http://feeds.thecripplegate.com/~r/TheCripplegate/~3/WDMSzUfyw4Y/
Samuel Sey tweeted something recently that came as a shock for many christians. A church in Canada is going to reopen next month (after being closed since covid began) but with a twist, they will be requiring a vaccine passport for people to come in the doors.
The writer of the article, who is the pastor of the church, said that if Jesus been alive today, he would have done the same.
After appealing to science for his decision, the pastor made a shift into theology. He said Jesus would agree with him.
Theologically, the argument is stronger. To be a Christian is to model one’s life after Christ. Jesus always put others first. He gave up his individual rights for the common good and sacrificed for the sake of the weak. He loved others as he loved himself and would have surely done anything to best protect the unvaccinated children in his neighbourhood. A Christian ethic always puts the vulnerable first.
Not only is this argument not strong it is actually quite foolish.
Jesus consistently exposed himself to sick people. People with Leprosy (Matt. 8:2), fevers (Luke 8:38-40), blood discharges (Luke 8:43), demons (Matt. 5:1), and even dead people (Mark 5:21, Luke 8:40) were constantly approached by Jesus without regard for his own safety.
He could have healed everyone he came in contact with yet he didn’t. There were times where he chose not to heal people who needed it. (Mark 6:5) In fact, Jesus could remove not only Covid from this world in a split second, but all pain and suffering whenever he wants. But doesn’t.
Jesus’s mission was not to eradicate suffering in this world, but it was to suffer himself for the sake of the elect. (Heb. 2:9-10) He was willing to die for the sake of the lost! And He expected his disciples to follow suit! (John 15:20)
The only reason you might require proof of vaccines for entrance to a church service is because you have lost sight of the cost of discipleship and are controlled by the fear of death.
You should be willing to die for people to hear the gospel.
Jesus said very clearly that we should be willing to suffer and even die for His sake. (Matt. 10:38, Matt. 24:9)
Paul said that for the sake of his people, Israel, he would be willing to be accursed in their place, if it meant that they would get to go to Heaven. (Rom. 9:3) And Paul believed in a literal eternal hell.
Every follower of Christ should be willing to suffer and die for the sake of expending our energy and our whole entire lives for the lost.
It is for this reason that it is shocking that there are churches that are forbidding people from coming to church. I know that this is a hot topic and that many people are sensitive about this. I am not against being careful and using wisdom, after all unlike Jesus, we don’t have the ability to heal people. But under no circumstance are we allowed to turn away people from hearing the Gospel and gathering with the saints.
We should be begging people to come, not banning them!
We truly need to pray for pastors around the world. These situations are not easy to navigate. We need to pray for churches to not be afraid.
We need to pray that elders who are afraid of dying, would remember their high calling and either repent or resign.
Sadly too many shepherds right now, instead of fighting away the enemy of their sheep, are dropping their staffs and running away, afraid to die.
If you should be willing to be speared in the chest to bring the Gospel to a tribe in Equador, you should be willing to be exposed to a respiratory disease that you have more than a 99% chance to survive.
This is not to minimize the fact that this virus does harm some people in a significant way, but it is to say that if the fear of death is driving you to make your decisions then you are not being a faithful shepherd.
We need to pray for much wisdom from the Lord. Obviously we don’t want to have a martyr complex where we expose ourselves and those around us to unecessary risks, but we must, if we desire to follow our Lord’s example, be willing to expend ourselves for the Lord.
I can’t help but think of Peter who was told by Christ that he would die on a cross, (John 21:19) yet boldly declared Gospel, each and every time he had the opportunity, without compromise or concern for his own body.
By all means get vaccinated if you want, protect yourself as best you can, but never forbid people from hearing the good news. Elders, (and really every member of the church) go and preach boldly the word of God, leaving your life in God’s hands.
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The Racial Justice Debate Needs Biblical Clarity, Not More Straw Men
http://feeds.thecripplegate.com/~r/TheCripplegate/~3/zcdqDM9-nPs/
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“I’ll see you in court!”
I once received a phone call from another elder from a church not far from the one I was serving at. He told me that a member of his congregation owned a business, and a member of my congregation had been injured at work. There were no denials about what happened, nor was there any dispute about the blame. There was, however, a catch.
The business had workman’s comp insurance, but the insurance company was requiring that the injured worker’s personal insurance company file a claim in court in order to compel payment. The bottom line: in order to get covered, a believer (or his insurance company) would have to sue another believer (or his insurance company).
The elders at the other church reached out to the elders at my church (at the time I was at Grace Community Church in Los Angeles). We all wanted to apply 1 Corinthians 6, but we also all wanted to make sure the injured worker was covered. In other words, nobody was trying weasel out of anything, and we were trying to apply the scriptural principle that two believer’s shouldn’t sue each other. Here is the relevant passage:
1 When one of you has a grievance against another, does he dare go to law before the unrighteous instead of the saints? 2 Or do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world is to be judged by you, are you incompetent to try trivial cases? 3 Do you not know that we are to judge angels? How much more, then, matters pertaining to this life! 4 So if you have such cases, why do you lay them before those who have no standing in the church? 5 I say this to your shame. Can it be that there is no one among you wise enough to settle a dispute between the brothers, 6 but brother goes to law against brother, and that before unbelievers? 7 To have lawsuits at all with one another is already a defeat for you. Why not rather suffer wrong? Why not rather be defrauded? 8 But you yourselves wrong and defraud—even your own brothers!1 Corinthians 6:1-8
So, what is an injured worker at a company owned by a Christian supposed to do? Is he out of luck?
Well, a careful study of this passage reveals that Paul was not giving a blanket prohibition on Christians using the court system, but instead was laying out a much more profound principle: it is better for Christians to count themselves as wronged than it is to be right in a way that brings shame to the church.
First, verse 1 rebukes those who go to court over a “grievance” against another believer. In fact, the word “grievance” is intentionally broad. Paul is not covering a limited kind of Greco-Roman law. Rather he uses a word that includes any kind of division or issue with another believer. In Luke 1, this word is used to cover all the “matters” or “events” of Jesus’ life (Luke 1:1). In Hebrews 6:18 it is just translated “things.” In 1 Corinthians 6:1, Paul is saying “if you have anything” dividing you, then apply the rest of this passage.
Then in verse 2, Paul calls any kind of division between brothers a “trivial matter.” This too is a fascinating word. It is used for the “smallest” of a ship’s rudders (James 3:4), or for Paul himself, as in “I am the least of all the saints” (Ephesians 3:1). Paul is saying that compared to the surpassing weight of glory, any division with another believer is certainly trivial.
Then verses 3-6 get to the problem. Going to court reveals that there are not elders competent enough to mediate a dispute. There could be lots of reasons for that. The elders might not be impartial, the congregants may not trust the elders, or the elders may not be sufficiently versed in biblical wisdom to navigate a complex issue. But behind all of those reasons is the reality that the elders in the church are not properly functioning.
So if you are confronted with a “trivial” matter (and remember, trivial in comparison to the glories of salvation), and it involves division with another believer, and your elders cannot handle a trivial matter, the temptation would be to go to court. Yet, Paul’s point in verse 7 is that by going to court a Christian is exposing the church’s dysfunction for the world to see. The angels see it (vs. 3), the world sees it (vss. 4, 6), and believers ought to be embarrassed by that. When believers sue other believers, it is like Ham exposing his father’s nakedness. Instead, believers should count themselves as wronged, pretend they’d lose in court, and call it a day (vs. 7). They should be like Shem, and instead of exposing their elders for the world to see, they should cover them by not drawing attention to their dysfunction.
Now, this does not mean that believers should never use the court system. In Acts 25:11, Paul appealed to Caesar, which was his right as a Roman. In so doing, he exposed the truth that Festus could not protect an innocent person in Israel. That was Paul’s right as a citizen. But it did not bring shame on the church because it did not involve division with another Christian.
So what about in the worker’s comp issue above? A few elders from each church got together and talked. We decided that the insurance company’s insistence on a lawsuit was simply part of living in this world, and that nobody who heard about it would think “those elders don’t know what is going on.” Instead, both sets of elders agreed that allowing the lawsuit to go forward was the best way to get the medical expenses covered, and that it would not bring shame on the church. Key for us was realizing that even though this would result in a lawsuit, the lawsuit was not connected to division between believers. The elders, worker, and owner all left the meeting rejoicing in our common faith.
That relationship between the two churches was important, because years later a person in one church was scamming somebody from the other church, and swindling them out of thousands of dollars. Now, this is a case where the elders should be involved! So the person doing the swindling was confronted, she refused to repent, and so she was disciplined out of the church. Then, of course, the victim could sue to get her money back, as she was no longer suing someone in the church, but rather someone who had been put out of the church for exactly what she was being sued for.
I share those examples because they both show the nature of applying biblical principles to life. The principle is taught in 1 Corinthians 6—it is better to count yourself as cheated than it is to sue another believer—and it encourages elders to be involved in using wisdom to apply that principle (vs. 5). When the principle is rightly applied, the church is protected, people are confronted, and God is glorified.
But if elders run from their duty to mediate, if they lack wisdom, if they turn away from conflict resolution, or if they simply don’t care about biblical church membership and discipline, then they are exposed as being unqualified. When that happens, immature believers (like the Corinthians were) will be tempted to run to court. First Corinthians 6 is an appeal to those believers to grow up, and count yourself cheated for the greater good of glorifying God.
So, should believers sue each other over a “trivial” matter? No. It is better to be wronged than it is to disregard the Bible’s teaching, and in a quest to be right, end up wronging the church.
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Am I Too Old for Seminary?
http://feeds.thecripplegate.com/~r/TheCripplegate/~3/l3vZ2bLjfE8/
