Simple Bible Answers - A web site to further understand the Word of God.
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Simple Bible Answers - A web site to further understand the Word of God.
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It's rather sad but most people will spend more time and efforts in picking a used car, then picking their church. A bad used car will give you a awful ride, a bad church will give you a one way ride from which there is no return. This page will cover some of what to look for in a church, from the "Far-right" to the "Far-left". Also it will give a little about the difference between "law" and "grace". We are also talking about church with a small "c". If you don't know what that means look at What is Church?
Q. Aren’t all churches the same, different names but the
same in teachings? Q. If the church makes me feel good all the time,
it must be a “good” church, right?
First let me say that there isn’t a perfect church. Men form churches, hopefully, when the Holy Spirit sees a need for one. I say hopefully because many churches and movements are started out of pride, worldly gain and self promotion. Even when started for the right reasons, with time, the world can find inroads. Sometimes what was once a church with a heart for God becomes just a empty shell of it’s former self. Churches can change in a very quick time. A church that was weak can become alive, and a Spirit filled assembly, or a soulful church, can become soulless in a matter of years, if not in one vote of the elders. So don’t judge too quickly, till you sit in on a couple of services. Rumors and reputations abound with churches, and some are without merit. Sometimes a congregation will take back a church, other times just a change of leadership with alter the course. Christian churches come in two “flavors” for the most part. A good church will have a mature understanding of how to deal with these two tastes. Warning there aren't many good churches left. These two “flavors” are “law” and “grace”. Man has a tendency to gleam a truth from the Bible and run with it to its extreme. If a little is good, a whole lot is better...wrong. Just like a drug prescribed from the doctor, when employed, as intended, law and grace will be healing, will promote healthy growth, and leave the person in better shape then before. If taken wrong a overdose can result. But if you have somewhat of an understanding of these extremes you will be able to better judge if the church is for you. For the sake of clarity we will use the socially accepted terms of “Far right” and “Far Left”. First let’s look at the far right. Salvation is by faith only. The law can’t save because man is sinful by nature. One sin makes you a sinner, that sin has a price, that price is death. Salvation pays for all sin, all that were before, and all that you will have in the future. Jesus didn’t wipe out the law, He came to fulfill it (Matt. 5:17-19). The law still has a place in the Christians life, but must not be the Christians life. Life lived by the law leads to death; but life lived without a understanding of the laws intent is anarchy. Some laws are/were prophetic and have been fulfilled by Jesus, some are dietary and under grace aren't binding. Others are more "legal" in nature and still should be considered in our everyday life. It would take up to much space on this page for a break down of them, we'll cover them in more detail on another page. But all law can be useful for guidance, teaching, and understanding, put none can save. Stereo types very seldom have a beneficial use. But we will employ them here for ease of understanding. The far right are the churches were you don’t; smoke, drink, dance, swear, have long hair, watch TV, play pop music, go to the movies or read anything but Bible based books. Women don’t wear slacks or sleeveless blouses, and men wear suits. Casual for the guys is Dockers and arrow shirts (forgive me if that’s what you like, that’s fine as long as you don’t think it’s what God wants). If you want to see this taken to the very extreme one has only to take a look at the Amish. The true orthodox Amish, who still live in their communities are all about the law. They are driving horse buggies, wearing black, working the fields. No cars, TV, power, or even zippers. I have to admit there are times I look at them and think; hey that’s not to bad a life style. No cell phones, e-mail, TV (TV for me has become a vast wasteland), just working with my hands, and I’ve always wanted to try a barn raising (I’d keep the zippers, button fly’s drive me nuts). Is there anything wrong in living this way, no, if it’s a choice because of preference. Sadly the Amish do it because they feel it’s the will of God. They follow laws they find in the Bible, and laws they have written for themselves, that they feel are Word inspired. If you break the laws you will be called to answer. If you continue, they will have a meeting of the council elders. If you don’t change your ways you can be shunned, by the community and even your own family. Whether you go to heaven or hell depends on keeping these laws. This is called legalism. Any time a church puts limits on how you live your life and tells you, or implies your Salvation is dependent on keeping the laws, that church is wrong. Once you are saved, you are saved forever. Smoking isn’t going to send you to hell, eventually it may send you to the cancer wing, but it won’t damn you. If you haven’t been Baptized, but are saved and you die, Jesus isn’t going to look behind your ears to see if they’re wet. Should you be Baptized? Yes. Will it get you to heaven? No. In the Bible Jesus Himself took the Pharisees to task for their unbiblical zeal, and misapplication of the law (Matt. 23:13-36, Mk. 7:1-13). As if there weren’t enough laws, they made up some of their own, always, they would tell you, with the best intent. Again the law has its purpose in the aspect of teaching, showing the need for a Savior and grace and making it plain we are all sinners, but it can’t, and couldn’t save. The law had a purpose, and still does, but it doesn’t bring Salvation and breaking it under grace doesn’t stop you from getting to heaven. Not accepting the Gift of Salvation, in the shed blood of Christ, will fry you quick though. Some will imply that, yes the law doesn’t saved, but “if you were truly saved you wouldn’t do those things”. Nice try but everyone matures in Christ to different levels, in different time frames, and each has to deal with their sins, as they can with the help of the Holy Spirit. Besides, what may be a sin to them, may not be to you. There are still a few churches that tell women wearing makeup is a sin. If a woman is walking down the street, and she was raised in one of these churches, comes across a woman just leaving her church, with make up on, the first woman may turn to her and think “you Jezebel”. If that same woman then goes home and locks her bedroom door, opens the bottom drawer of her bureau, and takes out some lipstick and puts it on. She believes it is wrong but it makes her feel “more like woman”. Tell me, has she committed a sin? Would you believe me when I say she has? In her mind the make up is a sin, and when putting it on, for her, she has committed a sin. She now has taken what would have been sinless and made it a sin. The second woman can paint her face green while wearing a red suit and all she’s committed is a fashion faux-pas. Paul covers this very well when discussing the eating of meat. (1 Cor. 8:4-13) What Paul talks about here is not leading the immature Christian astray by confusing them. The confusion in Paul's story is the immature witnesses a mature Christian eating meat sacrificed to idols. The mature Christian knows that he isn't committing a sin because, it's just meat. But he needs to be mindful of the impression he gives to the immature. Under grace we can eat the meat, under the law we can't. But if we take this freedom we need to keep in mind the impression we leave on the immature legalist. So our legalist is wrong but our green face grace Christian should take care of the impression also. A normal amount of makeup is fine, the legalist needs to grow up. Clown wear would give the impression that grace Christians are whacks. In our story what should be a mature Christian is only a legalist. What happens many times is the legalist will impose their laws on the less knowledgeable. If the less knowledgeable is convicted by guilt, then they fall into the chains of the law. The freedom of grace is caged and the joy of life is drowned. It may be me but many legalist look like they either sat on a fence post, someone has put some foul smelling item up their nose, or both. On the other hand if you condemn someone that leans to legalese and force them to do something that they don't feel comfortable doing, because they believe it to be a sin, you have made grace a law and just put on a nicer set of chains. Think my good people, use that head God gave you for more then putting makeup on. Grace is a thinking Christians way of life. All is allowed but not all is right. What may be right in one circumstance may not be right in another. If you take grace and apply rigid guide lines, such as, "under grace I can do this, that, and these, no matter what", you have in a sense created a law. This happens in the new age Christian church. They have made a "law of grace, or license". If they condemn morals, divorce, homosexuality, or take a stance against anything, they feel they have broken this "law of license". Just like the Pharisee of old they have made their own law, a law of license. But more on grace run amuck in a bit, we're still dealing with the "sticks in the mud". The law has members of churches spending their lives trying to fulfill it. This is a life that values works as the main way to get to heaven. These churches divide the law into good works, and bad works. If there isn’t a written law for a certain act, they will come up with their own by-laws to cover it. Back to our poor woman who put on the lipstick, picture her before Jesus, and the Lord telling her ”yes you’ve done some nice work, but I noticed there is some pretty nasty stuff over here. And Oh! Remember the time you looked at that woman and thought she was a Jezebel, when you wanted to look the same way? Well, weren't you just being a hypocrite? Then, didn't you go home and put on lipstick? I’m sorry but that put you over the edge. Sorry your outa' here”. God doesn’t have some huge Toledo scale with all our works, good and bad, stacked along side each other. But these poor people spend so much time working to get to heaven, by leveling their scales, that many don’t ever get saved. Without the gift of Salvation, just one sin (bad works) tips the scale, and in that case you are “outa here". Works do have their place in rewards and punishments, but whether they are either depends on if you’re saved or not. If you're saved then those good works will reap you rewards (if done for God and not mans praise), and if you're not saved those sins may just get you, lets just say, a non-prime location in hell. Man, and some churches also, have a tendency to pick and choose the laws they feel are valid. How valid those laws are to them depends on social acceptance, personal life style, and are conditioned by the circumstances at the time. Man looks for backing to sustain his views or his opinion. What better justification of ones stance, then God himself, by way of God’s Word. More often then not man will take the law and apply it out of context, and seldom with grace. Alternatively, man quotes the law when trying to manipulate others, and grace when it better fits his situation. We like to apply the law to others, and grace to our selves. Your child in the heat of a argument turns to you and screams “I don’t have to listen to you, your not God”. Your response is of course, “respect your parents and your days on earth will be long. It is the first comment with a blessing. It’s one of the Ten Commandments you know”. The next day you walk around the corner and that same child is whacking a younger one. You of course yell “what on earth are you doing”, the child’s response is, “he took my comic book and the Ten Commandments say you can’t steal”. How quick we respond with “you must forgive or you won’t be forgiven”. If you don’t think that child isn’t walking away confused, you’re only kidding yourself. All those points are valid, they just aren’t balanced or put in their proper context. Nor have they been applied fairly. Yes if you live by the law, you will be judged by the law, but that doesn’t mean you don’t judge at all. Christians will judge angels (1 Cor. 6:3), it’s a matter of how we apply those judgments (or laws) under grace. Again, think, think, think. Use the Bible for a standard to make judgments by, but temper those judgments under grace. Find the balance and ask (pray) what Jesus would want you to do. We are to judge with a gentle hand, with humility, and to restore the sinner (Gal. 6:1), not to condemn or bind them. Even if your saved, trying to live your life by works, and the law, brings guilt (not to be confused with conviction, there is a difference), it sucks the joy out of the Christian life, it makes us think that Jesus, since He left this planet, is just waiting to slap us down. This Jesus is just an vindictive score keeper with a little black book taking note of all our sins and flaws. This Jesus isn’t all loving unless we’re law abiding. Do you think at times that God hates you or that he’s after you? Is your God just trying to teach you a lesson and you never feel that you’re good enough. If this is the Jesus you believe in, then maybe you have put your faith in a false Jesus. And faith in a false Jesus can’t save. You need to know the real Jesus. Besides I’ve got news for you, that before you were saved (if you are) you weren’t “good enough”, no one can be. But because Salvation pays for sin, once saved, you are. Not that you have become a better person, but because God doesn’t see your sins, He sees’ the death of His Son Jesus, and the payment for our sins. By his death we have life, and only by his blood do we have salvation. The law can’t save, we are free of the law, the chains have been broken, and Jesus has already paid for the sins that the law convicted us of. In the last number of years there has been a hybrid church moment that combines the "best of both worlds". They try to make law and grace work as a unit that they were never intended. This is called "Lordship salvation" and is the core of "Reform churches". These churches admit that the law can't save and grace is needed. Law brings you to grace, and after receiving salvation by faith the Holy Spirit then empowers you to fulfill the law. Closer but no prize. No one can keep the law, the law can't save, forget trying to keep it, even with the Spirit, you can't. Reform or Lordship salvation has the follower shed the chains of the law only to be rebound by velvet ropes. The law shows us that we are a sinner in need of a Savior. The law shows us just how far we are from what we should be. The law is a special condition and covenant between Israel and God, not with the gentiles. What the law does do for the Christian is show us just a small portion of what God deems is right and wrong. Don't steal, lie, commit adultery, don't have ANY OTHER GODS, etc. A lot can be learned from the law but how to get salvation, or keep it (the Spirit keeps it and you can't lose it), isn't one of them. The law is revealing, not regulatory. Reform and Lordship moments take you from the jail cells of law and move you to a nice furnished apartment, and then locks you in. For the reform moment to work right you need to replace Israel with the church, because the law applies to the Jews and not Christians, again, wrong, wrong, wrong. Israel is here to stay. When reading the Bible keep in mind who God is speaking to, gentiles or Jews. We can learn much from what God tells the Jews, but aren't held bound by their ordinances, covenants, or laws. Now that we have looked at the stick in the mud's, let look at the far left churches. The word grace is the Greek word "charis". In Hebrew it is the word "chen", that was translated into "charis" for the Greek Old Testament. Grace (charis) could mean "thanks", "favor", and at first in Greek, was use to refer to delight or beauty in a person, act, or thing that brought pleasure to others. Eventually it came to mean a favor done without expectation of anything in return. When the Greek term was combined with the Hebrew meaning, it came to mean what we Christians know as "grace". A undeserved favor given by a superior to a inferior, or better, a Owner to a slave. Grace is what the Christian lives by, but again man takes a truth and runs to the extreme. The extreme of Grace is license. If the law sucks the life out of the Christian, then license pumps false life into them. Like I mentioned earlier many have made a "law of license". Back to our stereotypes again. Here we have the far left, the church of license, the “anything goes” church. This church has a Jesus that doesn’t judge, just loves, loves, loves. If you believe in allah, Buddha, Mr. moon, the queen of heaven, Shiva, or mother earth, it doesn’t matter much. You can believe in them. After all they all are God, aren’t they? They think people who believe in those false gods are either miss-informed, or it is just God appearing under a different name. After all, all roads lead to heaven right? They are so mistaken. All of those gods are specific deities. They are all false gods that have a detailed set of traits. They all have their origin and history rooted in man, or man made lore. Each (and all) of those gods have aspects, traits, actions, works, history, etc. that isn’t, and can’t be God’s. Yet these new churches will find some common ground to agree on and say “we all believe in the same god”. Many times common traits can be found between two unlike items, but that doesn’t make them the same. Jesus said He was the water of life (John 4:6-15). If you take that water of life (it isn’t real water, this is just for demonstration proposes) and pour it in a glass. Next take a glass of tap water mixed with a little hemlock and put it along side the other. Both will look clear, both will have the same texture, feel, taste, and both are just as wet. Which glass would you care to drink from? One gives you life and you will live with God forever, the other, not so nice. Sometimes the gods these well meaning churches are setting in front of their members are just as deadly. That doesn’t mean the church isn’t sincere, many are. It doesn’t mean they don’t love their members, many do. What will happen is, these churches will sincerely love their members to hell. The real Jesus offers a real drink from the water of life, their false jesus only can offer a feel good drink of death. It is so important to have a understanding of who Jesus is, by what the Father has to say about Him in the Bible, or we fall prey to these “wolves is sheep clothing”. This "law of license" can infect these churches so much that they fear to call much sin. They over look so much, or rationalize everything to the point that they are completely ineffective in guiding the believer. These churches many times don’t encourage their members to bring Bibles, or they work out of study guides printed by some main office. They will just as likely quote Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King, John or Bobby Kennedy, Gandhi, Buddha, or the pink power ranger, as they will Jesus. You will hear sermons on the beatitudes, forgiveness of your neighbor, and trying to be the best we can be. Any “hot” topic such as divorce, living together, gay marriage, hell, payment for our sins, the place of women in the church, or any thing that may “offend” their members, is either glossed over or winked at. After all “judge not, lest ye be judged”. Yet we are called to judge our fellow Christians, we will judge angels. They take verses like “judge not, lest ye be judged” and twist them out of context. These new churches are big on entertainment, large screens, huge stages, lighting effects, and sound systems to match up with any large theater. The bigger the better, after all, the more people, the more money, the more good works they can do, and the better the church they are. These churches will have altar calls. The leader will ask if there is anyone who isn’t saved, would they like to know God and have eternal life. They will call the people forward and tell them “Do you repent of your sins, do you wish to ask Jesus into your heart, then today’s the day". It's like the "Price is right", COME ON DOWN!. They may even have printed cards to recite with their version of a sinners pray. But which god do they mean? The one who gave His only begotten Son, the one who created the world in seven days? Or is this the god who also goes by the name allah, Buddha, etc. Which Jesus do they mean, the one who only teaches love and never condemned sin? Or the God who said not one word of the Old Testament has been removed. Give your heart, what does that mean, your emotions? In old Greek they thought the heart was were your thoughts came from, they thought the heart was the brain. That gives “heart” a whole different meaning then. It means giving all your thoughts and mind to Jesus. To invite Jesus into your "heart" then means to include Him in the thinking possess of your daily life, this is the real WWJD, not some rubber band around your wrist. And repent means what? The Greek word for repent here is met-an-o-eh-o (metanoia). Meta from the Greek meaning to change, like in metamorphous. Noia from the Greek word for mind, as in paranoid (meaning two-minded, para meaning two). With that repent means to change the way you think about Jesus (that He is God and the only way to salvation), about sin, and about our lifestyles. Not just to turn your back on sin, but to change your way of thinking. Again "THINK"! Can God save someone out of one of these license churches, you betcha, God can do anything. But if the believer does get saved, by putting his faith in the gift of Salvation, the shed blood, sacrifice, and work of the true Jesus, it’s more in spite of the church, then because of it. The best we can hope for here is the person does get saved, but until they move on to a good Bible based church, their growth in the Lord will be slow if not dead. And the worst case scenario is the poor person goes on the rest of their lives with a false belief that they have been saved. They will never know what it’s like to be a true child of God, and worst they will be one of the many who cry “Lord, Lord”…. And Jesus will say “I never knew you”. Don’t be one of those sad souls, Check out What is Salvation?. Below is a little check list to ask, write up, or at lest watch for. A wrong response (in the prentices) will tell you if they have false beliefs. Some answers will tell you which way they lean, Law or Lic., and some are just wrong but have been showing up no matter which way they lean. All these (YES) answers are wrong.
This time the answer "(NO)" is a wrong response
This is just a short list of questions you can ask. These are basic questions but they can be telling of the churches core beliefs. Will you find many churches answering correctly? No. Just because a church has a long history of being “solid”, doesn’t mean they will stay that way. A wave of rapid church growth is happening today. This growth is in the form of numbers, size, money and influence. By all worldly standards the church is doing better in America then it has in a long while. By Gods standards the church is just about dead. The death rattle can be heard every Sunday from the pulpits of most major churches. Am I judging them by too high a standard, maybe? If the Bible can be too high a standard, then I am. The bells on Sunday should call the Church to hear the Word of God, but instead they bring the people to worship at pretty white washed tombs (with five speaker stereo). Keep a eye on your church for changes, the purpose driven movement is very subtle at first, but is like cancer once it gets a footing. Size doesn’t matter; the first churches were in small rooms, homes, and underground in catacombs. Man puts importance in numbers, but God puts importance in the person, when it comes to salvation. Jesus died for the whole world but would have died the same way, if it was only you, I, or that neighbor who drives you nuts. I’m not saying all large churches are bad, I wish it was that easy. And just because it’s a home or small church doesn’t make it good, many cults start or operate that way. What I’m saying is that you use the Bible as your Gold Standard to judge the church by. Remember pray and THINK! How the church delivers the message can be more personal taste then Biblical also. If the minister wears a tie, polo shirt, or a robe doesn’t matter. Pipe organ or guitar, pews or plastic chairs, cathedral or store front, flannalgrafts or the latest in electronics, doesn’t make the church good or bad. It’s the message, whether it is Biblically sound and not watered down. Whether they preach the Gospel and point the true way to Salvation by Jesus. And if that Jesus is the Son of God, the true Jesus. It's just that the far right church will gravitate to the traditional, and the far left to the cutting edge. Once again Think! You are under grace but the law gives us a insight to how God wishes us to live our lives. We shouldn't murder, lie, steal, have any other Gods. We shouldn't live with someone, have sex out of marriage, marry someone of the same sex, envy others positions or processions. We can use the guidance of the law to base our judgments on, as to how Christians live their lives. We can confront them on these issues of sin. We can't judge if they are going to hell. We can't be hypocrites (the intent of "judge not, lest we be judge"). We can't think less of them, we ALL have sinned. The judgments need to be tempered with grace. All judgments need to be done with love. If a church can't call a sin, a sin, then they are just a social club. Jesus took a church to task for not throwing out a "Jezebel" from their ranks, they were over looking willful sin (Rev. 2:20). If you wish for examples of balancing law and grace we only need to look to the Bible. Who better to patter our views after, then God Himself. Remember when the crowd bought the woman
who committed adultery to Jesus for judgment
(John 8:1-11). Did He say they didn't have a right
to call her a adulteress? No. They could judge her on her actions, what they
couldn't do was condemn her. Did Jesus tell her to just forget it, no. He told
her to go and "sin no more". He told the crowd who was trying to manipulate the
law for their own intent, those who had not sinned could throw the first stone. Does that mean we should never be
angered over sin. No, there is a time and place. What made Jesus angry more
times then not, was hypnotics and false teachers in the "church". Both can be
found in abundance today on either the right or left. Judging the "church" was
very important to Jesus, and should be for us. Picking the right church by
judging it to the standard of the Bible should be paramount to the Christian.
Jesus didn't take the teachings of the "church" of his time lightly, and neither
should we. Jesus is very hard on churches and the teachers that lead them, take a look at Revelations 2:1-3:22. In there you can learn a lot of what He expects from the church and those who attend them. Just as a side note, those letters were written to seven real churches, but they are also prophetic, we are in the church age of Laodicea, it's as if Jesus could look into the future and see how the churches were going to be today. Or yea, since Jesus is God, He can. Only God can tell the future from the past, Jesus told us how the church would grow and change thru history. We have made it to the end, which is the church of Laodicea, check it out (Rev. 3:14). Jesus holds both church leaders and churches to a higher standard, they should know better. In all three cases we read (the two women, the Temple salesmen) the law was taken into consideration. But with the women the compassion of grace was applied (even though under the law both could have been stoned). They came straight to Jesus, one on one. They were everyday people and Jesus would have taken into consideration what they knew, and where they were in their faith. The hypocrites of the Temple on the other hand used the law for profit. They were selling salvation as a commodity. They were taking Gods Word and twisting it to what was for their benefit. They were leading Gods people astray and that's what's happening today with the far right, and far left. Either they are chaining the flock under the law, or leading them over a cliff with their lack of direction. If you’re blessed to find a good church, over look your personal taste. If you are really blessed and have more then one good church in your area, then go to the one that best suits your taste. When using the Bible to judge the church be careful not to look for reasons to condemn the church. No church is prefect because all churches have people in them. There will be “clics”, unsaved, and a multitude of things that will upset different people. Is the message correct? As long as the message is true and the minister is presenting it faithfully, the rest are just distractions, and no church can please everyone in everyway. It’s too easy to fine a fault, and then tie it to some verse, just for a reason not to go. No church is faultless, but if they can answer that list above, you should be pretty safe.
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Last modified: 12/15/07For a FREE downloadable KJV Bible click here. Opinions or questions: Mail@SimpleBibleAnswers.com
Re:22:18: For I testify unto every man
that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto
these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book:
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