Burden For My Brothers and Sisters In Christ

I have a burden for my brothers and Sisters in Christ. I am saddened at the lack of prayerful honest Bible Study, and the spiritual immaturity, of the majority of today’s church. Before I go any further, let me say, with Paul: “This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief.” 1 Timothy 1:15 KJV That’s right, I am no better than any of you and I need more honest Bible Study also. I need prayer also.

Sometimes, I am a little surprised about people who have been Christians for quite a while and could be considered elders in their churches, but how quickly and easily they will become offended over the smallest things. I am surprised how quickly they will try to attack the person they think has offended them in some way. Instead of following what the Bible says to do, and go to that person, they want to publicly attack the other person or gather a group of men to confront the person. Rather than find out if what, the other person has said, is true or not, they just consider the statement an attack. Brothers and sisters in Christ should not have these problems, we are to love one another. As a matter of fact, we are commanded to love one another (see John 13:34, John 15:12, John 15:17, Romans 13:8, I Thessalonians 4:9, I Peter 1:22, I John 3:11, I John 3:23, I John 4:11 & 12, and II John 1:5). To many of us are wearing our feelings on our shirt sleeves. It is easy too offend someone without even trying to do so.

A person can choose to be offended about anything they want to. We can come up with all kinds of things to be offended about; “Nobody shook my hand”, “The preacher was directing his message right at me”, or “I didn’t like the music this morning”, as examples. It is easy to choose to be offended. We can choose to be offended, or we can raise above it.

I recall a pastor stating someone had told him they were just not being fed at their church. The pastor asked him how long he had been a Christian. The man told him that he had been a Christian for quite a while. The pastor told that he should be old enough in Christ to feed himself, that only babies needed to be fed. Church is for worship. This is our problem, the church is full of spiritual babies.

If the pastor, or anyone else, tries to feed them anything beyond the milk of the word, they choke on it, can not receive it, and / or are offended. “For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat. For every one that useth milk is unskilful in the word of righteousness: for he is a babe. But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.” Hebrews 5:12-14 KJV

This concerns me quite a bit, our churches are full of good sincere people who should by now be well founded in God’s word, but can not take anything beyond the milk of the word. Most can not discern error from truth and will become angry at the person who points out the error. People have a hard time accepting any information that is not consistent with what they already believe. It is as if they feel compelled to protect the information, even if it is in error.

This brings us to another group of people within the church, those with some training and think that they know, and have it all figured out. I know this is true, because I thought that way once. It was not until I realized that I did not actually know, that I was able to start learning something. It is really very hard to get them to accept any truth that they do not already believe. If it is not something that they already believe, then it just can not be true. It is difficult for these people to learn anything new, at all. If an error is exposed to them, by someone, they consider it an attack rather than checking out the information to see if it is true or not. We are told to: “Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.” 1 Thessalonians 5:21 KJV But many are: “Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.” 2 Timothy 3:7 KJV. “Desiring to be teachers of the law; understanding neither what they say, nor whereof they affirm.”1 Timothy 1:7 KJV.

I was given a book, by my sister, and she asked me to let her know what I thought about it. The book was “Your People Shall Be My People” by Don Finto. I did find one of his statements to be very interesting and enlightening.
“As a Bible major in a Christian college, I graduated confident of what I believed. I knew how to read the Bible to overlook certain passages and to interpret others so that they always said what I had been taught. We knew that any other understanding of Scripture would separate us from close friends and family. Occasionally this would make me uncomfortable. I would read Scripture that did not quite fit what I had been taught. But after all, my professors, who were Godly men, knew better than I. They read Hebrew and Greek, and they could not be wrong.”
from page 24 of Your People Shall Be My People by Don Finto.

This is what happens today, everything must line up with the “party line”, what the church already believes. I encourage people not to take my word for, whatever I am teaching, but to check things out for themselves. Truth does not fear investigation. We should be like those in Berea.
“These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so.” Acts 17:11

The solution to our problem. We need to get back to our God, we need to know what He is telling us, without trying to make it fit church doctrine. We need to get back into our Bibles, with prayerful, honest Bible study. We need to pray that God’s holy spirit will lead us in our study of his word. When reading or listening to others teach, we need to pray that God will confirm (to us) all that is true and expose (to us) all that is false. We need to treat our brothers and sisters in Christ with love and kindness (Ephesians 4:32).