Reflections on the interplay of the Bible and Culture
The broader issue is that God hates double standards. When we hold someone else to a higher standard than we are willing to obey, then we are violating this principle. This is what Jesus was talking about in the opening verses of Matthew chapter 7.
Rather than be nostalgic for something that never was, we can participate with God in responding correctly to the time in which we find ourselves.
This should be instructive to use as we look as to how the church should be structured. We have too many examples of how celebrity pastors have gone astray by assuming power that was never theirs to assume.
We Christians should acknowledge that the church has often gotten it wrong concerning the proper application of tolerance. At times we have deserved the criticism that we are intolerant because of the way we have behaved toward those with whom we disagree.
Well, that’s not exactly how Jesus said it. His actual words were: “I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.” John 16:33, ESV But the problem is that those of us that are in … Read more
For believers, the wounds that are suffered at the hands of church leaders are difficult to overcome and the only chance of overcoming them is to look beyond those leaders to the Christ that the leaders claim to follow.
For me it boils down to two choices. Either we have a church culture centered on the gospel or we have something else that looks like the church but is not.
But the writer of Proverbs warns us that such deception does not go unnoticed by God. Deception is, and always be, an abomination to The LORD.