The Solution to the Problem

Last time I posed a couple of questions:

So how then as a Church should we go about righting the wrong? Is it time to storm Parliament and to push for more legislative protection for Biblical morals? What should our course of action be as the Church now?

One commenter (who obviously wishes to remain anonymous) answered the questions much how I was planning to. In brief summation, their answers were:

Maybe as believers our time would be better spent righting the wrongs within the church, rather than looking outside the church. Not saying that we shouldn’t reach out to others, for we should always be ready to give an answer for the reason for the hope that is within us.

This is the crux of the argument that I was going to make in the first attempt at this posting. It is also the underlying content of the show The Church’s Problem that I did for Worldview Edition a few weeks ago. The underlying core of the moral predicament that we find ourselves in is that the church appears no different from the world. The answer isn’t necessarily that simple.

So how do we go about righting the wrong within the Church? How do we go about ridding the church of the moralistic-therapeutic-deism which reigns supreme? I think we can learn for Jesus’ letter to the Church at Pergamum.

And to the angel of the church in Pergamum write: “The words of him who has the sharp two-edged sword. I know where you dwell, where Satan’s throne is. Yet you hold fast my name, and you did not deny my faith even in the days of Antipas my faithful witness, who was killed among you, where Satan dwells. But I have a few things against you: you have some there who hold the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel, so that they might eat food sacrificed to idols and practice sexual immorality. So also you have some who hold the teaching of the Nicolaitans. Therefore repent. If not, I will come to you soon and war against them with the sword of my mouth. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, with a new name written on the stone that no one knows except the one who receives it.’¹

How appropriate this is for today. We have false prophets (like Balaam) in the church focusing on temporal, not spiritual, matters. How many sex sermon series do we have? How many charlatans are globe-trotting promising health, wealth and happiness if you would just give them your money. Jesus commanded them to repent, and so it should be within our churches today. We need to call for repentance from the silliness that marks the church in the west.

The answer to the problem, I believe, is the Gospel. The majority of churches today have forgotten what the Gospel is, or they have perverted it in such a way that their definition bears absolutely no resemblance whatsoever to the Gospel that Jesus and the Apostles proclaimed. The problem is that too many churches have (and continue to do so) taken the Gospel for granted. If you take something for granted long enough it is easy to forget it is even there. I believe that the Church has taken the Gospel for granted, and it has lost its power in our lives. Therefore let us look at what the Gospel is, and then let us follow it out to its conclusion–both in our lives; and how it will impact the world around us.