"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: 12-13)
The teaching that is going on in churches today is insulting!
I remember attending one service where the pastor spent more time telling people that they city had rescinded his permit to finish additions on his house.
The assistant pastor at the same church dazzled the audience with lego-picture of the ten plagues which had assaulted the Egyptians. The artwork was cute and funny, but not much was taken away from the overall service, at least for me.
Once, the pastor put on an outfit and pretended to be Elijah the profit. All of that play-acting contributed very little to our understanding of the passage – 1 Kings 18.
What is the central theme of all Scripture? Jesus! He expounded on this to the two traveling from Emmaus (Luke 24: 26-27). He explained this to the Pharisees, who resisted him as anything but the Christ (John 5: 39)
Christ Jesus is the life of the believer, and therefore our calling in the Body of Christ is not to expound to people how they are supposed to live their lives, but who they are resting in, in whom they have died and received eternal life: Jesus!
Yet in many churches, pastors spend less time telling people who they are in Christ, and instead tell them what they need to be doing for Christ.
We have died with Christ, and in Him, therefore, we live. We are not supposed to be moving around on the earth trying to keep the rules, laws and regulations which were presented because of offenses, the school-master that held us into subjection, yet all is fulfilled in Christ and His grace flowing in our lives. We no longer need the old codes of written regulations, laws that kill, when it is the Spirit of God that gives life.
Another pastor, I remember, who spent nearly two hours telling his congregants not to cheat on their husbands and wives. I mean, how demeaning can it get? We are not called into church to be told what we should not be doing, but rather we are called to assemble so that we encourage one another to do good works (Hebrews 10: 25)
If we know the love of God, the love of Christ for us, then how can we not love our spouses?
"Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave
himself for it." (Ephesians 5: 25)
I submit that men are not called to love their wives in the same manner as Christ the loved the church, at least in a connubial sense, basically because Jesus was never married while walking on the earth. We have been prompted to love because of God's great love of us, and thus men who understand how loved they are in Christ can in turn love their wives, not hoping for a return of affection as a prerequisite or a payment in order for this affection to continue.
"So ought men to
love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself." (Ephesians 5: 28)
We have become a new creation in Christ (2 Corinthians 5: 17), so why would men therefore not love their own bodies, as our bodies have now been made the temple of the Holy Spirit? (1 Corinthians 6: 19)
Churches that spend more time telling people what to do instead of informing them who they are in Christ merely perpetuate the infantilized Christianity which is in vogue in this country.
We are called to walk as children of light in a dark world (:Ephesians 5: 8), yet how can we walk as children of life if our minds have not been renewed to this truth?
The Gospel means very little if not preached in its fullness. We are no longer bound by written regulations, but rather we are invited to live in the newness of the Spirit. By walking in the Spirit, we do not fulfill the lusts of the flesh, and we are not bound by the law, but rather do more than the law requires of us (Galatians 5: 16-18)
It's time for believers to grow in grace and knowledge of the Lord (2 Peter 3: 18), not to get bogged down in the knowledge of the law, which imparts nothing but condemnation and fear to its hearers and adherents. We are off age now as full-grown children of God, and we are called to rest in His grace and righteousness, that God may flourish and thrive in us and through us and out to a world desperate to hear the Good News!