Simple Church Minute 24--accomodating bad soil in the church

24—accomodating bad soil in the church

My name is Tom; this is Simple Church Minute.

            In Mark 4, Matthew 13, and Luke 8 appears a parable of Jesus.  We call it the parable of the sower.  The people of Jesus’ day would have found the beginning funny.  Life was hard, and if you were planting crops, you would be careful not to waste your seed—it was your livelihood, just like a person today starting a business must be very careful how he or she uses the initial capital.  BUT, the farmer, in Jesus’ story, starts by spreading seed on hard ground and shallow ground, thorny ground and good ground.  The seed represent the types of people who hear the message of the Gospel. The seed that lands on hard ground are the people who will always reject Jesus’ message.  The shallow ground are like people who like the ideas of heaven, but don’t want anything to do with what looks to them like the hard stuff—letting Jesus run their life, trials, persecution.  The thorny ground people are the ones who accept the life Jesus offers, but get distracted by the worries of the world.  The last group, the good ground, Jesus calls the seeds that bear fruit.  If this was yours or my garden, only the last one would count for anything, and we’d blame ourselves for how the thorny ground turned out.

            Much of the traditional churches are concerned, sometimes overtly, sometimes subtly, with how many seeds are on the plot, without regard to fruitfulness.  A small amount of people who truly believe Jesus, gather regularly, encourage one another such that all grow regularly to the maturity of faith, God can move through them.  In such a situation, any people that to us humans seem to be hard, shallow, or thorny ground will show themselves to be actually good ground, or will get out because of not wanting to repent.  That’s OK—the believer does God’s will, the Holy Spirit speaks His truth into the spirits of the people that are truly the church.  To the degree any church concentrates on watering infertile seed, to that degree it is growing a mud pie, not a fruit pie.

            You can email me at simplechurchminute@gmail.com.  For more info on organic  church*, see http://www.simplechurch.com/ or locally at (local website).

On the recording, at this time, it says, “house churches.”  While that phrasing is OK, to say “organic church” is better.  I comment on that in blip 94.

                                                                                                              

Simple Church Minute 23--seminary and Bible schools

23—seminary and Bible schools

My name is Tom; this is Simple Church Minute.

            Where did the idea come from that a believer cannot preach, baptize, administer communion, or lead other believers without certain formal education and/or formal approval of an organization?

            You can’t find it in the Bible—the early church spread quickly with a small group of persons that Jesus mentored.  Jesus, though, directed the disciples and others to be a new God’s people, based on faith, not on ceremony, status, but by the Holy Spirit.  Jesus taught a shared life to the disciples, and they taught the same.  People became believers, shared the life of the church, became experienced believers, where others could learn from him or her by word and example in a relational, living, working context.

            When Roman emperor Constantine (quote) converted (unquote), pagan orators soon converted and brought their attraction to logic and philosophy, and priests became trained in liturgy and ritual, mainly borrowed stylistically from paganism.  Around 1200 AD, the first universities began to form around the ideas of Aristotle, Abelard, and Aquinas.  After the Reformation, Protestantism promoted a well educated clergy class. In many places, the Protestant minister was the highest educated person in town.  Catholicism followed suit.  In the U.S., the first universities were founded by Calvinists who hired the highest educated individuals without regard to belief.  Those people renounced orthodox theology and Christian ethical standards, the legacy of which resides in the Ivy League, first, and the public university systems.  From that came the formation of Christian liberal arts colleges and the Bible school, which concentrated on Christian studies, over a shorter period of time, for the purpose of training missionaries, ministers, and parachurch workers.  Parachurch was a new construct—a Christian organization for a certain purpose that did not consider itself a church.  For all the positives of these various institutions, they were not the example Jesus gave us.

            You can email me at simplechurchminute@gmail.com.  You can find out more about organic church* at http://www.simplechurch.com/ or locally at (local website).

On the recording, at this time, it says, “house churches.”  While that phrasing is OK, to say “organic church” is better.  I comment on that in blip 94.

Simple Church Minute 22--congregation stands, somber attitude

22—congregation stands and somber attitude

My name is Tom; this is Simple Church Minute.

            Today, a quick trip over two traditions not hinted at in scripture.  First, in many churches, there is a tradition of the congregation standing and singing as the clergyman walks in to be seated.  This just may come from the same place as, in a modern court, the bailiff announcing “all rise” as the judge walks in. That’s because, in the judicial tradition of the Roman Empire, those in the court room rose and sung for the entry of the judge.  As with many Roman court customs, similar traditions became a part of Roman pagan temples, and after the Empire started (quote) helping (unquote) the church, a similar custom began in 4^th century basilica worship.  It continues in almost all of the institutional churches to this day, except for the Pentecostal/charismatic branch.

            The second custom is acting serious and somber in church.  This comes from a Frenchman named Jean Joubert, but more commonly known by the anglicized version of his name, John Calvin.  Calvin saw himself as an attorney—he left his legal studies at the University of Orleans to flee the Inquisition, and went to Geneva, Switzerland.  There, he created a liturgy which was heavy on theology, and which necessitated pastors needing significantly more theological training.  To this day, churches following his ideas require pastors to have a masters degree minimum, and go give sermons more similar to seminary lectures than other branches of the church.  Calvin eliminated music, and encouraged a sense of feeling guilty before God.  Martin Bucer introduced reading the ten commandments in each service.  The New England Puritans went further yet to fining children for smiling, and having a person to poke people who were falling asleep.  From this came the tradition in the US in the 1800’s of the pastor being the most highly educated person in town.  First Thessalonians 5 verse 16 says, rejoice always.

            You can email me at simplechurchminute@gmail.com.  For more info on simple worship, visit http://www.simplechurch.com/ or locally (local website).

Simple Church Minute 21--supporting Christian workers

21—supporting Christian workers     

My name is Tom; this is Simple Church Minute

            In the early church, people like Paul, Priscilla and Aquila had skills that allowed them to travel to other cities and cultures to teach people about Jesus.  It appears that Paul was born into wealth, which is why he was a Roman citizen, and would have had no need of the tentmaking skill except that it was a requirement of being trained a Pharisee.  Only after his conversion did it become clear that even that was God’s hand on his life, as it helped make possible his missionary journeys.  There is no place in the New Testament that condoned local religious professionals.  There was money specifically raised to send persons to places where it was questionable that one could obtain a livable skill for that culture.

            Our culture is a lot different.  In Paul’s day, just being literate was a prized skill. Part of what brought Rome to its knees was that people got saved, learned to read so they could read the Bible for themselves, and then were qualified to work in the Roman bureaucracy.  When Diocleatian’s last general persecution happened, so many believers fled, the Empire could not function.

            Today, one of our society’s problems is that in too many businesses and other organizations, the people they want to hire and promote are not the hones, not the best trained, but the most easily corrupted people.  It is a natural, but difficult, part of our commitment to living for Jesus to desire to do work that is honest and ethical by God’s standards.  How do we give our best to honor Jesus in work?  1. Work as unto God, not as unto man.  2. Get a skill.  One of six in our society with a college degree is not using it in his or her job.  Further, I know what I am saying about leadership and every member ministry threatens the jobs of many Godly people who are in the status quo church system, but it is not scriptural.  3. Desire work from an ethical employer.  Our society is overrun with employers whose only honest jobs are the bottom line ones.

            You can email me at simplechurchminute@gmail.com.  For more info on organic church*, see http://www.simplechurch.com/ or locally, (local website).

On the recording, at this time, it says, “house churches.”  While that phrasing is OK, to say “organic church” is better.  I comment on that in blip 94.

Simple Church Minute 20--wearing Sunday best

20—wearing Sunday best

My name is Tom; this is Simple Church Minute.

            In Luke chapter 20 verses 45 to 47, it says, “Then, in the hearing of all the people, (Jesus) said to the disciples, ‘Beware of the scribes, who desire to go around in long robes, love greetings in the marketplaces, the best seats in the synagogues, and the best places at feasts, who devour widows houses, and for pretense make long prayers.  These will receive greater condemnation.’”  Where did the idea of wearing (quote) Sunday best (unquote) come from?  This only goes back about 300 years.  Before then, only the rich could afford nice clothes.  From medieval times to the 18^th century, clothes indicated social status, just as in Jesus’ day in the passage above.  Poor people were forbidden to wear nice clothes.  The industrial revolution made the possibility of poor having everyday and special occasion clothes a financial possibility.  At first, it was just the middle class who was allowed to distinguish themselves from the poor, and later that distinction disappeared.

            One problem with this is that it accentuates an unscriptural division between sacred and secular.  Another problem is the idea of going to church to “meet God.”  God’s New Covenant with his chosen people crucially says that we are all kings and priests needing no intercessor; we speak directly to the Father.  We also know that God knows our heart, that what we wear cannot hide or change what He knows about what is in our spirit.  Our trying to build an image can only cause sin in relation to how we deal with others. Nice clothes do not make us clean before God; Jesus’ sacrificial blood did (past-tense) that.  The early Christians made an overt effort to erase class and racial distinctions within the church—see James 2 verses 1 to 5.

            You can email me at simplechurchminute@gmail.com  For more info on organic church*, see http://www.simplechurch.com/ or locally (local website).

On the recording, at this time, it says, “house churches.”  While that phrasing is OK, to say “organic church” is better.  I comment on that in blip 94.

Simple Church Minute 18--leadership scandals

18—leadership scandals

My name is Tom; this is Simple Church Minute.

Any of us who have been believers in Jesus for any period of time have felt embarrassment of Christian leaders who have been caught, usually by the world’s media, doing things—sometimes illegal, sometimes legal but unethical—but not close to God’s standard of what living righteously is.

This is totally interconnected to the idea that the church is to be a place where every believer is allowed to and does build each other up in the faith.  A corollary to that is that a church needs to be small enough that every person can know one another.  There were, and still are, persons like Paul, who work to see people come to faith in Jesus, help them and experienced believers to form into a church, and support them as a mentor.  Scripture directs believers to support these persons financially, as these persons need to move from location to location in a way that precludes normal work.

Personality driven scandals have had one or more of the following problems:  1. The person was directing their work at individuals, then asking for money, and the money cannot be accounted for.  2. The person’s life cannot be accounted for, except for those moments in public, when he or she controls the agenda.  3. Many leaders, famous or not, use manipulative techniques.  4. Such persons set themselves in a position where they cannot accept correction.  5. Almost all are directed at the parts of the church where the most money is obtainable.  I fully understand that the areas of the world where the least time and money is directed are also the most dangerous.

One reason for doing this program is to say some things I believe are scriptural but are not being said in our part of the Christian subculture.  I ask you to consider, compare to scripture, in cultural context and in comparison to what God has blessed and not over the history of the church.

You can email me at simplechurchminute@gmail.com.  For more info on simple forms of worship, visit, on the web, http://www.simplechurch.com/, and locally (local website).   

Simple Church Minute 17--Gothic cathedrals

17—Gothic cathedrals

NOTE:  I originally wrote a segment for each of the 61 points Frank Viola and George Barna make in their book, Pagan Christianity, about traditions in the institutional church not based on scripture.  After writing it, I chose to not include this segment merely as I felt that in wouldn’t be an interesting radio commentary.

My name is Tom; this is Simple Church Minute

            If I say the word “Gothic”, what comes to mind?  I don’t want to go there—it’s a distortion of an era in European history called Gothic, the 12^th century.  In theology, it was the time of the scholastic movement.  According to Alister McGrath, the question, “How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?” was never actually debated on paper, but many other things equally esoteric and unsolvable were.  In architecture, it was the time the Gothic cathedral was developed.  The word “cathedral” comes from cathedra, which meant, the building that houses the bishop’s chair.  The idea was to create the effect of the New Jerusalem on earth.  Rich, dark colors, extremely high ceilings, and stained0glass windows were used, the combination of which was to create a feeling of awe and majesty, and which would draw the person inside to look up.  The Architects drew inspiration from Platonic philosophy and the towers of ancient Egypt.  Plato’s idea was that sound, light, and color had mystical meanings that could induce moods to bring one to the eternal good.

            Now, beauty can be good, and being or feeling inspired can and should be good, but it depends what one is getting inspired toward.  This is a huge difference from people encouraging each other and growing in true maturity of faith.  The church had lost contact with what Paul speaks about in 1 Corinthians chapter 2 verses 9 to 16.

            You…

The reference to Alister McGrath is from his book, Christian Theology

Simple Church Minute 16--history of the tithe in New Testament days

16—history of the tithe in NT days

NOTE:  I originally wrote a segment for each of the 61 points Frank Viola and George Barna make in their book, Pagan Christianity, about traditions in the institutional church not based on scripture.  After writing it, I chose to not include this segment merely as I felt that in wouldn’t be an interesting radio commentary.

My name is Tom; this is Simple Church Minute

            Question: If Bible scholars know there were two or three tithes in the Old Covenant, how did the idea of one 10% tithe get started in the church?

            Answer:  In the early church, there weren’t formal organizations, leadership offices, salaried persons or buildings, so money was only collected for special needs, like Paul’s collection for the church in Jerusalem, which had an unusually large amount of elderly people.  One of the outstanding testimonies of the early church was how generous they were with the poor and needy.  There is one 3^rd century document recommending financial support of clergy and connecting it to the practice of the Levites, but it was another century later before clergy getting paid was even slightly common.  By then, the Roman Empire had gotten involved in the church, and payment was not widespread until the 8^th century.

            Strangely, the 10% tithe idea came from secular government.  In the 7^th and 8^th centuries, 10% of the crop was the standard payment to a landlord for renting his land for a season.  About that time, the Catholic church got involved in land ownership, with the clergy collecting land rent.  Over time, the idea slid into the church, and the payment of tithe to the church became secular law in parts of Europe.  By the 10^th century, 10% as standard land rent disappeared.

            One further problem with this legalism is that giving 10% is no problem to a well off person, and an extreme burden on the poor.  Some institutional churches have made 10% giving a litmus test for discipleship.  Jesus, in Luke 21 verses 1 to 4 seems to disagree.  Lordship can be judged by the Holy Spirit looking at your spirit, not any outward act.

            You…

Simple Church Minute 15--Elizabethian pastoral prayer

15—Elizabethian pastoral prayer

NOTE:  I originally wrote a segment for each of the 61 points Frank Viola and George Barna make in their book, Pagan Christianity, about traditions in the institutional church not based on scripture.  After writing it, I chose to not include this segment merely as I felt that in wouldn’t be an interesting radio commentary.

My name is Tom; this is Simple Church Minute

            Methodism in the 18^th century was the immediate spiritual spiritual descendant of the work of British evangelist John Wesley.  This movement introduced some emotion to worship.  People were invited to sign loudly and fervently.  In this respect, they were the predecessor to frontier revivalism, the holiness movement, and the Pentecostal/ charismatic branch of the church.

            They had a pastoral prayer in their worship that covered all the different facets of public prayer.  The notable feature was that it was always done in the dialect the King James Version was written in, with “thee”, “thou”, and “thy.”  Now, this dialect wasn’t around for long; anyone who has read Chaucer and Shakespeare in school realizes that the English language changed greatly in only a couple hundred years, and the English of the KJV is somewhere in between.  When the KJV was released in 1611, the language was already close to archaic in wording.  Nonetheless, in some parts of the church, this dialect lives on in how pastors speak out these formalized prayers, with the trend more dominant in more traditional organizations.  Strangely, on the opposite side is a small branch of independent churches, often with leaders of minimal training, which insist that the King James Version is the only appropriate version of the Bible to use.  The Bible was originally written in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Koine Greek.  In all languages, many words do not have exact equivalents in other languages, and languages change in some ways over time.  We can believe God inspired the original writers to say what they did in languages that had just the right nuance.  We must also recognize that some translators over the years have been influenced by who was paying them, sometimes intentionally, sometimes subliminally.

            You…

Simple Church Minute 14--size prevents heresy (not!)

14—size prevents heresy

My name is Tom; this is Simple Church Minute

            Do large churches and denominations prevent heresy?

            I would say no, and maybe, to a slight degree, promote it.  First, let us clarify what heresy is.  Heresy is incorrect doctrine, especially on the most basic doctrines, to the degree that people that hold such ideas are rejected from being considered part of true faith.  In our extremely inclusive society, the word is considered out-of-date, primitive, distasteful to even use.  In Western society, in conjures images of the Spanish Inquisition.

            There are a number of categories of heresies, I wish to mention two rarely mentioned as such.  The first is people who have come through the seminaries, do not believe the historic Christian faith, expect their salaries to come from the offerings of believers. They wish to not be in local church authority, but be in the academic and headquarters positions.  Right now we are beginning to see these institutions crumble, as the weight of their salaries and maintainence of their property is too much to be maintained as both believers and persons who don’t believe and no longer feel social pressure to stay both leave and stop financially contributing.

            A second group is headed by obvious, famous leaders.  Just maybe they have their theology right, but they teach in a little different or interesting way, and maintain an organization such that they are isolated from the everyday believer.  When this person appears in public, it is only when they control the agenda.  If any personal or theological problems occur, the solution is either a marketing blitz or going into hiding.  The Word says, when you see a brother in sin, go to him privately.  Getting to talk to this person is as difficult as getting to talk to the president, maybe even harder. 

            With every member ministry, no person is bigger than life, the agenda is in the hands of the Holy Spirit, any person can ask the question on their heart, and people are equipped to be the leaders God wants. 

            You can email me at simplechurchminute@gmail.com.  For more info on organic church*, visit http://www.simplechurch.com/ or locally at www.hrscn.org .

On the recording, at this time, it says, “house churches.”  While that phrasing is OK, to say “organic church” is better.  I comment on that in blip 94.