There is obviously a serious misunderstanding about what “church” is. When people say
come or go to, or have “church” they mean “church meeting.” The local church meeting is an ecclesia, a called out assembly. The universal Church, Body of Christ, is the Ecclesia, the people that were called out of darkness into His marvelous light.
My point is that clearly the local church meeting, just as the Body of Christ, is an assembly of Believers, not sinners. There is no privilege granted sinners to join such an assembly and remain as they are, or to dictate its biblically mandated decorum.
Paul wrote, “if” uninformed or unbelievers come into the assembly, indicating that they are not prohibited, but are guests rather than members (1 Corinthians 14:23). He made it clear earlier in the epistle (1 Corinthians 5) that sin should be openly challenged in the ecclesia.
Thus, sinners are welcome to attend a Christian assembly in search for truth. They have no basis for insisting that it should accommodate or pander to their sinful condition. Furthermore, they should understand that it will not become less Christian to avoid offending them.
Pastors that will not speak truth to avoid offending a homosexual couple deprives them and other sinners from the only way they can be set free. To call speaking truth in love “hateful” is agreeing with Satan that people should be happy on their way to eternal hell.
By the way, the ecclesia is not the method or means the Scriptures presents for soul winning. So it is improper to invite sinners to the ecclesia for the purpose of “getting them saved.” Not to win them where you found them and where God sent you to reach them is an abdication of Christian duty.
Shifting that duty onto the ecclesia has made innumerable Christians as barren and unfruitful as the fig tree Christ cursed. The bottom line is that 90 plus percent of professing Christians never win one soul in their entire life. That makes the modern ecclesia more of a ritual than a means to an end. Now, PCs are afraid of offending in an ecclesia the ones they fail to personally witness to. Can anyone say, “shameful!” without their own cheeks blushing?
You are ‘right on’ in your summation about the assembly and its misnomer of “church”. That has always bugged me also. As for accommodating sinners with the rc (religiously correct) trappings of what PC’s surmise to be a ‘souped up’ church building with all bells and whistles; to get ‘sinners’ to buy their product and get saved while they are entertained and pampered with gifts and food. Pardon my Southern “that AIN’T Biblical.
As I write, we are bailing out of such an ecclesia. Said assembly was just down the street from us and handy. We gave it the the benefit of the doubt for one and one-half years but it is worse than “ichabod” at this time. I will not bore you with all the details.
As for soul winning, that is our Christian responsibility to be ‘salt and light’ and bring ‘Living Water’ (the Gospel) to a dry a thirsty world. That is why God saved us and why the Lord Jesus died; that we might be filled with the Holy Spirit and thereby equipped to give a ‘good answer’ for the Hope that is within us to those we come in contact with in our daily lives. I believe Christians should have a ‘plan’ for personally evangelizing those within our sphere of influence. The Great Commission is for all disciples of Jesus Christ. We should be proactive in our approach to ‘sinners’. We (each of us) should have a plan to get out among the ‘masses’, armed with our testimony and the Word of God in our hearts. We are not called to be in the ‘holy huddle’ of “church”, waiting on ‘them’ (lost sinners) to come ring our bells and blow our whistles, and leave with a belly full of food while still starving for real Meat that we are unable to provide in that compromised and apostate church building !!
“29 And Levi made him a great feast in his own house: and there was a great company of publicans and of others that sat down with them. 30 But their scribes and Pharisees murmured against his disciples, saying, Why do ye eat and drink with publicans and sinners? 31 And Jesus answering said unto them, They that are whole need not a physician; but they that are sick. 32 I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. 33 And they said unto him, Why do the disciples of John fast often, and make prayers, and likewise [the disciples] of the Pharisees; but thine eat and drink? 34 And he said unto them, Can ye make the children of the bridechamber fast, while the bridegroom is with them? 35 But the days will come, when the bridegroom shall be taken away from them, and then shall they fast in those days. 36 And he spake also a parable unto them; No man putteth a piece of a new garment upon an old; if otherwise, then both the new maketh a rent, and the piece that was [taken] out of the new agreeth not with the old. 37 And no man putteth new wine into old bottles; else the new wine will burst the bottles, and be spilled, and the bottles shall perish. 38 But new wine must be put into new bottles; and both are preserved. 39 No man also having drunk old [wine] straightway desireth new: for he saith, The old is better.” [Luk 5:29-39 KJV]
Yes, thank you too for that earlier reply. I agree that it is good to at least have some fellowship here in the comment section. That sounds exciting about the evangelism ministry! I’m sure God will be using you in that. It is good to be prepared for different ministries even if any one specific one is not our big gift. We are all called to be ‘fishers of men’ since we are all to follow Jesus!
And I see that too with the churches, they are turning into one big country club, it’s just social functions and nothing else. It’s good to have a fellowship function here and there, but they have turned it into nothing but a social club.
God bless you brother Ken!
P.S. There are several recent posts here that I think many are not aware of since they all arrived at once, so I want to bring that to people’s attention also.
Great post!
That is part of satan’s strategy. Instead of the gospel spreading out from the church, the world invades the church. They all have the functions wrong.
Recently I heard someone express shock that the church was actually ‘for the saved’ and not the sinners. (Yes, we are the church, but they meant the ‘place’.) To make that mistake is to confuse it with an ‘outreach event.’ But the point is that this is how bad it has gotten.
The only way to enter into ‘the church’ is to go through the Door, which is Jesus Christ. You must repent of your sin, and bow yourself to Jesus as Lord and Savior, and once you are saved, you enter ‘the church’ or the Body of Christ, the Ecclesia, the organism of born again Christians all over the world, not to be confused with a denomination or organization. If you have His Spirit in you, you are part of His body, and if not, then you are not. The only way to get the Holy Spirit is to get saved by coming to Jesus for salvation. A ritual won’t save you, and all that stuff we already know.
Then, once you are saved, you ARE the church. We are the church, you and me, if you are saved (you meaning any reader). Once saved, we are told to assemble together for the edification of the Body (us). There are many functions of the church and that is another Bible trail that most of us know already. But the point of meeting is for the saved; for our edification, our sanctification, and that we, the sheep, get fed. Not the goats, but the sheep. This takes place through: Solid Bible teaching without watering down a thing, Spirit lead worship from the heart in unison where the Lord is magnified and not us, prayer, communion, Spiritual gifts, fellowship, and so forth. It is sort of like a ‘closed communion’ of believers and yes, it is exclusive because that is how God meant it to be. We are to be separate. Once you are saved, you are welcome too. It is not an outreach to the lost.
But to get saved, that is the job of the church outside of church and is called Evangelism. (And the Lord knows, I have tried with that!)
The church is not here to pander to sinners and goats. It is not here to entertain the worldly. It is not here to cater to the flesh. It is not here to water down the conviction of the Word of God; the Bible, and the Holy Spirit. It is not here to cower to the laws of the land. It is not here to buckle its knees before the sinful culture of the world, nor emulate the sinful culture of the world for ANY reason, even if it ‘sounds’ good. It is not here to foster ‘community’ outside of those in Christ, or with a mixed multitude of saved and lost. It is not here to kindle ‘unity’ with apostate denominations in the name of ecumenism. It is not here to tickle your ears and make you feel ‘good’ about yourself. It is not here to beg you for your attendance or your money. It is not here to feed you or offer you complimentary coffee. It is not here to tailor to your needs or curtail the message based on what may or may not offend you. You don’t get to edit the Word of the Lord. He gets to edit you instead, that is the whole point of getting saved and getting edified. Jesus did dine with sinners but it was not called the church. And in so doing He NEVER sinned. We are NOT to emulate the world, that is compromise.
The church is here to be the pure and holy bride of Christ. We are here to point to Him by our witness, our godly example, by love and truth in word and deed. If they are not drawn to Him by that reflection of Him, then they are not going to be drawn to Jesus either. But the devil wants you to think that you need to mirror the world in order to draw them into the sheepfold of the saved. All that is accomplished is that the world has drawn the church into the goat-fold of the lost. And that… is ALL that is accomplished by this compromise. The bride goes out, grabs a handful of mud and filth, and slathers it all over her heavenly white bridal gown. That is all that is gained by this breach of our walk with the Lord. If anyone gets converted by such an ‘outreach,’ I would wager that is was a false conversion because they did not see a true example of Christianity. Where is the message of carrying your cross daily and following Him as a true disciple? Those are His requirements and we have no right to trim them off of the calling and the message of Jesus calling the lost to be saved.
I know Whom I have followed, and He has called me to keep my garment unsoiled.
God bless you!
Oh!
And I was reading the other day and came across the place in the Bible where David orders the taboo census. He wanted Israel numbered. It was a sin of pride from what it looks like. What a great parallel to the numbers games that ‘church growth’ churches play, the seeker friendly, market driven harlot church! It is not about increasing the sheep, it is about increasing the goats. The watered down messages tell you that. So do the filled coiffers! Numbers of people translates into numbers of dollars. Betraying the gospel for 25 pieces of silver! Oh, what the prophets of the Old Testament would proclaim! The rebukes, the wailing, the weeping, the outcries, the railings against the wolves! Only that mantle fell upon us, the New Testament saints. One thing is the same, they still don’t listen!
And that reminds me, I detest it when they refer to themselves as mere ‘saved sinners’ usually to cover up some sin. There is no such thing. Either you are a sinner, or you are saved. That’s just the devil trying to deprive you of the fullness of growth and sanctification in the Spirit! You are called to be a SAINT! You are no longer a sinner! You are now a sanctified one! Exception: None! I did not say perfect, but that word is used at some point. Sanctification is the calling of every Christian, and it means to be made holy, aka a saint. No getting around it.