For over 2,000 years, people who encounter Jesus in the pages of the New Testament find themselves transformed. And week after week, they then gathered to sing and celebrate the breaking of his body and the shedding of his blood. Then we find in the pages of the Bible the church grew by the thousands. Today? Not so much. Why? One cause might be that instead of holding true to the message of Scripture, holding to its authority and inerrancy, it seems Christianity is continually adjusting the Gospel message to fit what society believes instead of putting it out as it should be; unadulterated.
For example, I recently had someone text me a question about Scriptures in Ephesians 6, specifically Ephesians 6:17, "the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God." The one I was conversing with stated that they had observed that, most consider the Sword of the Spirit, the Scriptures, to be our one "offensive" weapon. Then they asked the question: "But is it meant to be 'offensive'? My answer was "Well, it sure seems to be offensive to some." Since I was jokingly referring to the fact that some people find Christianity in any form offensive, I followed with a few smiley emoticons and I then asked did he want the long answer or short answer and when the response was both, I texted: short answer: No; long answer: No.
I then explained the question being asked about most Christian's looking upon The Word of God (sword of the Spirit) as an offensive weapon was a very controversial subject with people drawing lines in the dirt and saying essential "if you don't agree with this statement, you are heretical, deceived, not born again, or all the above." I then proceeded to answer the question as seriously and simply as possible. I asked: "Can a Christian love God and his neighbor as themselves (see Mark 12:30-31) and go on the offensive toward them to injure them in any way at any time regardless of who they are and what they've done?"
As in a recent article I wrote, the truth of the answer to this question is also a truth that I believe has been "lost" by a majority of Christianity in the U.S. Similar to the statement in that article that we seem to have decided that instead of Scriptures, which give clear direction in such cases being held as truth, we view the answer as it being the people themselves who are the problem. So, if we somehow eliminate all interaction with, or eliminate the people themselves the problem will go away. All this does is push the problem (that is really within us not the other) under the rug until the next "trigger" puts us into fight mode again.
To be continued Sept. 9.
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Editor's note: Charlie Newman is pastor of Avoca Christian Church. To contact him, e-mail [email protected], or write in care of The Times at [email protected] or P.O. Box 25, Pea Ridge, AR 72751.
Religion on 09/02/2015