
No one wants a church run by dictators or egomaniacs, just as no one wants a church where relationships are choked out by policies and procedures, but the Bible simply does not teach a leaderless church. Instead we see the apostles exercising great authority over the churches (e.g. 2 Cor. 13:1-4). We have pastors commanded to "exhort and rebuke with all authority" (Titus 2:15; see also 2 Tim. 4:2). We see elder rule (Acts 14:23, 15:2, 20:17; Phil. 1:1; 1 Tim. 3:1-7, 5:17; Titus 1:5; James 5:14; 1 Peter 5:1), accompanied by the office of deacon to care for the physical needs of the congregation (1 Tim. 3:8-13; Phil 1:1; see also Acts 6:1-7). To be sure, elders are not to domineer over those in their charge, but they still must exercise oversight (1 Peter 5:2-3) and those in the congregation should "obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account" (Heb. 13:17). It was Christ who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers (Eph. 4:11 NIV). We cannot throw out the pastoral office just because we prefer a flat structure or just because some pastors are goons. Pastoral ministry is what God has entrusted to the elders of the church (Acts 20:28; 1 Peter 5:1-2). Pastors must exercise "the benevolent use of authority. Authority without compassion leads to harsh authoritarianism. Compassion without authority leads to social chaos." This is a much more balanced and biblical look at pastoral ministry than the "all or nothing," "tyrannical authority or no authority" dichotomies.
Bonhoeffer was right: "The Church or congregation is an articulated organism. When we speak of the Church as the Body of Christ, we include its articulation and order. These are essential to the Body and are of divine appointment. An unarticulated body is doomed to perish. Church order is divine both in origin and character, though of course it is meant to serve and not to rule."
Is Jesus' Church Meant to Gather Publicly to Worship, Listen to Each Other, and Be Discipled Together through Jesus' Grace and Truth Preached and Practiced?
Does part of being the church entail worshiping together as the church? It's true that a church is more than the sum of its worship services. But is a church that does not assemble regularly for corporate worship a church? Are worship services merely peripheral to the life of Jesus' Church?
Maybe we need to recapture a broader vision for what we are doing when we gather together. We are not coming together for a few songs and an ill-conceived oration. Our gathering for worship is an exercise in covenant renewal, a regular celebration of the resurrection, and a foretaste of the heavenly banquet to come. The New Testament strongly suggests that the two go together: Those who are the church take time to worship as the church. We know from Acts 2:42 that the first Christians met together regularly for teaching, fellowship (possibly the word for taking a collection), the Lord's Supper, and prayer. We know from 1 Corinthians 12-14 that public worship was an important part of the life of the church. We see in 1 Timothy 4:13 that there were regular times for the public reading of Scripture. In 1 Corinthians 11:18 we read instructions for "when you come together as a church," indicating that there was a unique gathering "as a church" that was not the same as a few Christians hanging out and talking about Jesus. As Gordon Fee puts it, "The people of God may be called the 'church/assembly' first of all because they regularly assemble as a 'church/assembly.''' Later in 1 Corinthians 16:1-2 we read instructions for setting aside a collection 'on the first day of every week," suggesting that the church at Corinth met for services of worship every Sunday. And in Hebrews 10:25 we are commanded not to neglect to meeting together (literally, do not forsake the assembly of yourselves). The word for "meet together," episynagogen, does not refer to Christian friends reading their Bibles together but to the formal gathering of God's people for worship.
And what about the role of preaching in church worship? In his classic Between Two Worlds, John Stott traces a sermonic thread from Jesus, to the apostles, through the writings of Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Irenaeus, and Eusebius; through the preaching of John Chrysostom, the Friars, and the Dominicans; through the Reformers, the Puritans, the Methodists, all the way to our current pastors and priests, and concludes that "preaching is indispensable to Christianity." Dating to the beginning of the second century, the Didache, or The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, was akin to an early church constitution. From this document, we see the central role preaching played in the fledgling church. There were daily services of reading the Word, and a large body of prophets, teachers, and bishops devoted themselves full-time to preaching and teaching. In fact, "the Didache assumes that the main function of the various ministries is teaching." The setting of the Didache presumes not just mutual sharing but designated leaders charged with authoritative teaching and preaching in the congregation.
The sermon came from Judaism, which developed and refined the practice of exegesis and expositional preaching in the centuries leading up to Christ. "We know," says Hughes Oliphant Old, "that in the time of Jesus the Torah, the Law of Moses, was regularly read and preached in worship. This was the cardinal characteristic of Jewish worship." We can see this in nascent form throughout the Old Testament. The Levites were to teach Israel the law (Deut. 33:10). The true priest was not just a butcher but a teaching priest (2 Chron. 15:3). Ezra read the law to the returning exiles, "giving them the sense of it" (Neh. 8:6-8). And we see the same development in the New Testament. We know John the Baptist preached and Jesus preached. We know Paul preached and instructed his apprentice Timothy, with the most solemn warning, to also preach (2 Tim. 4:1-2). Even Jesus Himself, we should remember, was a trainer of preachers, sending His disciples out not just to facilitate group discussions but to preach (Mark 3:14). The apostles considered the ministry of the Word such a full-time job that they appointed other men to care for the physical needs of the church (Acts 6:1-7).
God has always been a revealing God, a God who speaks to His people. By His words God created the heavens and the earth. By the word declared – spoken and then written – He formed the nation of Israel at Sinai. By the word declared – and written – He instructed His people through the prophets. By the Word He forms, gathers, and instructs the church. We see this expressed in the Didache where the Lord is said to be present where the things of the Lord are spoken, and 1 Peter 1 where the word of God is the Word of Scripture and, in a derivative but not less real sense, the preached sermon (1:25). The Greek word for preacher is kerux. It is different than the word for teacher or apostle (2 Tim. 1:11). A kerux is a herald, declaring a message for the King. When Amos predicted a "famine" of "hearing the words of the Lord" (Amos 8:11) he wasn't thinking of the lack of personal conversations about Yahweh. He was thinking about the absence of God's appointed mouthpieces to declare His Word. If we lose preaching – the passionate, authoritative proclamation of God's message from God's leader to God's people – we are losing a normative, essential aspect of Christian worship, one that began in the New Testament, stretches back into the Old, and has had a rich and continuous history over the past thousands of years.
With the creedal and confession-like statements of the Christian faith found in 1 Corinthians 15:1-5, Philippians 2:5-11, and 1 Timothy 3:16, early followers of Jesus had dogma. And as for ritual, we have the Lord's supper (1 Corinthians 11:23-26), baptism (Ephesians 4:4-6), and praying the prayer Jesus taught His disciples to pray (Matthew 6:9-13) for examples, all community acts meant to be done regularly together with guidelines. Christianity is a religion. We have a sacred book, sacred teaching, sacred sacraments, and sacred offices. Jesus didn't say if you love Me you'll feel close to Me. He said if you love Me, you'll keep My commandments. The church, as the gathering of those who love Jesus, should be pure, holy, loving and true – both as an indication of our obedience and as a reflection of the character of God. That's why discipleship/discipline have traditionally been a mark of the church. Discipline promotes the purity of the church and honors the Lord Jesus Christ. This faithful accountability to each other occurs in the institution and organism of the church with Jesus' standards and dogma He uses to help lead her by His Word, Spirit, and under-shepherds.
God could rule His church in a different way, but He chose to use means. We see throughout the Bible the "divine preference for human agency." Instead of pitting Spirit against the Scriptures or structure, Christ's care against pastoral care, or God's authority against human authority, we see that God chose to use His Spirit to organize and work through the Scriptures and structures, that chosen shepherds' care is empowered by the Chief Shepherd's care, and that God has raised up leaders to take care of His family. "To say that Christ has founded a church without any organization, government, or power is a statement that arises from principles characteristic of philosophical mysticism but takes no account of the teaching of Scripture, nor of the realities of life."
No one wants a church run by dictators or egomaniacs, just as no one wants a church where relationships are choked out by policies and procedures, but the Bible simply does not teach a leaderless church. Instead we see the apostles exercising great authority over the churches (e.g. 2 Cor. 13:1-4). We have pastors commanded to "exhort and rebuke with all authority" (Titus 2:15; see also 2 Tim. 4:2). We see elder rule (Acts 14:23, 15:2, 20:17; Phil. 1:1; 1 Tim. 3:1-7, 5:17; Titus 1:5; James 5:14; 1 Peter 5:1), accompanied by the office of deacon to care for the physical needs of the congregation (1 Tim. 3:8-13; Phil 1:1; see also Acts 6:1-7). To be sure, elders are not to domineer over those in their charge, but they still must exercise oversight (1 Peter 5:2-3) and those in the congregation should "obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account" (Heb. 13:17). It was Christ who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers (Eph. 4:11 NIV). We cannot throw out the pastoral office just because we prefer a flat structure or just because some pastors are goons. Pastoral ministry is what God has entrusted to the elders of the church (Acts 20:28; 1 Peter 5:1-2). Pastors must exercise "the benevolent use of authority. Authority without compassion leads to harsh authoritarianism. Compassion without authority leads to social chaos." This is a much more balanced and biblical look at pastoral ministry than the "all or nothing," "tyrannical authority or no authority" dichotomies.
Bonhoeffer was right: "The Church or congregation is an articulated organism. When we speak of the Church as the Body of Christ, we include its articulation and order. These are essential to the Body and are of divine appointment. An unarticulated body is doomed to perish. Church order is divine both in origin and character, though of course it is meant to serve and not to rule."
Is Jesus' Church Meant to Gather Publicly to Worship, Listen to Each Other, and Be Discipled Together through Jesus' Grace and Truth Preached and Practiced?
Does part of being the church entail worshiping together as the church? It's true that a church is more than the sum of its worship services. But is a church that does not assemble regularly for corporate worship a church? Are worship services merely peripheral to the life of Jesus' Church?
Maybe we need to recapture a broader vision for what we are doing when we gather together. We are not coming together for a few songs and an ill-conceived oration. Our gathering for worship is an exercise in covenant renewal, a regular celebration of the resurrection, and a foretaste of the heavenly banquet to come. The New Testament strongly suggests that the two go together: Those who are the church take time to worship as the church. We know from Acts 2:42 that the first Christians met together regularly for teaching, fellowship (possibly the word for taking a collection), the Lord's Supper, and prayer. We know from 1 Corinthians 12-14 that public worship was an important part of the life of the church. We see in 1 Timothy 4:13 that there were regular times for the public reading of Scripture. In 1 Corinthians 11:18 we read instructions for "when you come together as a church," indicating that there was a unique gathering "as a church" that was not the same as a few Christians hanging out and talking about Jesus. As Gordon Fee puts it, "The people of God may be called the 'church/assembly' first of all because they regularly assemble as a 'church/assembly.''' Later in 1 Corinthians 16:1-2 we read instructions for setting aside a collection 'on the first day of every week," suggesting that the church at Corinth met for services of worship every Sunday. And in Hebrews 10:25 we are commanded not to neglect to meeting together (literally, do not forsake the assembly of yourselves). The word for "meet together," episynagogen, does not refer to Christian friends reading their Bibles together but to the formal gathering of God's people for worship.
And what about the role of preaching in church worship? In his classic Between Two Worlds, John Stott traces a sermonic thread from Jesus, to the apostles, through the writings of Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Irenaeus, and Eusebius; through the preaching of John Chrysostom, the Friars, and the Dominicans; through the Reformers, the Puritans, the Methodists, all the way to our current pastors and priests, and concludes that "preaching is indispensable to Christianity." Dating to the beginning of the second century, the Didache, or The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, was akin to an early church constitution. From this document, we see the central role preaching played in the fledgling church. There were daily services of reading the Word, and a large body of prophets, teachers, and bishops devoted themselves full-time to preaching and teaching. In fact, "the Didache assumes that the main function of the various ministries is teaching." The setting of the Didache presumes not just mutual sharing but designated leaders charged with authoritative teaching and preaching in the congregation.
The sermon came from Judaism, which developed and refined the practice of exegesis and expositional preaching in the centuries leading up to Christ. "We know," says Hughes Oliphant Old, "that in the time of Jesus the Torah, the Law of Moses, was regularly read and preached in worship. This was the cardinal characteristic of Jewish worship." We can see this in nascent form throughout the Old Testament. The Levites were to teach Israel the law (Deut. 33:10). The true priest was not just a butcher but a teaching priest (2 Chron. 15:3). Ezra read the law to the returning exiles, "giving them the sense of it" (Neh. 8:6-8). And we see the same development in the New Testament. We know John the Baptist preached and Jesus preached. We know Paul preached and instructed his apprentice Timothy, with the most solemn warning, to also preach (2 Tim. 4:1-2). Even Jesus Himself, we should remember, was a trainer of preachers, sending His disciples out not just to facilitate group discussions but to preach (Mark 3:14). The apostles considered the ministry of the Word such a full-time job that they appointed other men to care for the physical needs of the church (Acts 6:1-7).
God has always been a revealing God, a God who speaks to His people. By His words God created the heavens and the earth. By the word declared – spoken and then written – He formed the nation of Israel at Sinai. By the word declared – and written – He instructed His people through the prophets. By the Word He forms, gathers, and instructs the church. We see this expressed in the Didache where the Lord is said to be present where the things of the Lord are spoken, and 1 Peter 1 where the word of God is the Word of Scripture and, in a derivative but not less real sense, the preached sermon (1:25). The Greek word for preacher is kerux. It is different than the word for teacher or apostle (2 Tim. 1:11). A kerux is a herald, declaring a message for the King. When Amos predicted a "famine" of "hearing the words of the Lord" (Amos 8:11) he wasn't thinking of the lack of personal conversations about Yahweh. He was thinking about the absence of God's appointed mouthpieces to declare His Word. If we lose preaching – the passionate, authoritative proclamation of God's message from God's leader to God's people – we are losing a normative, essential aspect of Christian worship, one that began in the New Testament, stretches back into the Old, and has had a rich and continuous history over the past thousands of years.
With the creedal and confession-like statements of the Christian faith found in 1 Corinthians 15:1-5, Philippians 2:5-11, and 1 Timothy 3:16, early followers of Jesus had dogma. And as for ritual, we have the Lord's supper (1 Corinthians 11:23-26), baptism (Ephesians 4:4-6), and praying the prayer Jesus taught His disciples to pray (Matthew 6:9-13) for examples, all community acts meant to be done regularly together with guidelines. Christianity is a religion. We have a sacred book, sacred teaching, sacred sacraments, and sacred offices. Jesus didn't say if you love Me you'll feel close to Me. He said if you love Me, you'll keep My commandments. The church, as the gathering of those who love Jesus, should be pure, holy, loving and true – both as an indication of our obedience and as a reflection of the character of God. That's why discipleship/discipline have traditionally been a mark of the church. Discipline promotes the purity of the church and honors the Lord Jesus Christ. This faithful accountability to each other occurs in the institution and organism of the church with Jesus' standards and dogma He uses to help lead her by His Word, Spirit, and under-shepherds.
Do We Make an Idol Out of Authenticity, Rather than Authentically Following Jesus with His Church?
The Bible is all for honesty, truth, and sincerity, but authenticity is something a little different. We want to be people who are honest with our feelings and open about our struggles. But godliness demands a lot more than just being real; godliness demands that we stop acting like we want to and start acting like Christ. Sometimes our authenticity is not a means of growing in holiness, but a convenient cover for endless introspection, doubt, uncertainty, anger, and acting the way we want.
Can we be authentic when we look at ourselves and our criticisms in the mirror? Let's start by asking these questions: Do we not like the church because it's too hierarchical, but then hate when it has poor leadership? Do we wish the church could be more diverse, but then leave to be with people who feel like us, think like us, and look like us? Do we want the church to know that its reputation is terrible with outsiders, but then are critical when the church is concerned with how it welcomes those who are different than us? Do we want church unity and decry all denominations, but then fail to see the irony when we leave to "find a better church" because we can't find one to satisfy us? Do we want leaders with vision, but don't want anyone to tell us what to do or how to think? Do we want a church where the people really know each other and care for each other, but then complain that the church pays too much attention to its faithful family members? Do we call for not judging "the spiritual path of other individual believers who are dedicated to pleasing God and blessing people," but then blast the church, a collection of individuals in the harshest, most unflattering terms?
In all honesty I can say that in the times I've been hurt by the church, the biggest problems in the end proved to be those that came from my own heart. This is not to discount external pressures, difficult situations, or the ways in which Christians can hurt people. Yet even with all these outside factors, my main issue has been me. I respond in sinful ways. I feel sorry for myself. I lose faith. I doubt the Word of God. I don't want to forgive. I stop hoping. I get embittered. I grow lazy. I don't stay in step with the Spirit. They are my sins from my heart. Others can make life difficult for me. But I am the one who can make it unbearable. And what if, in the end, our difficulty with church was God's means of sanctifying us and the church, instead of separating the two of us?
+ Sully
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