Simple.....

"Yet, in order to teach others in church, I would rather say five words that can be understood than ten thousand words in another language." 1 Corinthians 14:19 GWT

Recently a brother in Christ, with whom I have been in fellowship with for a few years now, posted a comment on www.outofthewild.ning.com (Out of the Wild), a men's online ministry we belong to. His title was; This is my church. An awesome expression of how the church should be, in his mind, and how Christians within the walls of the church should act, down to a soul level.

I wrote this in reply, for I believe that the church is too cultural, too secular, and too much an enclosed community of the 'haves' (those who are in connection with leadership, well known and though of in the church, etc.) and the 'who?' (the rest of us). Church isn't where sin is exposed, per se, but where a fallen brother or sister can come for salvation, redemption, and overcoming through the support, edification, accountability, and love of those who are just as burdened, just as broken.

I posted:

This is my church. It is composed of people who stand as representations of the various stages of my faith; some greater, some lesser, some even with me. It is friendly in excess of friendliness, emboding true friendship as set forth by Barnabas....believing despite reason, loving beyond simplisticity. It has set its hand to greater things, mourning the failure of the goal and picking itself up to renew the drive towards it again. It is generous beyond borders, walls, and ideologies, seeking only to be a source of hope and companionship in life's trials for all the lost and torn in the darkness of the night. It is filled with impatient people, for sitting down is not the mission field, but a rest stop, and they are eager to be about the harvest. It is loyal, loving, and faithful as the bride waiting its bridegroom to come and knowing He will.

My church has no walls, no chairs, no tithing plates. My church is noisy, broken, and bruised by the battering of life. My church is full of imperfect, struggling, and desperate people. My church is the world. My people, those lost in the darkness. I will be a source of its light.

But, in the church of today, such is not the case.....the world has overtaken the church and there are too many 'famous' and 'well-articulated' preachers talking gibberish and false doctrines who are gaining converts even among the faithful. Books abound couched in biblical terminology that expouse an all-too-human concept of God, Christ, and Faith. It seems that someone out there is putting a new book on the shelves daily expressing some view that has never been seen before and we are just nodding our heads.

God's truth hasn't changed in two-thousand plus years! The ultimate copyright!

Those who preach a doctrine subtly oppose the 'traditional' biblical text, reaching slowly into the mystical and intellectual to draw those who are not so gifted into accepting distortions of the Truth because they have no smooth sounding language to give back.

The Biblical text is simple, mankind has made it complex.

My son, who is cognitively-impaired, has the best concept of God that I have ever heard, and with the complexities of biblical text is the simpliest. God is God and I am not.

Christ came to the earth, born of a virgin, in the town of Bethlehem, lived with us for 33 years or so before He faced the purpose to which He came; to be a perfect sacrifice upon the Cross for the sins of all mankind. He died upon that cross of wood and rose again after three days, and ascended to the right-hand of His Father. He is coming again. To partake of the salvation gift, you have to believe in these things.

God will work on helping you understand the rest, through the guidance and prompting of the Holy Spirit, the counselor left to the Apostles and us until Christ's return.

We celebrate the beginning of this salvation gift on December 25th, not because He was born upon that day nor because the Biblical text calls us to remember it, but because it happened as it says in the scriptures.....this process of redeeming all of Mankind with the blood of a perfect lamb.

"Scripture truth, plainly and duly taught, has a wonderful power to awaken the conscience and touch the heart." Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

Merry Christ-mas to you and yours this celebration season.