Christians and Crisis

Every Wednesday we’ll post something to do with doctrine and recovery. Hope it helps.

Christians and Crisis

When written in Chinese the word “crisis” is composed of two characters – one represents danger, and the other represents opportunity. – John F. Kennedy

Crisis is an overused word. Family crisis, financial crisis, emotional crisis, nothing-to-wear crisis — its force gets watered down when it’s heard too often. If your name’s out there on mailing lists, I’ll bet you receive any number of letters from organizations describing a problem, the crisis it creates, the ways they can avert the crisis, and the reasons you must send money to help them do so.

Well, they’re right to a point. The Church today faces any number of crisis, both within and outside its walls, and the issues we discuss on this blog – sexual morality and Biblical standards – are clearly among them. Our culture has shifted at a breathtaking speed towards a wholesale rejection of the Judeo-Christian values that used to influence it, and within the church a compromise of those values, or an outright ignorance of them, is rampant. Pollster George Barna’s question, posed in his book Boiling Point, comes to mind:

“How am I, as a committed follower of Christ, supposed to make   sense of all of this and respond in ways that honor Christ and bring His truths to bear on the emerging world?” – George Barna

Back to Basics

The answer, I believe, calls us back to doctrinal basics, one of which is the purpose and role of the church. After all, a Christian response should be one that springs from, and is in line with, the Church’s assigned function, which we see in four parts:

  1. To preach the gospel.
  2. To make disciples
  3. To establish and strengthen community within the Church Body.
  4. To be a tangible witness of God’s nature, standards and truths by our good works, our love, and our clear voice.

Let’s look at each of these.

To preach the gospel.

From the time Jesus commissioned the disciples before His ascension (“Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every living creature.” Mark 16:15) they had an urgency about spreading the Good News, accompanied with a clear understanding that people were either dead in sin or alive in Christ.

So Peter’s sermon on the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2:14-40); his message at Solomon’s Porch (Acts 3:11-26); Stephen’s defense before the high priest (Acts 6:2-53); and the scattered disciple’s evangelism (Acts 8:4) all testify to a passion for calling people to recognize their mortality, and the inevitable judgment they’d face if they refused the salvation God made available through Christ. Far from ecumenical, they took the Lord at His word when He said “No one comes to the father but by me” (John 14:6) and that “unless a man is born again He cannot enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.” (John 3:3) His vivid, unsparing descriptions of hell (Matthew 18:9; 25:41; Mark 9:44) must have fueled their zeal as well, so the early church made the promotion of the only name under heaven or earth by which people can be saved (Acts 4:12) their top priority. (See also Romans 10:14-15, I Corinthians 9:16, and II Timothy 4:2) We cannot call ourselves serious believers if we do less.

To make disciples.

The great commission placed discipleship alongside the preaching of the gospel itself (Matthew 28:19 ) making it clear that the church was to not only make believers, but followers as well. A disciple is, according to Easton’s Bible Dictionary, one who (1) believes his doctrine, (2) rests on his sacrifice, (3) imbibes his spirit, and (4) imitates his example. (See <http://www.blueletterbible.org/Search/Dictionary/viewTopic.cfm?

type=GetTopic&Topic=Disciple&DictList=2#Easton’s>) The work of the church is to nurture and grow such a person.

To establish and strengthen community within the Church Body.  The early church was tightly connected from its inception, marked by its members’ deep mutual involvement. (Acts 2:42-47) Since Jesus pointedly commanded the disciples to love each other, predicting that the whole world would recognize them as His if they did so (John 13:35) the bond among early believers isn’t surprising. The spiritual gifts endowed upon different Christians were given, Paul said, for the building up of the church (Romans 12:4-8; I Corinthians 12:4-30; Ephesians 4:11-16) whose health is to be maintained by sound doctrine (II Timothy 3:16-4:3); faithful leadership (I Peter 5:1-4); deep love (I John 4:7, I Peter 4:8); practical caring (I John 3:16-17) and church discipline. (I Corinthians 5:1-12) All of these elements are necessary for healthy community.

To be a tangible witness of God’s nature, standards and truths by our good works, our love, and our clear voice. “We are His workmanship”, Paul said in Ephesians 2:10, utilizing the Greek word poema, from which we get our word “poem.” We are His poem, through which, in the ages to come, He will “show the exceeding riches of His grace and His kindness towards us in Christ Jesus.” (Ephesians 2:7) That makes the church a visible platform by which God shows His nature, and through which He expresses His heart and mind. From the church, then, there should come a clear voice accurately expressing both God’s viewpoint and His attitude.

So the responsibility to clearly God’s opinion and heart on a given issue cannot be ignored. While the church is not called to dominate or coerce the culture, She is called to impact it; to reason with it; to invite it to consider both its Creator and His claims. And so She becomes a tangible witness of God’s nature, standards and truths through good works, love, and a clear voice. Whatever cultural trends may be, let the Church be vilified or dismissed, but let Her never be misunderstood. If our culture rejects our message, let’s be sure it has at least heard and known the message it’s discarding.

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