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WHAT STRATEGY FOR FIXING THE CHURCH OF CHRIST?

Recently I was sitting in a hospital waiting room. A man came and sat down beside me who was quite talkative. He said his view is that most of what is in the Bible is optional, “You can take it or leave it.” He said he was raised a Baptist but he did not like their practice of people telling other people what to believe. So he went to a Presbyteran church and there the preacher told him he was right and encouraged him to think that way. To him, preaching the word and standing by your convictions amounts to humans telling other humans what to believe. That is offensive to him. If you think that way you can find preachers in many churches who will re-enforce that attitude and stand with you on it. Does that mean it is right?

The alarming part is that today many preachers in the church of Christ preach a concept that amounts to about this same thing. Several of them are featured speakers on our largest lectureships. They have come to believe that their “restoration” heritage was wrong and now they intend to change it. Their efforts have generated a movement over the country toward removing some of the structural beams of the church. They know that churches of Christ have been known for  strong convictions and these men don’t like that. They know these churches have not hesitated to speak out against what they perceive as doctrinal errors and they have decided it is not acceptable to do that. They know that these folks believe that Christ’s church is exclusive, that He built only one, and the way to eternal life is strait and narrow. That is a concept they are not willing to have be the case.

Consider the thought process behind this. The man in the waiting room was not thinking about our responsibility to deliver God’s message accurately. He was focused on what he liked personally. Even so, the men who are rebuking the church for rejecting man made denominational doctrines and for believing there is but one way of salvation, are not thinking in terms of what God has said but in terms of what is pleasing to themselves and what will please the most people. Popular opinion has it that if we make the way broad and flexible we will be acting as nice persons. The statement of Jesus that the way is strait and narrow is disregarded, along with the fact that making the way broad and flexible is not ours to give. They resent the idea of exclusiveness but God’s word says there is “one body and one Spirit even as you are called in one hope of your calling.” (Eph. 4:4) Christ’s church was not built as a multi-headed monstrosity,” as suggested in today’s Christendom. He did not leave His church with no specific message nor did He expect it to formulate doctrines that would be most popular.

In the 1960s the UPI reported that churches of Christ were the fastest growing religious body in America. What were we preaching then? We were teaching people that “the real thing” is what you find in the bible. We told them, “Jesus built a church and He meant for you to be a part of it.” We urged them, “Just obey the Gospel as it is written, and He will add you to His church. You will be nether Catholic, protestant, nor Jew, but just a Christian.” People by the thousands were finding security with God and unity with each other in Christ. 

Many people now are searching for that, as evidenced in the many groups called, “Community church” “Bible church” “apostolic church” etc. They are searching for the nonsectarian real thing, what we used to preach, and not finding it because we are no longer preaching it. Instead we are now embedded with the idea of competing in the religious market place. “Whose leaders have made the best church?” “Which church is most popular?” “Who has the most entertaining type of worship assembly?” Yes, we still put the name of Christ out front, as most groups do. But we are calling attention to ourselves more than to Christ.  Now our numbers are about half what they were in the 1960s. The most tragic part is that now the real Gospel, the “message preached,” by which God said He would save the world, is not what the people are getting. They are getting their ears tickled with a “feel good” sales routine by which “fables” are made to sound like reality.

Satan has always wanted to dismantle the church, or counter its effectiveness, because it means salvation. Jesus purchased it with His blood. It seems that now we have many within the church who are collaborators with the evil designs against it, without realizing it. God intends the church to be the pillar and ground of the truth. The command, “Preach the word, in season, out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long suffering and doctrine,” is not an order issued by fanatical leaders of some man made cult. It is what God’s word commands. The apostle’s rebuke of the Corinthians for creating those religious factions was not written just to fill space. The warning Jesus gave, “Beware of false prophets that come to you in sheep’s clothing,” was not given because Jesus was ugly spirited or did not want peace and unity. Deleting these is opposing God.

Yes, we do need to correct our ways. But not  by the concepts of popular opinion, the rudiments of the world. The measuring standard needs to be the wisdom of God, what He gave to us in His word the Bible. That word points to salvation. Human opinion points to “ways that seem right to a man but the end of it is a way of death.” What the Bible says is unchangeable truth. It is not optional. We do not do anyone a favor by encouraging them to believe it is optional, least of all ourselves. “Take heed to yourself and to the doctrine. Continue in them, for in doing this you will save both yourself and those who hear you.” (1 Tim. 4:16)