Speaking Evil of Authorities, Part 3
"…unto the church of God which is at Corinth, to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both their's and our's…" (1 Corinthians 1:2)
I'm sad to say that so much of what the Lord has shown me through this teaching was revelation of my own sins of the past concerning authority. Sins that I had to confess and repent of as this study progressed, prior to sharing it at the Women's Retreat; sins that had to do, most specifically, with my criticism of the church, whether it was past churches I've attended or the early church of the 2nd and 3rd centuries and forward. I have looked back and found myself to be quite critical of these even in my blogging, and have, as a result, gone back to those blogs and tried to remove that criticism wherever I have been able to find it. (If anyone is aware of any criticisms that I missed, please alert me to it so that I can remove it.)
It seems as though criticizing other churches, or other church members or church leaders, can take hold of us quite easily if we are not on our guard to prevent it. We all have that human tendency to believe that our church is the best; yet, we prove by our criticism of others that we are far from perfect as well.
It might help us if we can remember this one thing about the "church." No matter where the church is, no matter the denominational barriers or faults of specific individuals within the church, IF they are witnesses of Jesus Christ and proclaim Him to be the risen Son of God, then they are the BODY of JESUS CHRIST HIMSELF….and I don't believe any of us would want to risk criticizing HIM. We need to stop thinking of churches as just another building containing some folks of some other denomination that we just don't happen to agree with. We need to instead remember that they are the body of Christ….flaws and all….as are we…flaws and all!
"And He [Jesus] is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things He might have the preeminence." (Colossians 1:18)
Now, if we can think that way about other churches, that they are the body of Christ, then perhaps we can also begin to think that way about individual church members, especially those of our own church. Would we want to criticize even a part or portion of the Lord's body? Should we criticize His foot or His hand or His mouth? Would we dare to criticize any part of the Lord Himself? Of course not! So why do we think nothing of criticizing members or leaders of the church?
"Give none offence, neither to the Jews, nor to the Gentiles, nor to the church of God, even as I please all men in all things, not seeking mine own profit, but the profit of many, that they may be saved." (1 Corinthians 10:32-33)
I think Paul hit the nail on the head when he said in this passage above "not seeking mine own profit." That often seems to be the motivation we have when we find ourselves criticizing others in the church, yet we seldom seem to see it at the time. We each have our own thoughts, our own desires, our own ideas of how a church should be run. And when we set ourselves up higher than the Lord Himself (who is the HEAD of THAT CHURCH and is therefore aware of all that goes on in it), and determine that we can do things better or more efficiently or more eloquently, that is when the criticism begins to surface. And before long it has left our thoughts and been birthed into words….words of criticism that are directed to the Lord Himself whether we will acknowledge it or not.
If you have learned anything from this study on authority, I hope you have learned that we are not to speak evil of ANY authorities, as ALL authority has been established by God. How much more so His church, whom Jesus Christ Himself died for?
There is one last thing to be said about this body of Christ, and to get to that point I draw your attention to these two scriptures directed to those Christians who believe it's ok to be loners, isolated from the body of Christ, when it fact it is a dangerous thing, even a sign of your lack of sincerity in Christ, no matter how much you rationalize your reasons for not assembling together with the body that you have been called to:
"Let us consider one another to provoke unto love and good works: not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching." (Hebrews 10:24-25)
"They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us." (I John 2:19)
The first scripture is our biblical command to assemble together; and it is a command, it is not an option. The reason why is stated in the second scripture. If we are not living in community with the body of Christ, then how can we say that we are OF Christ? John states just prior to this passage of scripture that "even now there are many anti-christs; whereby we know that it is the last time [last days]."
The question has to be asked of each of us: are we walking by the spirit of Christ and in obedience to His Word…or not? If we are not walking by the spirit of Christ, if we are instead being disobedient to His Word…then what spirit is driving us?
"…work out your own salvation with fear and trembling…" (Phillipians 2:12)
Are we ready yet to recognize God's authority…completely and without question? If we grasp this properly, there will be a good healthy fear of the Lord, as well as a love of Him, that will cause us to walk obediently….thereby "working out [our] own salvation."
In the next and final posting of this series, Mighty Through God, Part 10, we will take a look at what it means to be "praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit" (Ephesians 6:18)
Have to make this in several postings....Post I:
ReplyDeleteYes, I know I am behind....an avalanche of life has happened and I am beginning to claw my way through. Here we go...
I am struggling with this lesson. I don't know exactly if I am on the same page and would categorize what I am saying as "speaking evil of authorities", but I do believe as Christians and as church members we are biblically empowered to rebuke "false teachers" in our midst and if that is in our church or in other positions of authority, we are obligated to do so. I know people can pull biblical support for almost any situation from the bible, and I certainly do not intent to use the bible as a tool in that manner. I simple wish to put the verses out here for all of us to ponder and discuss and seek input from others as to their meaning. Forgive me, I only have my NIV Bible handy...
1 John 4:1 -3 "Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world."
2 Timothy 4:2-5 "Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage--with great patience and careful instruction. For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit them a great number of teachers to say what turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry."
1 Thessalonians 5:21 "Test everything."
Acts 20: 27-31 "For I have not hesitated to proclaim to you the whole will of God. Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood. I know that after I leave, savage wolves will come in among you and will not spare the flock. Even from your own number men will arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after them. So be on your guard! Remember that for three years I never stopped warning each of you night and days with tears." GW
So, if as Christians, we take the definition of criticize "to consider the merits and to judge accordingly"
ReplyDeleteor "to evaluate" I do not see where there is any wrong in doing that, based on the biblical verses above. If, you mean the definition of to criticize as to "find fault with" or "point out faults" I could agree with that. I would have to confess I have done this in the past. I admit here and now, I find it very hard to relate to the churches that only play the what I call "7-11" music (For those new to the blog, this is the popular music that is played on many of the Christian radio stations. Some Christians call it "7-11" songs because most of the time there are seven words, repeated eleven times.) It's not bad music, this music has its place, but seems not to reach across to the multiple generations within a church. Sometimes, I think the music directors forget who they are trying to reach....I say this because over and over again I have been told they say they are "playing to the younger generation". This is at the expense of the "older generation".
This is of course a small example of what I would call "constructive criticism" for a church. I believe I shared this with you on this blog, our previous church was a small "bible church". To make a long story very short, a church of 20 years, no longer existed because a pastor chose to ignore what his members were saying as they were speaking to him in exit interviews and calls to deacons before leaving the church. Within a three year period of time, a church that was 20 years old had paid off its debt it love offers given by a membership consisting of 30 "active member" families and another 20 or so who came on a consist basis, then lost everything because the pastor and deacons ignored the members. Members actively tried to save their church. They spoke with the pastor and deacons. I know we spoke in a Godly manner, as did others. Would this be categorized as "speaking evil of authorities" as pastors and deacons both are placed over members in authority positions. What are members to do when situations arise in a church and wrong is happening....and I mean wrong based on sound biblical teaching, not on personalities? I know churches split for many reasons, but the case of our old church it was not a split based on personality or fundamentals, it can only be, maybe blindness to the truth.
I find it extremely sad that one of God's flocks was scattered to the wind and had to search for new homes. Sometimes, individuals do not recover from situations such as this and it make is hard for them to find new church homes, if they do at all. Sometimes this kind of event sours them from participating in a church at all. My only point in bringing up this situation with our old church is to say that we did speak with our pastor and tried to address the areas that we felt required addressing. It was as if the pink elephant was in the room, but no one was willing to admit it was there; no one in authority that is. I do believe God wants us to speak up, as in the verses above. Speak up "with great patience and careful instruction" and I will add one more....love--the love of Christ. I believe if we speak to our pastor, our deacons, our other church members who either donate time or are paid to work at the church in ministry duty and when issues arise, speak from the heart without malice, God will bless our statements to those individuals.
Okay....comments are welcome.....this is a tough one. GW
Sorry, GW, I actually responded to your comment immediately, but returning to this post now a week later, I see that my comment did not post as I thought it had. So... let me try to remember what I responded with back then. The point, I remember, was that we are not comparing apples to apples here, but apples (the apples being correcting false teachings or practices) to oranges, or maybe I should say lemons (the lemons being criticism or that which does not build up but tears down. The Merriam-Webster's dictionary online uses the adjective “unfavorable” to better define criticism.) Even when correcting believers, if the correcting is not truly done in love, then it becomes less correction and more criticism. That doesn’t mean that if correction IS done in love that the believer in question will receive the correction well. Many times, they will not. But we are to be so very careful to check our motives and make sure they ARE out of love for that individual or the same fault will come back to lay at our door sometime later as a consequence of our not heeding the divine principle of “judge not, lest ye be judged”. Criticism (the lemon) judges. But we do not judge according to righteousness, we judge according to our own intellect and opinions and preferences. We assume we know the mind of God in every little detail and set ourselves up to “speak” for God. But God is patient and longsuffering and meek and gentle. The critics that I speak of in the posting are often not meek and gentle and instead make every effort to find others to agree with their way of thinking so that they can attack “self-righteously.” Well, I’m sure there was more said in my first comment, but they say less is better, so there you have it. Thanks, as always, for taking the time to comment, adding such good scripture and knowledge to this blog.
ReplyDelete