The Church is in a Babylonian exile. In the Bible, Babylon is commonly used as a symbol of the world system hostile to God. So, the Church, especially in the West, as it is conformed to the world in the pursuit of "relevance" is in a kind of Babylonian exile. God brought His people, His remnant, out of Babylon by raising up His servant, Cyrus, to rebuild the temple and restore the order of worship. Who is our Cyrus now?
In one sense, Jesus is our Cyrus. Given that Cyrus is often spoken of in messianic categories, Jesus is the fulfillment of that type for today - in both a personal sense and a corporate sense. The personal sense is obvious and that analogy is commonly made. In the corporate sense, a renewed focus on Jesus Christ within the church will restore true worship. The Western, especially American, Church needs to come out of Babylon by submitting anew to Christ and returning the Good New of His salvation to the center of our message and practice.
I totally agree, Sir, that the Church needs to submit to Christ and to keep the Good News at the center of our message and practice. That must be the foundation. Most of us seem to agree on the theory, yet often have little in common regarding the praxis of how we actually submit to Christ and share the Good News in both the personal and the corporate sense. In what ways do you think the Church needs to come out of Babylon?
ReplyDeleteOne way is that we need to change our thinking of what constitutes success for a church. In many ways we think just like the world system around us. We think that larger numbers of members and the surrounding community liking us because we are cool or relevant is what makes a church successful. We think we should run a church like a business. And in many more ways we live in Babylon by taking on the thinking of the world and its measures of success. If we let the Bible shape our thinking about these things we will see that churches are led by Jesus Christ through a body of elders, not by a CEO pastor through department heads. We will see that success is found in clearly and faithfully proclaiming all of God's Word. We will see that we need like Christ, which is usually different from the World.
ReplyDeleteLots of great points. We share a great deal of agreement.
ReplyDeleteSince we agree on so much, I'll just pose a few questions to nuance a few things and see where we stand as we dig a little deeper.
About numbers. Many churches focus way too much on numbers. Some, though, believe it is at least partially an indicator of how well the church is doing at adding people to the Kingdom (even though it is God who actually does the adding). Acts provides some interesting numbers in its story, particularly on the Day of Pentecost. Would you say that counting numbers is entirely and inherently misguided or wrong? Or that, if used appropriately to the proper degree, can be a helpful source of information?
Interesting point: at several of the Saddleback Small Group Conferences I've been a part of, we were consistently reminded not to make our relational connections a contest about numbers and sizes (even though many from the outside looking in think that Saddleback is all about the numbers).
On another note, I definitely do not like the CEO model for church leadership; however, I'm curious to know what biblical support you find that absolutizes the elder model (Jesus certainly being the Head). It seems to me that the biblical evidence leaves the governing issue with general guidelines and without a specific model.
Amen to clearly and faithfully proclaiming all of God's Word! I assume by "relevant" you are meaning the sacrifice of biblical integrity and faithfulness for the sake of being "relevant"?
Enjoying the conversation. Sorry it took so long to respond.
On numbers, a few somewhat disjointed thoughts: Health is far more important than size. However, I don't think it is wrong to be concerned about numbers, as long as we don't get too wrapped up in them. As parents, we want to see our children grow in size - if they didn't we would definitely be concerned. But God brings growth in His own time (I Cor. 3:6). Also, I think we should be looking for growth from new Christians as opposed to those moving in from other churches.
ReplyDeleteI don't like the CEO model either. Scripture clearly teaches a plurality of leaders. I think the Scriptural support for elder leadership is very strong. The book of Acts has descriptions of elders being appointed and elders in action. I Tim. 3 and Titus 1 describe the qualifications for the office of overseer/bishop/elder. I think the support is strong enough that the onus is on the negative position to show that multiple elders are not God's design. Having said that, though, I am not saying that a church that does not follow the elder model is necessarily sinning. God never says "Thou shalt appoint elders and they shall be in number in the ratio of one per fifty members".
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