August 10, 2006
Stumbling Block?
I wrote a letter to our leaders concerning some of the issues surfacing in our church and the direction we were going. In response, their letter to me ended with the following, “We would encourage all members to be a shinning light everyday of their lives and to help the staff work through stumbling blocks that Satan puts in our way.” I’m assuming the ‘stumbling blocks’ are people who question the leadership and the direction they are taking the church. I’m a what? What I do find objectionable is that Satan is brought into the picture. Reading between the lines it’s easy to hear, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men.” (Matt 16:23 NIV)
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Gail;
----"And Peter took Him and began to rebuke Him, saying, 'God forbid, Lord! This shall never happen to you." (Matt 16:22) I am always careful when I attribute anything to Satan. My understanding is that he is probably a pretty busy guy. So I rarely think that my significance rises to the level that he has come around putting stumbling blocks in my way whenever something disagreeable happens to me. It behooves me to examine carefully the issues involved in any situation before I attribute anything to good or evil. In the situation that the elder's words brought to mind, Peter's statement that brought such a rebuke from Jesus was directly opposing God's plan to provide a way of salvation to all mankind. That situation was not only of imperative significance to God and all the rest of us, so the good and evil in it are plainly visible.
----But here we have a situation where "Satan's stumbling block" has been put in the way of men who are trying to make a group of people worship, praise, and serve God in a manner they themselves understand as right. But others at that church understand worship, praise, and service to be somewhat different, and they, too, could feel that the leaders are the ones being Satan's stumbling block to them. Paul says, "...let eveyone be convinced in his own mind..." Rom 14:6, "...pursue what makes for peace and mutual upbuilding..." Rom (14:19), "...the faith that you have keep between yourself and God..." Rom 14:22, and "...agree with one another..." (I Cor 1:10).
----I have become fully convinced that what God is pleased with in His people is not what we do in our worship services, rather it might be how we have come to do it. If on the one hand we have a few men who have decided for the church, we then must have a resulting agreement with those men before there is unity in the church. But if on the other hand, we have a few men who listen to the church and allow adjustments of their ambitions to make room for the ideas and ambitions of others, we have agreement with one another. On the one hand everyone must keep the faith of a few men between themselves and God, on the other, they all can keep their own faith between themselves and God. On the one hand everyone is convinced in the minds of a few men, on the other, everyone can be convinced in their own minds. On the one hand there is peace through conquest over many by a few, on the other hand there is peace through the unity of mutual regard for one another.
----Having weighed this situation in the light of the Word of God, I dare not proclaim who is being a stumbling block to whom. I still love those men.
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