Christians Are Part of Something Bigger than the Local Church
We have brothers and sisters who worship in churches with different labels above the door. They might differ from our church in how they think about baptism, church government, or worship. They might have different emphases to how we go about things. This is also good for us to reflect on. The way our local church does it is not the only way it can be done. God is working in many different types of churches.
For most of us, being part of a local church is the key place we experience the Christian community. As it should be! It is with the people that we see regularly and we know well that we live out what it means to be a follower of Jesus. We learn to bear with one another, to forgive one another, to use our gifts to build one another up, and to share our lives in lots of different ways. All believers should be a part of a local church.
Yet it is also important to know that our local church is part of something bigger. Jesus did not only die for the people in your local church. He died to make a people for himself from every tribe, people and language. It is very helpful for us to understand that we have brothers and sisters all around the world that also love Jesus.
This can take a range of forms, of course. Perhaps your church is part of a denomination. In recent weeks, I have had the privilege of speaking at a sister church in my city as part of a scheduled pulpit swap. I also spoke at a sister church in another state as an invited guest, being privileged to open God’s word and get to know brothers and sisters I had never met before. These experiences drove home to me that God is doing good things in other places. God’s work is far more extensive than anything I can see in my own local church.
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We Need More than an Accidental Faith
Written by J. Warner Wallace |
Tuesday, August 29, 2023
My rather sterile investigation of the gospels lead me to believe THAT Jesus was God and THAT He died for my sins and I certainly accepted His offer of Salvation. But while I considered myself “saved,” I seemed to trust Jesus for little else. I knew it was time to stretch, to step out in faith, to dream much bigger than I had ever dreamed before and trust Jesus for the results. I began to serve in the local church, entered seminary, began to write and podcast and eventually found myself with the opportunity to write a book. The crazy journey began to take shape.The Gospel of John records an important conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus:
John Chapter 31Now there was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews; 2this man came to Him by night, and said to Him, “Rabbi, we know THAT You have come from God as a teacher; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him.” (emphasis mine)
Jesus then talks to Nicodemus about what it means to be “born again” and concludes the conversation by saying:
16 “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes IN Him should not perish, but have eternal life. (emphasis again mine)
Jesus took the time here to make a distinction between belief THAT and trust IN. There’s clearly a difference between knowing THAT Jesus is a good teacher and believing IN Jesus as God and Savior.
In 1996 I did not believe that Jesus was anything more than a misunderstood legend from the first century. I had been a police officer and detective for several years, and I was a proud, independent, willful atheist. I was unmoved (and unconvinced) by the alleged evidence that Jesus actually lived or that the New Testament gospels could be trusted as eyewitness accounts. Well that’s not actually true. To be honest, I was simply unfamiliar with the depth of the evidence and unwilling to examine it fairly. I had been raised by an atheist and a cultural Catholic and thought the God of the Bible was an imaginary, unnecessary crutch.
When I walked into a Christian church in 1996, it was the first time I had ever been in a non-Catholic church building for anything other that a wedding. It’s still a mystery to me why I even decided to go in the first place. I was definitely there for my wife more than I was there for me. I still saw no need for such superstitions. I was, however, captivated by the way the pastor described Jesus. He offered Jesus as a wise sage with important wisdom that could speak to my life and inform my decision making in important areas like work, relationships and parenting. While I wasn’t interested in Christianity, I was interested in what this ancient sage had to say.
I bought my first Bible. It was an inexpensive pew Bible; I think it cost me less than five dollars. As I read through the gospels, I was surprised to find that they seemed to display characteristics of true eyewitness accounts. One of these is something I call “unintended eyewitness support.” It’s not unusual for an eyewitness to a crime to describe the events in such a way that more questions are raised than answered. It’s not until an additional eyewitness is interviewed that the questionable observation is reconciled in some way.
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When I Believe the Prosperity Gospel
Written by T.M. Suffield |
Wednesday, October 13, 2021
If you follow Jesus you will have your sins forgiven. Your shame will be wiped away to be replaced by the Father’s smile on his beloved daughter, his beloved son. Your fears and afflictions from evil spiritual forces will be defeated by the victory of Jesus on the cross. But they are not the good news.I’m a charismatic, and plenty of others who would claim that label believe some fairly kooky things. It thus occasionally falls to us to carefully disassociate ourselves from what others might believe.
It’s pretty normal that we would occasionally denounce what is commonly called the ‘Prosperity Gospel’—essentially that if you follow the way of Jesus God will bless you financially. You will become rich, or sometimes healthy and rich.
This is a pernicious lie from the pit of hell, but I don’t have a lot of desire to spend time writing about why it is. Here’s the challenge I’d like to offer instead: I think most Christians I know believe something pretty similar.
I think that because I think I do.
Let’s back up a bit. We’re very careful to exclude financial blessing from the blessings that God will give you if you follow the way of Jesus. This is not to suggest that God could not bless us financially—as though Adam Smith’s invisible hand was a spiritual force not under Yahweh’s ultimate command—nor to say that if we receive wealth we shouldn’t thank God.
The problem comes when we imply that finances come as a reward for obedience.
Yet, there are plenty of passages in the Bible that suggest that God does bless the obedient. I think it’s a very reasonable thing to say. Normally we would want to qualify blessing to exclude health and wealth as a rule. Which I would happily agree with.
Here’s the rub. I believe that if I am obedient that God will bless me with comfort. I think it’s likely you do too. This is a lie. I believe that he will secure me gainful employment, a nice house, and a middle-classed lifestyle. God had given me much of the window dressing of middle-classed life, and some of it has come in ways that were frankly miraculous. I am deeply thankful, when I remember to be.
The problem is that if I think it’s a reward—even though I would deny I do if asked—and I experience pain, or even simple discomfort, I’m thrown for a loop. The problem is that I have, and I think we have, a doctrine of blessing that only works for middle-classed knowledge workers like me. The problem is that it’s a doctrine of blessing that would make no sense in South Sudan, or India, or North Korea. The problem is that it’s a false gospel.
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Falsehood—Loving Immigrants Means Supporting Open Boarders
Christians seeking to be faithful to the Scriptures want to show kindness and compassion to these individuals but are also bound to respect the law. It is true that many undocumented immigrants have chosen to come to the U.S. illegally under very difficult circumstances, fleeing serious economic hardship or even persecution. However, except for those brought as minors or trafficked to the U.S. against their will, they still did knowingly break U.S. law. This is why I believe amnesty is the wrong approach; it communicates that the law doesn’t matter. Even when laws don’t work well, they shouldn’t simply be ignored.
Scripture describes a subset of King David’s “Mighty Men” from the tribe of Issachar as men who had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do (1 Chron 12:32). That is a description of the band of brothers this podcast is seeking to build—men who understand their times because they view culture through a biblical lens—and who therefore know what their families, churches, and nation should do. As we continue this month’s series on false worldviews that lead our loved ones astray, today, we dig into what the Bible says about the Christian’s responsibility to care well for immigrants, who are called sojourners or resident aliens in Scripture.
When faced with the sight of millions of men, women, and children from war-torn lands seeking to escape tyranny to have a better life, most Christians will voice their approval for open door policies of inclusion, hospitality, diversity and welcome. Some Christians have even argued that failure to have such open-hearted attitudes towards these immigrants is sinfully, selfishly, letting “the gods of fear and security dictate how we respond.” (Mark Galli, Christianity Today). Does the biblical call to care for the sojourner and resident alien, imply that those with true Christ-like love for non-Americans requires us to throw open our boarders to all who want to enter? Jesus, did teach that true believers will hear from Jesus, “I was a STRANGER and you WELCOMED me.” Doesn’t this settle the issue—All Christians must be welcoming to immigrants who want to come into our country. Your children and grandchildren are hearing that argument. Let’s attempt to think biblically about the hot topic today of illegal, undocumented, immigrants coming across our southern border.
All Christians are to Give Special Care to Sojourners
At the core of Christian ethics is the recognition that every human being has dignity as God’s image-bearer, which requires us to care for every human, no matter what his or her social status. Scripture particularly identifies those holding the lowest status for intentional care—widows, orphans, the poor, and immigrants. The OT is filled with laws and narratives about immigrants. Israelites were commanded to provide for them through an agrarian welfare system, where foreigners could glean from an Israelite’s field (Dt 24:19-22) and were required to pay immigrants in a timely manner for their work (Dt 24:15). The Israelites were repeatedly warned not to oppress the widow, the orphan, or sojourner, in words like these in Deuteronomy 24: You shall not pervert the justice due to the sojourner or to the fatherless, or take a widow’s garment in pledge, but you shall remember that you were a slave in Egypt and the Lord your God redeemed you from there; therefore I command you to do this (vs 17-18). The prophets frequently called down fire on anyone who claimed to be a follower of Yahweh and mistreated a foreigner. Do justice and righteousness, and deliver from the hand of the oppressor him who has been robbed. And do no wrong or violence to the resident alien, the fatherless, and the widow, nor shed innocent blood in this place. (Jer 22:3). Indeed, Malachi puts mistreatment of immigrants on a level with sorcery and adultery: Then I will draw near to you for judgment. I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, against the adulterers…against those who oppress widow and the fatherless, against those who thrust aside the sojourner (Mal 3:5).
The NT concern for immigrants is perhaps even more clear. Jesus was a refugee, fleeing with his family from Herod. He confronted his hometown elders over their racist attitudes towards gentile outsiders. He attacked the bigoted Jewish hatred for the Samaritans. Peter tells Christians that we, ourselves, are sojourners in a foreign land. Such status as foreigners should give us a new heart for others who find themselves in similar situations. Moreover, Jesus taught that on judgement day, he will look at true Christians and say, “I was a stranger and you WELCOMED me” and look at those damned to hell and say, “I was a stranger and you did NOT WELCOME me” (Matt 25:35-43). Here are some implications for a correct attitude towards immigrants:Closing our hearts to the plight of the worldwide poor or oppressed immigrants seeking to flee to our nation is never appropriate.
Supporting a completely closed border, i.e. not having a legitimate way to admit any immigrants legally is, in my view, not a biblical option. As those whose citizenship is in heaven and who are called to a heart of compassion—shutting out the needy because they are not of OUR tribe is wrong.
I see no biblical basis for a merit-based system of legal immigration, which some Republican politicians have proposed. That seems the epitome of selfishness and American ethnocentrism. Though difficult to implement, opening our doors to those seeking asylum to escape oppression still seems most biblical to me.
Unquestionably, outreach to the immigrant population, whether here legally or illegally, must be as high a priority as reaching out to the poor, homeless, widows, and orphans.The Fallacy of Equating Open Hearts to Immigrants with Open Borders
The above argument to support justice and provide care for immigrants living in our land provides zero evidence for throwing open the borders of our nation.The biblical commands require justice and care for immigrants already living in our land. This is an extension of the second great commandment, to love your neighbor as yourself. God is not addressing the issue of eliminating national borders, nor care for those of other nations.
To suggest that love for immigrants requires throwing open the doors of the nation would be like saying that love for our neighbor prevents every Hebrew or Christian family from closing the doors of their house to others at night.
God considers national boundaries important enough to say, When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance, when he divided mankind, he fixed the borders of the peoples (Dt 32:8). In Acts 17:26, we see the same truth, that God himself established boundaries, making distinctions between different groups of people. And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place.
Although authors, like Dan Carroll, in his book, Christians at the Boarder, and Preston Sprinkle in his blog, “A Christian Response to Undocumented Immigrants” attempt to justify the un-enforcement of immigration laws protecting our boarder as civil disobedience, they have no Biblical case for doing so. Since there is zero biblical teaching that makes open boarders a moral imperative, disagreeing with your nation’s immigration policy is no biblical justification for civil disobedience. Scripture permits civil disobedience only when a believer is compelled by the government to violate the clear command of Scripture. There is no verse of Scripture that gives a person the moral right to live in whatever land he or she chooses. It is an unbiblical stretch to turn the calling of all Christians to love their immigrant neighbors into a moral principle that gives every human a right to live in any country he wants to.
The argument that many deserving people can’t get into our country legally because the ones who do get in legally have the money to bribe officials has no merit. Bribery is part of every government in the world.Read More
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