February 22, 2008
Intervention
A questionable story about presidential candidate John McCain appeared on the front page of The New York Times. For me a portion of the report jumped off the page, “A female lobbyist had been turning up with him at fund-raisers, visiting his office and accompanying him on a client’s corporate jet. Convinced the relationship had become romantic, some of his top advisors intervened to protect the candidate from himself – instructing staff members to block the woman’s access, privately warning her away and repeatedly confronting him…” Whether or not these were the actual actions of McCain’s top advisors, we in the church could learn a lesson. We’ve all watched brothers and sisters slip into sin, but do we intervene, protect them from themselves, or confront them? Nooooo. We’re more worried about being accused of judging, meddling and gossiping.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Gail;
-----I think there are some churches around that do try to protect their people from themselves. When Char and I were looking for a good Christian school for our daughters, we noticed that you could enroll your children into the Mennonite school - if you did not watch TV. I figured that probably had some extension back into their church. My aunt was literally ostracized from the Church of Christ because she liked to listen to the radio at home. Of course, that was a number of years ago. I have a friend who was asked by the elders of his former church to tithe more or to leave. I know preachers who will not marry divorcees. Maybe my real point is that you are right. The behavior in the church has been allowed to get so selfish that the leaders do not even know what to protect it from. Char and I had a friend who married a young lady that always wore t-shirts. We would have this couple over occasionally to play Pinochle. When the evening was finished and our company departed, we would go to bed chuckling at how much her t-shirts served as a menu of all her previous week’s meals. I don’t know if it was a washing machine or soap that she did not have, but I do know she was short of clean t-shirts.
-----I believe thoroughly that the spotlessness of the Bride’s dress is not by her own washboard. I do not believe the church can free itself of all sin any more than either one of us can perfect ourselves. But I do believe that she is not excused from using her washboard to the best of her ability. I think the Lord looks for her effort in using it more than He looks for her success. Ultimately, it is His mercy that makes her spotless.
-----History bears this out. Rankling, quibbling, and quarreling were right there in the first years of the church. Many of Paul’s letters were written to deal with the problems of sinful attitudes and behavior in the church. It continued after the apostles had died in the divisions and power struggles at Corinth and other problems elsewhere. Soon Corinth was writing to the elder at the church of Rome for help, and that appeal became the precedent for giving the Roman church the respect which lead to a Papacy and the Vatican. The quarrellings of the first century became the doctrinal divisions of the following centuries which became the basis of the tortures, murders, and religious wars of the next millennium. The cheese on the bride’s t-shirt came to stink that bad.
-----I think that is a large part of why we are so passive to sin in our churches today. The relationship of conviction to strife and war has become a part of the social conscience of the Western World. This is probably a large part of why we Westerners look upon the extremist Muslims with such horror and disbelief. They have never developed such an aversion to war, and consequently, they have developed into the “wild donkeys” the Lord spoke of Ishmael (Gen 16:11-12). But our aversion to such violence and hateful behavior sprouts from the wrong roots. Sure, we want peace and security, freedom and prosperity. But where is our want for righteousness expressed? All of the wars of our Christian history has dissolved our ambition for righteousness. In fact, engage a few people in conversation about righteousness and you will find the majority of them expressing the problems that efforts for righteousness cause. We need look no further than our own churches to see what they mean. The leaders of your church have caused a nasty division because of their “better understanding of how the Lord wants the church to reach the community.” The leaders at my church have caused division because there is known a “better way to respond to spiritual corruption in the denominational leadership.” It all comes from some people thinking they know better than others.
-----Some one has to know better. And if someone does, he certainly will think he knows better. And in such thinking he will look just like those who cause wars, except he will be right. There is the difference. When one does know better he is right. And if a war is caused by his effort to help his neighbor, then may its starting be more the sinning neighbor’s fault than the helping brother’s fault? The issue is not simple until everyone has done what is simple and humbled themselves to the Lord. He directs us to His Word, the common instruction we all share. I think the church’s inability to approach those in sin is beyond repair until it addresses a few other more basic attitudes, such as not going beyond what is written, recognizing the insignificance of petty differences, operating from a genuine care for others, and learning the heart of what is written.
Love in the Lord
Steve Corey
Post a Comment