January 15, 2008
Taking Pains
Published in my local newspaper an AP report headline reads, Judge dismisses lawsuit against Baptist megachurch pastor. Church members accused Rev. Jerry Sutton, pastor of Two Rivers Baptist Church, of misappropriating funds and are asking for access to church records. Rev. Sutton says, “…the church members had no right to sue just because they didn’t like the way the church spent their offerings.” I can’t help but contrast this situation with Paul sending Titus and a trusted brother to Corinth. “… as we carry the offering, …. We want to avoid any criticism of the way we administer this liberal gift. For we are taking pains to do what is right, not only in the eyes of the Lord but also in the eyes of men.” 2 (Cor 8:19-21 NIV). Where Paul took pains to do what is right, it appears Rev. Sutton doesn’t to want to expend such effort.
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Gail;
-----There must be something about the Bible that is hard to understand. I recall all of the reference made to following Paul’s example of becoming all things to all people by the men who secretly spied out your church to purpose-drive it. And yet, their attitudes towards being open about the offerings entrusted to them were as much about secrecy as are those of Rev. Sutton. It causes me to wonder what qualifies one thing Paul did to be an example, and yet disqualifies the other. The Lord came face to face with the Pharisees and called them a brood of vipers, white washed tombs, and hypocrites because they stacked rules upon rules upon rules for the people to obey, but would not lift their own finger to bare the weight, nor would they recognize the fiber of compassion that weaves the Law. Why is it that I must refrain from imagining Christ saying the same words to Rev. Sutton and to those who spied out your church, demanding their own ways be followed, accusing others of being selfish, and denying functions that once were the services of the members? Could it be that the Pharisees were rejecting Christ while Rev. Sutton and these spies were actually brethren who really were trying to serve the Lord? But then, maybe their effort to serve the Lord is no more accurate than that of those who will say, “But Lord, Lord, did we not cast out demons and perform many miracles in your name?” When does the Bible apply to one but not to another?
-----I think God is like a trickster. Not maliciously, of course, and not self serving. But like anyone who wishes to find the genuiness in someone, He will not seek it right out in the open. God knows He is searching for His people from amongst a bunch of real tricksters. If He set the principle of His agreement outright in plain sight, the tricksters would trick their way into His eternity. But the determining principle is at the heart of the whole issue. It is where it was the day Lucifer performed his first error that became this horrible rebellion. It is self perspective. That is why Christ laid His self down, just the opposite action of Satan, who lifted his up. Simply counting one’s self may at times even fall into the circle of sin. The measure between when one’s self is important and when it is not is often very delicate. And when the issues are those of church, the Lord, and the brethren, the measurement does not get any easier to make. Yet church leaders stumble into the midst of their brethren carrying the same weightiness of self perspective as did the Pharisees, and they pour it all over everyone else. Because God has called them, given them visions, and set them up in their places of responsibility, they feel assured that their self perspective is right and bears authority from God.
-----That distinction applies the Bible to one, but not to the other. It is the same problem God faced in the very beginning of this mess when Satan fathered the lie. It is the fiber that weaves falsehood. And even in its surety about service to Christ, perspective from self can never see His road. So the interests of this Rev. Sutton may have been so important to the Lord that they towered too high to be reached by the principle of Paul’s example found in the Bible? So also may have been the interests of those spies at your church? I have always noticed that in the Bible, truth flows from simplicity. The foolishness of the cross involves the laying down of the self. Counting the self as less than others is a Biblical principle, and so is dieing to the self. The Bible does not then resurrect the self to be a pinnacle for the hanging up of the self’s own holy principles for others to follow. That was for the Pharisees to do. God intends that to fuel the wisps of flame in the waves of fire in the lake for Satan. It is not for the leaders of His church. And I seriously fear that those church leaders who persist in holding up their self perspective as authority will be crying out, “But Lord, Lord” in the near future.
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