Many still were convinced that President Bush was doing just that… not political suicide, but lust for profits.   You couldn’t reason with them.  You couldn’t argue the inconsistency of their thinking.   “yea, sure, but we know…”

So what does this have to do with church splits?

“Church splits are always bad! ” Really?  How so?  “Well, they just are.”  Dissent is always bad (bad dog, bad dog!), therefore church splits are always bad.  Its Simple logic…  But what if that dissent  was a stand for truth… biblical truth?  Yes, it is always better not to disagree, but to pursue unity.  So the logic goes.  But what if one had to leave, with others, for the sake of truth?  For integrity?  Is it wrong then?  No it couldn’t be for truth…

Sadly, like President Bush, there is not much room for a church split to be acceptable in our religious culture.  Unfortunately, there is just too much sentiment against it.  Sort of like George.   He couldn’t go to war for noble purposes… maybe the intelligence he received was a little more detailed than those who accused him?  Not a chance!  But perhaps he did?

And just maybe, some dissent is good.  Not all dissent is met with hearts to receive it.  I remember a verse in Acts 15 that said something like there was “great dissension and debate.”  And we discover that Paul and Barnabas were the ones dissenting!   And we are grateful for elders in Jerusalem who did not just ‘write off” their dissent but listened beyond their “bias” and a church split was prevented.  Unfortunately, this will not always be the case in the church.  Fortunately for us, the early church pondered the disent and today we are not  a “judaized” church today because of it…. Thank you Paul for standing.

I hope we would not put blinders on just because our western tradition resents dissent.  Perhaps the President went to war for unselfish reasons.   Perhaps not all of those who dissent have “evil” motives…  just maybe they love truth over compliance.  Peace at all costs!   The early reformers stated that the Church was always in need of reform…. let us not settle for less, just because we want peace more than war…..

This is a good quote to remember.   Reading 1 Timothy 4.15-16 this morning.  I am reminded again by Paul to watch not only my doctrine but my life.   How easily it is to forget that the purpose of the teaching is to transform our lives into displaying more clearly the Imago Dei.

Paul’s  present imperatives give urgency and concern towards Timothy.  Timothy must continually and constantly follow them.  So must we.   Paul is concerned that success or giftedness never trump character.  So should we….

I came upon this quote…
“[The present tense verb is used in verse 42: "It is not this way among you "(The NAS has it right)... implies] to fail in being a servant is not simply to fall short of an ideal condition but to stand outside of an existing condition that corresponds to the kingdom of God.
At no place do the ethics of the kingdom of God clash more vigorously with the ethics of the world than in the ematters of power and service. The ideas that Jesus presents regarding rule and service are combined in a way that finds no obvious precedent in either the OT or Jewish tradition.  In a decisive reversal of values, Jesus speaks of greatness in service rather than greatness of power, prestige, and authority.  The preeminant virtue of God’s kingdom is not power, not even freedom, but service.  Ironically, greatness belongs to the one who is not great, the diakonos, the ordinary Greek word for waiting on tables.  The preeminence of service in the kingdom of God grows out of Jesus’ teaching on love for one’s neighbor, for service is love made tangible.”
(James R. Edwards, Pillar NT Commentary)

There is the paradox.  Thank God for the paradoxes of the kingdom!

Here is Edwards’ continued commentary…

Pursuing the point still further, Jesus declares that ” ‘whoever want to be first must be a slave of all.’” The pronouncement is, of course, and oxymoron, for a slave (Gk. doulos), who was inferior even to a servant (Gk diakonos), was in ancient society the last and least of all. The idea of a slave being first is as absurdly paradoxical as a camel going through the eye of a needle – and it probably likewise induced smiles and shaking heads from Jesus’ audience.  The desire for power and dominance focuses attention on self and this kills love, for love by nature is focused on others.

Here is where I was truly convicted…

The implications of diakonos and doulos for the Twelve, as well as for ministers and leaders in the church of every generation, are inexhaustible. the Christian fellowship does not exist for their sake, but they for it,  Nor is the apostle or Christian leader above the congregation, but part of it. The congregation does not belong to him; rather, he belongs to it.…

Schizophrenia

From the moment of the Fall, humankind has suffered from moral schizophrenia:  neither able to deny sinfulness nor to acknowledge it for what it is. Alec Motyer, Look to the Rock.

Some of the best books are out of print.  Look To The Rock, by Alec Motyer, is no exception.  Motyer reflects on Genesis 3:7-10 and what these verses detail in regards to the breakdown that occurred as a result of Adam and Eve’s failure to trust God’s word and His Character.

From external to internal temptation

Genesis 3:7: “their eyes were opened and they knew that they were naked.”  Notice that the temptation of Eve came from outside – from the serpent.  Now – this side of the fall -  our temptations come from within (James 1:14).   In the Garden, it seems obvious that the innocence of Adam and Eve implied that they had no experience of evil.   God’s design was that mankind should “know the good by direct personal knowledge and experience the evil only as an external and theoretical contrast.” Unfortunately the fall made the evil become a first hand experience and now internalized.  “From now on temptation would not come from the outside but from within themselves.  From now on immediate, personal knowledge will be of the evil, and the good will only be known by contrast. The Fall stood the divine purposes on their head.”  This is massive!   The basis on which all knowledge rests has been corrupted and changed!

Moral Schizophrenia

Genesis 3:8: Motyer continues with a discussion of the personal breakdown that the Fall provoked.  When Adam and Eve discovered that the Lord God was walking in the Garden they hid themselves.  Motyer comments:  In Genesis 3:8 there is an inadequate awareness of the seriousness of sin, moral perceptions are clouded, and the self-centered view of values is well beneath the God-centered view…. they hide themselves, but within the Garden.  They cannot meet and keep company with the Lord God as before, but neither do they see that the consequence of sin is loss of paradise.  The blindness of sin is beginning to take effect, bringing atrophy of moral alertness, an inability to face the holy, and yet an equal inability to appreciate what holiness is. … Thus, like the man and woman we acknowledge sin but, by nature, we cannot grasp its seriousness.  From the moment of the fall, humankind has suffered from moral schizophrenia: neither able to deny sinfulness nor to acknowledge it for what it is..

Can we grasp how important it is, in repentance and confession, that we declare clearly who and whose standard we have offended and not equivocate?

Equivocate:  use ambiguous language so as to conceal the truth or avoid committing oneself.

Let us continue to pray fervently for deep and abiding repentance.

These days I ponder David’s confession after his great sin. “I have sinned against the LORD! Against You only have I sinned!”  No rationalizations, no excuses!  Simple and concise and directed to the ONE.

“Simplicity, however, marks David’s confession… and precisely this simplicity makes it commendable rather then defective…
The words are very few, just as in the case of the publican in the Gospel of Luke [esv: Luke 18:13]. But that is a good sign of a thoroughly broken spirit… There is no excuse, no cloaking, no palliation of the sin. There is no searching for a loophole,… no pretext put forward, no human weakness pleaded.  He acknowledges his guilt openly candidly, and without prevarication.”
(quoted from Dale Ralph Davis, Focus on the Bible commentary on 2 Samuel 12)

I determined early on my family’s development that I would always go to Sunday Church. I think the reason was this: that I wanted my kids to love the church, even in it’s glaring flaws and inconsistencies. Since that time, the Local Church has not been exemplary in its display of the biblical standard. Yet, we have rarely missed attendance over the years.

There is a growing interest in departing from the church along with its local manifestations. Substitutes like “organic church’ replace what they call the “institutional” church. The description “institutional” (reminds me of some mental hospital), is used to imply that the Church has become something unnatural, formal, stiff, legalistic. So good meaning Christians reject the organized church for an “organic” church in the form of house churches or in many cases no church at all.

CS Lewis expressed it this way: (the church)… is a unity of place and not of likings, it brings people of different classes and psychology together in the kind of unity (God) desires. He continues, “the search for a “suitable” church makes the man a critic where (God) wants him a pupil.”

Do you see the point

• The church is a unity of place, NOT of liking

• The church is the vehicle to unite individuals who may not normally like each other

• When we give up on the church simply because it does not “suit” our standards, we become a critic not a student of it!

Here is how I see it. One finds fault with his local church. He searches the internet and finds several web pages that describe the faults of the church and give a basis for returning to the authentic manifestations which it seems only occurred prior to Emperor Constantine. Prior to him, the church was really real…  Since then, it has been only a facade.

Then what happens? This person starts hanging out with those who “agree” with him. And what is lost? The sanctification that occurs of learning to live with and love those whom you would normally not hang out with…. Along with a fundamental witness to the skeptics of Christianity. Jesus exhorted his followers to love their enemies. It is easy to love those who love and agree with you. Jesus asked in effect, “what kind of effort is required of you when you  choose your own friends?” None! But to love one you don’t like, one you would never choose in a thousand years, that is something else altogether, something to talk about. It cannot be duplicated by any unbelieving skeptic.

I must be honest. Could it be that those who only hang out with those who hang out with those who reject God’s church, become quirky and become “One message” people….. I think because they have no sanctifying and balancing force in their life through others who may disagree with them (not to mention the other means of grace in the local church:  preaching, sacraments etc)

My kids have grown up in local church. They love the church. They love Jesus who’s body it represents. I think it is time we agree with Augustine that “there is no salvation outside the Church.”  There is much in that thought.

Francis Shaeffer said it well: Our relationship with each other is the criterion the world uses to judge whether our message is truthful. Christian community is the ultimate apologetic . (quoted in Total Church, Tim Chester and Steve Timmis

There is an analogy here.  Just when we get comfortable with the seascape, we become careless and the wave comes and strikes.   I suppose most survive but some don’t.  It struck me that each of us probably has a sneaker wave waiting to overcome us.

Alexander Strauch in his book on Biblical Eldership refers to all of us having a “fatal flaw”  and quotes CS Lewis:

And you see, looking back, how all the plans you have ever made always have shipwrecked on that fatal flaw – on “X’s” incurable jealousy, or laziness, or touchiness, or muddle-headedness, or bossiness, or ill temper, or changeableness…

This is the next great step in wisdom – to realize that you also are just that sort of person.  You also have a fatal flaw in your character.  All the hopes and plans of others have again and again shipwrecked on your character just as your hopes and plans have shipwrecked on theirs.

It is no good passing this over with some vague, general admission such as “Of course, I know I have my faults.”  it is something which gives the other just that same feeling of despair which their flaws give you.  And it is almost certainly something you don’t know about – like what the advertisements call “halotosis” which everyone notices except the person who has it.

But why, you ask, don’t the others tell me? Believe me, they have tried to tell you over and over again, and you just couldn’t  “take it.”  Perhaps a good deal of what you call their “nagging” or “bad temper’ or ‘queerness” are just their attempts to make you see the truth.  And even the faults you do know you don’t know fully.

Strauch continues…. These fatal flaws or blind spots distort your judgment. The deceive us. They can even destroy us.    This is particularly true of multi-talented, charismatic leaders.  Blind to their own flaws and extreme views, some talented leaders have destroyed themselves because they had no peers to confront and balance them and, in fact, wanted none.

Granted, this is written in the context of eldership and most of us are not charismatic leaders.  And granted,  as a description of our blind spot, fatal flaw may be a little strong, and just like the sneaker wave, it may  not be fatal to everyone.. But I believe the point is still valid.

I take a couple points from this

1.  It is easy to see blind spots in others and be blind or deny our own

2.  It is human nature to discount our own flaws while magnifying those of others

3.  It is great wisdom to hear confrontation, exhortation, or rebuke.

4.  There is great exposure to danger in continuing in the self-deceiving belief that we have no flaws.

What is also inferred is how important accountability is.   I will write on this in part 2 and 3.

Jesus so often commanded both demons and those who were healed by him of demons and other sicknesses and maladies to not speak a word about who he was or what he did.
I read today this about the “hidden-ness” of Christ: That which changes the human heart and ultimately compels one to recognize and follow Jesus can never come from coercion or a display of miraculous power. Jesus will have no allegiance exacted by amazement and astonishment. The faith of his disciples must be evoked through humility and ultimately through suffering. If one will not receive Jesus in this form, one will not receive Jesus in all his power and majesty… Until the consumption of Jesus’ work on the cross all speculations about him are premature. Only on the cross can Jesus be rightly known. James Edwards,  PNTC Mark
Thank Him that our King’s throne was a cross! Only in it do we see His majesty.. What wondrous love is this…. Oh what free and magnificent grace!