Simple Church Minute 99--Karl Marx

99-Karl Marx

My name is Tom; this is Simple Church Minute.

            History tells us that the parents of Karl Marx were Jewish and converted to Christianity at a time when many German Jews did the same.  Whether it was real or something merely socio-political is God’s business.  Be that as it may, Karl himself rejected faith in Jesus, but was still highly influenced by it, as his utopian ideal society was built on the Christian idea of heaven, with the difference being that he was imagining a way of creating such a society as heaven will be on earth.  Incorrectly, he didn’t have a grasp of the reality of sin, much less how imbedded that aspect of the fall of man is in our souls.  Therefore, he came up with the idea that, when his principles were installed in a society, that government would fade away.

            We, having 20/20 hindsight, can see that the opposite of his dream occurred.  His social idea was not attractive to union workers, but instead took hold where backward nations with weak rulers could be overthrown, and the dictatorship that followed grew in power over time, and instead of all people having equality, there was a small leadership class and a large amount of people who had no hope of getting ahead, removing incentive to doing better for themselves.

            Albeit accidentally, Marx got one aspect of Christian life correct that much of the true church is missing.  The head of the church is Jesus, the Holy Spirit speaks into each believer who desires to serve Jesus.  God is a sufficient leader of his people, that, within the church, when properly operating, the idea of the human leader could naturally fade away, in favor of what would appear to a sociologist to be a headless community.  This is an ideal that takes an exceptional amount of commitment from those with gifting for leadership.  Personally, I haven’t seen it, but, then, I live in a land of freedom, for now.

            If you have a comment, and I know this blip should stir up some brothers and sisters, you can email me at simplechurchminute@gmail.com.  For more info on organic church*, visit 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 92--public wrongdoing

92—public wrongdoing

THIS IS NOT ON FIRST RECORDING

My name is Tom; this is Simple Church Minute.

            I’m not telling you what I am about to say is correct, although I certainly believe that it is.   I am asking you to listen to what I am about to say, and search the scriptures for yourself for whether what I say is more in alignment with the Word than the practice of the vast majority of traditional Bible-believing churches today.

            If David was a singer today, at a certain point in his life, most of it actually, his personal life would have gotten him dropped from the artist roster of any Christian label and some secular ones, and I wouldn’t argue for a moment that those companies would be in the wrong.  If one sins, God is willing to forgive.  Over time, a person who has done even a great wrong can reestablish a good character among a small group of people who truly know him or her.    In our instant reporting 24-7 news cycle culture, a public wrong probably can never be overcome among those who only know one as a media silhouette, except via something miraculous.  When I say a small group of people, I don’t mean 2000 or even 200.  Neither you nor anyone else has the time to really know a great amount of people really well. 

            A huge amount of the power of the witness of the early church was among the people nearby a person.  Those people saw the change for the better in a person who went from being just one more neighbor to a believer in Jesus who desired to care for others as Jesus did.  The word Christian originally meant “little Christs”.  While each believer knows that term is a far greater honor than any of us deserve and can live up to, by the Holy Spirit, we can fill those shoes, sometimes unknowingly, never outwardly intentionally, for a few people as we walk through life.  The thing we struggle to grasp is that, that’s what laying up treasure in heaven is.  Almost all of us will never have enough stuff that CNBC cares who you are, but that’s not what is important to Jesus.

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

Simple Church Minute 88--Simson's Thesis #14

88-WS#14

My name is Tom; this is Simple Church Minute.

            We have been reviewing Wolfgang Simson’s 15 Theses towards a Re-Incarnation of Church.  Today Thesis #14—Developing a persecution-proof spirit.  On this Simson wrote, “They crucified Jesus, the leader of all the Christians.  Today, His followers are often more into titles, medals, and social respectability, or, worst of all, they remain silent and are not worth being noticed at all.  Blessed are you when you are persecuted, says Jesus.  Biblical Christianity is a healthy threat to pagan godlessness and sinfulness, a world overcome by greed, materialism, jealousy and any amount of demonic standards of ethics, sex, money, and power. Contemporary Christianity in many countries is simply too harmless and polite to be worth persecuting. But as Christians again live out New Testament standards of life and, for example, call sin as sin, the natural reaction of the world will be, as it always has been, conversion or persecution.  Instead of nesting comfortably in temporary zones of religious liberty, Christians will have to prepare to be again discovered as the main culprits standing in the way of global humanism, the modern slavery of having fun and the outright worship of Self, the wrong centre of the universe.  That is why Christians will and must feel the repressive tolerance of a world which has lost its absolutes and therefore refuses to recognize and obey its creator God with His absolute standards.  Coupled with the growing ideologization, privatization and spiritualization of politics and economics, Christians will—sooner than most think—have their chance to stand happily accused in the company of Jesus.  They need to prepare now for the future by developing a persecution proof spirit and an even more persecution proof structure.  Unquote.

            Under the right political conditions, institutional churches could be potentially closed with one phone call or fax, and the structure isn’t prepared.  Only a church by the Spirit is prepared.  You can read more about Simson,s 15 Theses at www.simsonwolfgang.de. You can email me at simplechurchminute@gmail.com.  For more info on house churches, visit http://www.simplechurch.com/ or (local website).

                                                        

Simple Church Minute 13--obedience in spiritual growth

13—obedience in spiritual growth

My name is Tom; this is Simple Church Minute.

            …if you try to go any further in life, you keep hitting the same old issues.  And you have to resolve that issue before you can grow anymore.

            I read these lines in a book by an author who isn’t a believer, and today I’m using them in a totally different context than he did, which is why I’m not giving the citation.*

In a believer’s life, this is a simple explanation of what growing spiritually is.  The Holy Spirit brings an issue of sin or obedience before you.  You can do things God’s way and change, or not.  If you choose not, you will find yourself stuck with regard to the Spirit while, in a different way, the same problem is brought up.  Once again, you have to choose God’s way or your own.  If you continue to refuse to repent and go God’s way on this issue, like the children of Israel in the desert, you can keep doing laps, and not get anywhere, and not be of use to God the way you could.  If you are in leadership, you’ll start getting by on what you can learn intellectually, or how you can entertain others, instead by the direction of the Holy Spirit.  You may begin to walk the road of false spirituality.  It may not show at first, or show to other persons, if one is cleaver, but it is not God’s best.  There is a secularly influenced Jewish doctrine called Divine Earthly Retribution, and many other people feel something similar.  The idea was that things are going well for a person, whether it is fame, money, or power, that person has God’s blessing, without regard to how ethical or unethical that person lives and works, without regard to how much they know it inside.  That idea wasn’t doctrinally valid in the Old Covenant, and even more so, it isn’t now for believers in the New.

            You can email me at simplechurchminute@gmail.com.  For more info on organic church*, go to 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.

*When I posted this blips to the internet, it was over a year after writing it originally.  I no longer even remember who said this, now.