From Jared Wilson at Gospel Driven Church . . .
That voice in your head that keeps rehearsing the
disappointments and flaws of your church is not from the Lord. It is the
accuser, helping you get to the “I have no need of you” forbidden in
1 Corinthians 12:21.
We may have legitimate concerns about our church’s maturity, its
repentance, its effectiveness, or its “personality,” and there is
certainly a place for sharing concerns and criticisms, a biblical call
to honest appraisal, and plenty of space for exhortation and rebuke, but
many claiming to do these things have shifted to a legal measuring none
of us really has the authority for. Here is what Dietrich Bonhoeffer
says in
Life Together about looking at our churches through the lens of scrutiny:
If we do not give thanks daily for the Christian
fellowship in which we have been placed, even where there is no great
experience, no discoverable riches, but much weakness, small faith, and
difficulty; if on the contrary, we only keep complaining to God that
everything is so paltry and petty, so far from what we expected, then we
hinder God from letting our fellowship grow according to the measure
and riches which are there for us all in Jesus Christ.
This applies in a special way to the complaints often heard from
pastors and zealous members about their congregations. A pastor should
not complain about his congregations, certainly never to other people,
but also not to God. A congregation has not been entrusted to him in
order that he should become its accuser before God and men. When a
person becomes alienated from a Christian community in which he has been
placed and begins to raise complaints about it, he had better examine
himself first to see whether the trouble is not due to his wish dream
that should be shattered by God; and if this be the case, let him thank
God for leading him into this predicament.
But if not, let him nevertheless guard against ever becoming an
accuser of the congregation before God. Let him rather accuse himself
for his unbelief. Let him pray to God for understanding of his own
failure and his particular sin, and pray that he may not wrong his
brethren. Let him, in the consciousness of his own guilt, make
intercession for his brethren. Let him do what he is committed to do,
and thank God . . .
What may appear weak and trifling to us may be great and glorious to
God. Just as the Christian should not be constantly feeling his
spiritual pulse, so, too, the Christian community has not been given to
us by God for us to be constantly taking its temperature. The more
thankfully we daily receive what is given to us, the more surely and
steadily will fellowship increase and grow from day to day as God
pleases.
What is this “wish-dream” Bonhoeffer’s talking about? It is the vision we have for the church we
want.
In one sense, a good thing. We should all want our church to be moving
forward, growing, changing — more into conformity with the image of
Christ. But we shouldn’t let that image get in the way of loving our
church
where it is.
In
1 Peter 5:2,
Peter exhorts pastors to shepherd the flock that is among them. I think
we could apply this fairly reasonably to non-pastors as well. Love the
church that is actually “among you,” not the one you wish was there. God
in his wisdom has not placed you there to be a busybody or malcontent.
Ask yourself these questions:
1. Am I disappointed my church isn’t more like Jesus, or that it isn’t more like me?
In the diversity of the body is a diversity of callings and passions. It
is not fair, nor gracious, to expect the other members of a body to
carry the same individual callings or passions as others. If the problem
is disobedience to a clear biblical command, that is one thing. If the
problem is disinterest in your interest, that is another.
2. Is the problem a matter for church discipline? Is it an issue of gospel-denial?
Rebukes are for sin, not for disappointment. If your church affirms the
gospel but denies emphasis on your area of concern, don’t make a federal
case out of it.
3. Can you rehearse the blessings and benefits of your local body as easily as their flaws and failings?
If you are constantly unhappy there and cannot shake envy for the
wish-dream, it is better for you to leave in peace than to stay and
grumble.
4. Do you see others’ faults more readily than your own?
The answer to this question, for nearly all of us, is
yes. So it
is with great caution and great desire for grace that we ought to make
the faults of others our business. Your church has a long, long way to
go, no doubt. Every church does. But so do you.
Let’s not be our church’s accuser. Someone has already taken that
position. And let’s not keep constantly taking our church’s temperature.
Let’s love and serve and submit and, yes, exhort and rebuke, and then
let’s love and serve and submit more and more, believing that the Spirit
is at work many times in ways we are blind to. God will be faithful to
finish the good work he’s begun in us, and he doesn’t need you walking
around with your hall monitor sash, handing out demerits.
In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.
–
Ephesians 2:22
The fate of those who have never heard the gospel is occasionally brought up in conversations. It is a difficult question, not because the bible is not clear on it but because we do not think it is just or fair to condemn someone to hell who has not heard the gospel or we just want somehow to have hope for those who have never hear the gospel. Unfortunately, the bible is not optimistic at all toward those who have never heard and that is why evangelism and mission, both local and global, is a pressing concern in the New Testament. Look at what Paul writes in Ephesians,
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