The Church Like Eve

The basis for this conclusion comes from II Corinthians 11: 2-3. In these passages Paul expresses his fears for the Church that she would be deceived as Eve was by the serpent. It is important to remember that the Church Paul is speaking of here is both male and female, thus, Paul’s fear of deception for the Church is equal for both men and women. Notice that Paul does not draw a comparison between the Church and Adam. I believe that is because Jesus is the Adam, and in His role as “last or second Adam,” Jesus resisted all temptations and succeeded in paving the way for us to reach the tree of life that was blocked after Adam and Eve were exiled from the Garden of Eden.

A Blind Spot For Men

As a man I can say that I do not believe that male leadership typically recognizes it’s own vulnerability for being deceived based on their identifying with Eve. Overlooking this fact alone only increases the likelihood for the Church to be deceived since men have dominated leadership roles in the Church throughout church history. Since men are the leaders of the church they are the ones to who must also bear the responsibility for the Church being deceived since they, as leaders, are charged with the first line of defense on behalf of those they watch over.

A Brood of Vipers

As difficult as it is for us to imagine that today’s Church leadership could be deceived there is ample precedent for it. Perhaps, one of the most blatant examples for this in the New Testament can be found in Matthew 3:7. In this passage John the Baptist is preaching and teaching in the wilderness and many were coming out to him from Jerusalem, Judea and the surrounding the district around the Jordon River in order to be baptized by him as they confessed their sins. Then when he saw the Pharisees and Sadducees who were also coming out to be baptized he accused them of being a “brood of vipers.” These leaders were called vipers, or snakes because they were guilty of deceiving those who were in their care. In order for these leaders to deceive others they had to first be deceived themselves.

John the Baptist further accuses these leaders of not bearing fruit in keeping with repentance. There are a number of ways to look at what kind of fruit John was talking about here, but I don’t think the way we typically look at this passage today is in keeping with what he meant nor what Jesus, himself, meant when He confronted many of these same leaders with similar accusations. Typically, I think our views are that these leaders were deceiving the people by not preaching and teaching the truth. I also think that based on many of the ways we define holiness today we tend to think that these leaders were not striving for holiness either.

Personally, I don’t think that it had to do with either of those things. I think it had to do with worship and their understanding and fulfillment of it according to God’s much broader definition than the one that they had reduced it to.

Where Jesus' Ministry Was

Most of the recorded examples of Jesus’ ministry all took place outside of the Temple. Those examples began with a wedding feast where He performs His first recorded miracle and end with His greatest recorded miracle of all, when He was resurrected after being in the grave for 3 days. In between those 2 events Jesus models for us what it means to worship God in spirit and in truth (John 4; 23-24) and at the same time He is also living out the true fast (Isaiah 58). Jesus knew that those at the top have to model worship in all things for those that have been placed in their care.

The problem, though, both then and today is that in the context of church we wear both our official as well as our unofficial robes everywhere we go. As Christians we see ourselves in the context of our roles in our individual churches rather than our roles in the Church universal. In the church universal there is no distinction between those in the pews and those serving as church officers. Everyone is equally a servant.

To put it another way, outside of a local church setting, the playing field is level. Once we walk outside the church on Sunday after the worship service a pastor may have the position as a pastor with members of his congregation that he comes into contact with throughout the week, but outside of the realm that He has been given authority over he is equally responsible for bearing fruit in keeping with repentance in meeting the needs of all others that the Lord might place in his path to serve.

The reason I believe that we don’t typically recognize this simply comes down to not only the fact that we have come to define worship by that which takes place at a specific place during a specific time, but also in the ways that we have come to define word/deed ministry in the context of that same setting. What this has literally meant of the “local church” is that it has made itself the “big picture” of worship since it has defined worship by a worship service, thus reducing worship to just one of it’s many components (see illustration 1, appendix). As a result, once a church has become filled to capacity with “worship” it will then either expand the size of the church building, build a bigger church in another location or plant another church in order to help siphon off some of the over flow. This model, which makes the local church setting itself the “big picture” of worship, is far more concerned with drawing believers in rather than sending them out. It should be noted that Jesus’ model for discipleship was 3 years, and even before the 3 years was up He was already sending His disciples out.

What I believe to be a more accurate “big picture” with regard to worship, is one in which worship, itself, is the “big picture” and the local church is one of it’s components (see Ill. 2, appendix). The difference in these 2 illustrations should become blatantly obvious for which model God has called the Church Universal to be. The model that makes the local church the big picture is just about filling up the inside of the church with worship. The model that makes worship the big picture concerns itself with filling up all the space outside of the church walls with worship. I believe that when a local church begins to look at itself in terms of the role that God has designed it to be in our over all worship of Him the ancient foundations, which are in keeping with the foundation laid by the Apostles with Jesus being the chief cornerstone will be raised back up. The other model, all though it has the appearance of being on the foundation laid by the Apostles, it is really one that has been erected on shifting sand.

Word/Deed Ministry on a Corporate Level

Today, in many instances word/deed ministry is typically defined according to the specific offices that have been established in order to govern the church. Then, those who fulfill those offices do so based on their being recognized as having specific spiritual gifts, talents and experience and in most cases for being of one specific gender. Those who have the gift of teaching and preaching as well as having abilities at giving oversight to others, for example, are appointed to leadership roles in areas that would be considered to be “Word” ministries. Those who have gifts of service, mercy and helps are given leadership roles in areas that would be considered to be “Deed” ministries.

The 2 most common offices associated with these two areas are the office of Elder (word) and the office of Deacon (deed). In the context of a local church government this is certainly Biblical. The problem both in Jesus’ day as well as today is that with regard to church leadership and offices, because they only defined word/deed ministry within the context of church government it had and still has the effect of confining our understanding of worship and it’s ultimate fulfillment to a specific time and place setting. And today the most important part of that worship service, in many protestant churches, is the preached word, or sermon. This practice can basically be traced back to its historical roots beginning with the “Reformation.” I know that many scholars would contend that the Reformation was not the beginning, but the return to this practice. If that is true then we might as well cut out all of the passages of Scripture in the NT except those that have Jesus in the Temple on the Sabbath preaching and teaching.

In any event, if based on these 2 offices equal regard were given to the fulfillment of word/deed ministry in the context of a typical church setting I believe there would, potentially, be more worship opportunities through deeds of service outside the church throughout any given week. Unfortunately, it has been my experience that whatever the gifts of those who have oversight and ruling authority over a congregation those are the areas that are going to receive the most time, attention, funding and emphasis in a local church body. That is why preaching and teaching takes precedent over ever other area of worship that we are all equally called to fulfill. That is why Jesus, in confronting the religious leaders, said that the people should do as they (the religious leaders) say and not as they do. It wasn’t that they were not preaching the truth. Jesus never accused them of that. It was rather that they were not modeling the truth. They knew what the truth was, but their expectation was that it was for others to carry out that truth. It other words, it was kind of like they were expecting to be served and not to serve. Which, in far too many instances, is not just the expectation, but the demand of today’s leadership.

Word/Deed Ministry on an Individual Level

What I Believe was being overlooked then and continues today is the fact that there are at least 2 very separate meanings that scripture teaches us with regard to word/deed ministry. One way that Scripture regards word/deed ministry, which has already been discussed, is in terms of offices and the way they apply to the governmental structure of a local church body. Obviously, every denomination has a different interpretation for these offices and how they should function in terms of both a local church government as well as on a denominational level.

The other way that Scripture defines word/deed ministry is in terms of personal responsibility regardless of office or position in the church as well as any prominent position one might hold in society as well. Just as Jesus was trying to get leadership to understand that it was just as important, if not more important, for worship to take place outside of a physical place that message still confronts us today, but it has been largely overlooked, misunderstood and remains hidden. Perhaps, what may be more accurate to say is that it has become an area of the Church’s greatest deception.

Jesus Lays the Ground Level

When Jesus met the Samaritan woman at the well (John 4) as he was passing by Samaria on His way to Galilee, she made the comment to Him that her people worshiped God in the mountain where she lived, but that His people, the Jews, said “that if you wanted to worship God you ought to come to Jerusalem and worship Him in the temple.” Jesus’ reply was that a time was coming when the “true believers would worship God in Spirit and in Truth.” In other words, it would not be about a time and a place, rather it could/should be at all times and in all places.

But what did Jesus mean when He said that and what is that supposed to look like? I think that is a question that has been a struggle for Christians in this age that hasn’t been satisfactorily answered. The answer, though, I believe lies with Jesus, Himself and His present ministry. Which, incidentally, is also our own ongoing ministry as well. Before we look at Jesus’ specific ministry today, though, let’s look at another passage of Scripture, written after Jesus’ death, burial and resurrection that really is in keeping with what Jesus said to the woman at the well about worship as well as describing for us what that worship should include. The passages that I am referring to are found in Hebrews chapter 13.

This chapter speaks to us about worship on both a corporate level as well as an individual basis. What I believe is most relevant for us in this discussion, though, can be found in verses 12-16. Beginning in verse 12 we are exhorted to come outside the city gate and bear Christ’s reproach. The city gate being referred to here is Jerusalem, which is the city where the Temple was located. It was here that Jesus suffered outside this same city gate and gave His life as a sacrifice for us all. I think the comparison today for that city gate would be the doors of our own churches. This passage goes on to say that here, on this earth, there is nothing that will last, all is perishable, and it is for this very reason that our eyes are to be set on the New Jerusalem, which is the imperishable city to come. Then, in the very next verse, it is plainly stated what sacrifices are to be offered up in worship to God as we come outside the city gates to bear Christ’s reproach. Those sacrifices, as stated in verses 15 & 16 are both the praises of our lips given in thanksgiving to God as well as our doing good and sharing with others.

Components of Worship Plainly Stated

Plainly stated this is what God defines as word/deed ministry, or sacrifices, to be fulfilled by all believers without exception. Word ministry in this context, is not associated with a specific church office, rather it has to do with all of us and our daily offerings of thanks in all things to our heavenly Father in Christ Jesus name. Deed ministry in this instance is also not specific to a church office or to specific spiritual gifts. It is the requirement of every believer to do good and to share with others. I believe that this is what John the Baptist was referring to when he said to the religious leaders that they were not bearing fruit in keeping with repentance. I also believe that this is what Jesus meant in Matthew, chapter 25, when He stated what the criteria would be based on for separating the sheep from the goats. The criteria is all based on the doing of good and sharing with others the resources that God has supplied us with, or perhaps, better described as the fruit of repentance. In other words, when we have expressed an acceptance of Jesus, which should come about as we recognize our need to be transformed from a state of separation from God due to our inherited sin as a result of the fall, to a state of being full heirs of the kingdom of God with Christ, our acceptance of Jesus’ sacrifice of His own life should produce fruit in keeping with our repentance. What is interesting, though, is the fact that neither evangelism is mentioned in this list nor is the preaching and teaching of the word as one of the criteria for separating the sheep from the goats. It is all based on the doing of the word.

More Evidence

As if this weren’t enough evidence to prove that the Church in America today has fallen under a very dark veil of deception I think that there is still more very indicting evidence to give further support to this condition. It has to do with Christ’s own ministry. Not His ministry before He was resurrected, but His ongoing ministry from that time when He ascended into heaven that continues on today. I am certain that if I asked 10 different Christians what they thought Jesus’ present ministry is that the answers would be everything from “I hadn’t really thought about His having a ministry in that way,” to answers like mediator, bridegroom, Lord, Savior, etc. All of these answers would be right, but none of them necessarily speak to His ministry that is spoken of in Hebrews, chapter 8, verse 6.) “But the ministry Jesus has received is as superior to theirs as the covenant of which he is mediator is superior to the old one, and it is founded on better promises.”

The word in the original Greek that has been translated into English as the word ministry in this passage is the word “leitourgia,” which is where the word liturgy comes from. According to “Strongs Concordance” this word means: “public function (as priest {“liturgy”} or almsgiver). Jesus’ ministry would have to be the “word, “ simply because He is the word. And as the “word” He fulfills the word through the roles of being both priest and Levite (almsgiver) on our behalf. Which today I think it would be correct to say that He, through His superior ministry is fulfilling the roles of Elder and Deacon on our behalf. So, on one level, in accordance with this, in a church setting the offices of Elder and Deacon should represent to us what Jesus’ ministry is on our behalf on an ongoing basis.

Yet, outside of the church setting (outside the city gates) the playing field levels out for all of us and we are all equally charged with fulfilling the roles of Deacon and Elder, or Priest and Levite. Just as Jesus serves as the perfect model for fulfilling the roles of Priest and Levite for those who serve in these roles here on earth in a church setting, in he same way those who serve in these offices are to then model them for those whose care they have been charged with. So, that outside of the church setting all believers will be able to model and to fulfill these roles on behalf of others in order to bear fruit in keeping with repentance.

Another Confirmation

The Apostle Paul really confirms this in his letter to the Phillipians. In Phillipians 2:17 Paul writes “But even if I am being poured out like a drink offering on the sacrifice and service coming from your faith, I am glad and rejoice with all of you.” The original Greek word for the English word “service” that is used in this passage is the same word that is used in Hebrews 8:6 for the word “ministry” when referring to Christ’s superior ministry. Again, it is the word “leitourgia,” which I believe to be ample proof that each of us is ultimately called to fulfill the ministries of the “Priest and the Levite/Deacon and Elder” outside of the church setting, on an everyday basis, in worship of God.

The Parable of the Good Samaritan: Our Model for Worship

Isn’t this really the main point that Jesus was trying to make in the telling of the “Parable of the Good Samaritan”(Luke 10)? Isn’t this really the picture of worship that He was trying to get the religious leaders and ultimately us to understand and to fulfill? The very first thing that stands out in this Parable is the fact that it has as it’s setting one that is taking place outside of the city gate (Jerusalem). In fact, the Jericho road actually leaves Jerusalem from the “Sheep Gate.” Could it be any plainer for us than this? Next, it is important to keep in mind that Jesus told the woman at the well that a time was coming when the true worshippers of God would do so in “spirit and in truth” and it would no longer be about a place or a time. This Jericho road, therefore, represents a life of worship outside the city gate. This is also consistent with Hebrews 13: 13 where we are told to come outside the city gate and bear Christ’s reproach. Notice all those who are included in this Parable are walking away from Jerusalem and not towards it which is a great illustration for us of Hebrews 13:14 which says that we are to look to the New Jerusalem (new city) that is to come, because everything that has been erected by human hands is perishable and, therefore, holds no hope for us.

In addition to this Parable presenting the picture of worship that Jesus wanted to point us all towards, Jesus is also addressing the condition of the church during His time on earth, which I believe is represented by the victim lying on the side of the road, as well as those who were responsible for placing in that condition by including both robbers and officers of the church (the priest and the Levite). In the context of worship, and the guilt that was on the leadership for keeping the fruit for themselves that was meant for God and at the same time causing a yoke to be placed on the shoulders of those whose care they were charged with (which ultimately will leads to the condition of complete desolation and destruction (Zechariah 7), the Priest and the Levite, in this context, are no different, in God’s eyes, than the robbers who had left the victim by the side of the road to die. This is hard to swallow, I know, because even as bad as we think the Levite and the Priest are for not stopping to give aid to the victim we are still not ready to place them in the same category as the robbers. Yet they are, and are probably even worse than the robbers, because they not only know the truth, but they have also been involved in preaching and teaching the truth. They just are not living it, and, therefore, they truly deserve to be thought of and referred to as “a brood of vipers.”

After the Priest and the Levite both pass by the victim on the side of the road, Jesus then introduces the Samaritan. This Samaritan, obviously, is not a Jew or do we have any reason to believe that he is any kind of a religious leader either. Some interpret the Samaritan as being Jesus. I think that is probably right, particularly when he fulfills the “superior ministry” of Jesus by his actions. He clearly functions as both Priest and Levite right down to leaving alms to be used to cover any expenses incurred by the victim during his recovery at the inn.

What the Inn Symbolizes

This act of taking the victim to the Inn also speaks of what Jesus came to do on our behalf. Until Jesus started His ministry His Father was not known. That is why Jesus always makes a point of letting us know that He came to fulfill His Father’s will and not His own. After Jesus has revealed His Father through His 3 years of Ministry, he then lays down His life in order to make a way for us to be able to enter into His Father’s sanctuary, as Co-Heirs, and to have a personal relationship with Him. I believe the Samaritan’s bringing the victim in this Parable to the Inn in order to be restored symbolizes this for us and at the same time models for us the necessity of producing our own fruit in keeping with our repentance as we come outside the city gate to bear Christ’s reproach as we head towards the imperishable city that is to come.

Back to the Issue of Salvation

Jesus then ends this “parable” with a question to the Lawyer that first asked Jesus “who is my neighbor?” “Jesus asked him who of the three men proved to be the neighbor to the victim on the side of the road? “ The Lawyer’s reply to Jesus in response to his question was that “it was the one who showed him mercy.” Jesus then told him to go and do the same.

Unfortunately, this command that Jesus gave to the Lawyer has all too often been interpreted as being the basis for the Biblical mandate for the necessity of the Church’s establishing and carrying out “mercy ministries.” I would not argue that point, except that taken out of the context of worship, what this has done is cause “mercy ministry” to be defined, now, based on specific criteria, and its fulfillment is seen as being associated with specific spiritual gifts and and/or offices. Based on the initial interaction between the Lawyer and Jesus when the Lawyer approached him and asked what “he must do in order to inherit eternal life?” and Jesus replied by asking him “what is written in the Law?” We find out by the Lawyers answer to this question, even before Jesus even gives the Parable of the Good Samaritan, that this passage is really about salvation and worship and not establishing a category of ministry. The Lawyer’s answer, based on his understanding of the Law was that in order to inherit eternal life you must “love the Lord your God with all of your heart, soul, strength and mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” Jesus acknowledges to the Lawyer that he has answered correctly and assures him that if he fulfills this he will live.

Since the Priest and the Levite were not seen as being a neighbor to the victim in this Parable then they could not possibly be fulfilling one of these two greatest commands: “To love your neighbor as yourself.” The fulfillment of that command has to flow from mercy and we are all equally called to express God’s mercy, that He freely pours out in our lives, through acts of worship both in the giving of thanks as well as the good that we do unto others on a daily basis.

Because of God's Mercy

We know from Romans 12:1 that “in view of God’s mercy we are to offer our own bodies as living and holy sacrifices.” It goes on to say in this passage that when we offer ourselves in this way that God considers this to be our “spiritual service of worship.” Or to put it another way: we are to fulfill the 2 greatest commands on a daily basis and the “Parable of the Good Samaritan,” therefore, becomes the illustration for what that spiritual service of worship should look like. Outside of the city gates/the church doors it means that there is a level playing field and that we are all called and required to fulfill the role of both Priest and Levite/Deacon and Elder on behalf of others. In effect, we are all called to ministries of mercy. All Ministries, regardless of whether they are teaching, preaching, clothing the naked, feeding the hungry, etc. must flow out of God’s mercy and must fulfill the mandate for loving God with all of our being and loving our neighbor as ourselves.

A Source of Confusion

Perhaps, one of the greatest sources for perpetuating a belief in the idea of placing ministries into categories and then identifying those categories with specific gifts and church offices, has come about as a result of modern interpretations of Acts 6:1-6. According to most commentaries these passages have been interpreted to be the place where God calls attention to the separation of gifts and the establishment of church offices. This is, because, the Apostles maintain when the need is brought before them for the widows who are being left out of the daily food distribution, that they are not to stop devoting themselves to preaching and prayer and so they choose other men to meet this need instead.

In recent years I have come to believe that there are instances when the interpretation of Scripture is based on the way that our churches often function today rather than our function being based on the ways they functioned when these passages were first written. What I mean by this, for instance, is that I think we look at offices like that of Deacon and Elder and then we hold them up to passages like those found in Acts 6 and make the determination that based on how we are doing things today that must be the source for it. Then, it seems that whenever this is the case, these interpretations become the Scriptural basis and justifications for perpetuating the how and the why for holding onto certain theological positions.

I think that the present and most common interpretation for these passages in Acts 6 is a very strong case in point. Without taking into consideration, though, what has been discussed thus far concerning worship and how we are all equally called to worship God in both word and deed outside of the context of a church setting I would and have agreed with the most commonly held views of these passages. When you do take all that has been discussed into consideration, though, this interpretation, having to do with the setting apart of gifts just doesn’t seem to hold up.

In the first place all the Apostles literally said, according to the Greek, is that it did not please them to stop doing what they were doing. I am certain they were very justified in making this decision. This decision, though, was not given as a command, and should, therefore, not be used for interpreting this passage in such a way as to establish it as the precedent for singling out certain ordained positions and offices in the church, based on individual gifts and calling, being exempt from carrying out acts of service like the one in the passages we are examining. To be blunt, I have heard many times from pastors that deacons need to be there to free them up so that they might more fully devote themselves to the ministries of prayer and preaching. Interestingly enough, I cannot ever remember hearing the reverse said by deacons.

The more I study these passages in Acts 6, the more convinced I have become that those who were actually chosen to wait on tables were more pastoral in their gifts and calling than not. Particularly when you examine the life and ministry of Stephen, who was one of the ones that was chosen to wait on these tables. Remember, Stephen would soon after not only became the first martyr, but just prior to that he had a vision where he “saw the heavens open up and Jesus standing at the right hand of His Father. I don’t know about you, but I would rather be like Stephen, who seemed to most exemplify Jesus in these passages than the Apostles for in the way that he modeled Christ’s own example for serving and not being served.

All though, based on Acts 6, the care of widows has now become associated with the office and ministries of deacons it would also be good to remember that Jesus’ last act on the cross was to insure the care of His widowed mother by placing her with John (the disciple He was closest to). There should be no confusion here that what Jesus did was to look to John, an apostle, to make certain that His widowed mother was cared for after His death. In the context of worship what also took place here by Christ’s own actions was an act of “pure and undefiled worship,” (based on James 1:27).

A More Accurate Interpretation

This is what I believe to be a more accurate interpretation of Act’s 6 based on my understanding of worship. The first Scriptural mandate to be fulfilled by what is recorded in these passages comes through the pleadings of those who were concerned for the widows being overlooked in the daily distribution of food. Their actions come right out of the Biblical mandate found in Isaiah 1:17 which says “to plead the case of the widow.” Regardless of the Disciples motives or justifications for not personally waiting on tables at this time I do not believe that this can be taken as a precedent for not personally doing this at other times when a similar need might be called to their attention. What is critically important and what I do believe is precedent setting is that they stopped what they were doing to make provisions making certain that this need be met. I think that this fact is greatly overlooked. By doing what they did they equally shared in worshipping God by insuring that this need was met. This act of worship by all who participated was considered by God, again according to James 1:27, to be a “pure and undefiled act of worship,” (in James 1:27, the word “religion” actually means worship, but in the form of doing).

The bottom line is that this whole passage is really about worship and if it is not interpreted in this way then what happens is that we spend days and weeks and months trying to sort out whose job or responsibility it really is to meet the needs of those that God places directly in our path. If that had been the way that this was dealt with then those poor widows would have starved to death before any of that could be decided on. Whereas at the end of these passages in Acts 6, after the widows have been fed, and “pure and undefiled worship” had taken place, the outcome was that “the word of God spread, many disciples were made in Jerusalem that day and many priests came to the faith.”

I don’t, in any way, see that outcome happening today and I believe that the reason for it is that we are so guilty of stealing so much fruit that is supposed to be offered up to God by us in worship that is, instead being horded by us in order to build bigger and better facilities that can be used by us in order to bring in more money in order to build even bigger and better facilities and on and on and on. The more we horde and spend on ourselves God’s resources the less likely our worship is ever going to make it “outside the city gate.”

A Bone to Pick

Which brings me back to Widows Harvest and the way that we are viewed by much of the Church today as well as the way that other ministries like us are viewed. Since the time of my first job working in a ministry (Inner City Ministries when it was on Mitchell Ave.) I began to hear a term that I have grown to resent more and more over the years. The term that I am referring to is the one that labels ministries that are not operating under a local church as being thought of and referred to as “Para Church Ministries.”

The word “para” means “to be beside, or along side of.” What this has really come to mean for ministries like this one is that more often than not we are regarded and treated by churches as stepchildren. Over the years I have heard the message being preached and taught in a number of church settings that God’s vehicle for carrying out ministry is the local church. I really bought into this idea and when I first started Widows Harvest I did, in fact, operate it under a local church. This was a church that strongly held to this belief that ministry is to be carried out by the church, and in many ways has been able to do a much better job than others in making certain that this belief is fulfilled outside the church in some very practical ways.

After operating in that setting, though, for 5 years the decision was made by the leadership of that church that Widows Harvest needed to become a separate non-profit from the church. The members of the Widows Ministry Council that sat over this ministry at that time were all in agreement with that decision as well. It was actually, me though, who became the last hold out for the Ministry moving in that direction, because that really went against everything that I had come to accept and believe about the way ministry was supposed to be carried out.

Finally, I did give in and agree to have Widows Harvest set up as a separate non-profit. Once this was done I was completely overwhelmed in the ways that this ministry grew in that first year that followed this separation. In fact, this ministry grew more in that first year than it had done in the 5 years prior to it put together. And yet, in the eyes of today’s churches, ministries like Widows Harvest are not the church and what that has really come to mean is that there is an acknowledgement that the work that we are actually doing is the work of the church, but since we are not actually a church ministry, but a para church ministry, we should not receive, in fact, we are not entitled to the first fruits of financial giving and service. According to most local churches, those fruits, according to Scripture, must only be given to the local church. Then, if there is anything beyond that, in other words left over, then it is ok to give elsewhere.

If the Truth Be Known

Honest and truly, if I was the pastor or a leader of a local church and I had either grown up in this system, or been trained in a seminary that doctrinally ingrains this view in it’s students for the control and perpetuation of this system, I am certain that it would be hard, if not impossible, to not hold similar views. In fact, I did hold very similar views for many years. Then I began to question why the church was not having any greater impact than it was on the communities surrounding it especially when the numbers of attendants and members seems to be increasing as well as the capital that is being raised. The truth is, the only discernable differences that I have really ever been able to tell between congregations these days, in general, is the size of their congregations and how much of the money that they raise ends up being spent on themselves. Of course, putting millions of dollars into building a new church facility is not in see this way, but unfortunately that is what it amounts to. Sure, there are always many great justifications for doing it, but I think that the only legacy we are leaving those that are being raised in the faith today is one of preaching and teaching against self-absorption, but then what is modeled for them in the ways that we use the majority of God’s money could be construed exactly as that: self-absorption.

The Yeast of the Pharisees

Jesus said to be aware of the yeast of the Pharisees (Matt 16:6). He was talking about their teaching and preaching and obviously not bread. Then Paul, in I Cor. 5:6, says that “it only takes a little bit of yeast to leaven the whole lump.” In this instance Paul was warning them about boasting. Christian leaders are not any different than the laity that they watch over when it comes to insecurity. No matter how long you have been a Christian, or what your position is in life or in and outside of the church, all of us, to varying degrees fall victim to the need for both measuring success as well as being identified with success. People like to feel good about their churches so that they can be identified with its success. That success more often than not has to do with a lot of different factors and perceptions, like the size of the congregation or the building we gather for worship services, how much we give to missions, how big our budget is, how great the preaching is, so and so is our senior pastor, our church is one of the oldest churches in the city, if you really want to worship God you need to come to our church because our worship leader is really anointed, and the list goes on and on. With pastors, the same kinds of struggles occur as well, particular when it comes to the size of the church budget and the size of their congregations, all of these great temptations for one to measure one’s success by. I have even had a number of pastors confess to me over the years that among their greatest struggles is with their own egos. They say that the fact people show up week after week to listen to them preach, depending on how insecure that individual is, can really go to their heads. The fact of the matter is that Christians like to be identified with success just as much as non-Christians.

With all this insecurity it is no wonder that churches today spend the kind of wealth on themselves that they do and ultimately that it is all being justified based on a very erroneous view of worship. If we really follow the money trail, so to speak, and factor in all the monetary costs like salaries, property, and maintenance not to mention all of the volunteer time and energy that it takes to, basically, fund a Sunday morning worship service with the sermon being the focal point, I believe that it would be very difficult to dispute how we have come to define worship. This trend did not occur overnight either. Again, I think it has happened over quite a long period of time and began with the Reformation.

One of the most significant and important results of the Reformation was to insure that the Bible was translated in the languages of the common man so that he or she could read the Scriptures for themselves and not have to have them interpreted by someone else. Today, even though the Bible is being translated into new languages every day all over the world so that the common man can be able to read what they say for themselves, we have returned to a day when the only accepted interpretations for Scripture must ultimately come from those who have been professionally trained to interpret them. Unfortunately, those interpretations come from other professionally trained individuals who have been taught them by yet other trained professionals, and it goes on and on and on.

A number of years ago I good friend of mine that had graduated from seminary and was serving as a pastor in a church shared with me that while he was in seminary that it was constantly being ingrained in him that there was a real world out there (in the context of church) and if you did not go in and seize control of the congregation they would run all over you. Quite honestly, I had somewhat of a difficult time believing this. It wasn’t that I had any reason to distrust what this pastor was saying to me I just could not find any Biblical basis for it and so I thought that he must have either misunderstood or that I had caught him at a particularly frustrating moment and he was just venting.

Over a the period of several years, after dismissing and ultimately forgetting what this individual had said to me, I was contacted by another friend of mind who had been in seminary for just a little over a year. While we were talking he began to share with me the exact same thing that my other pastor friend had told me several years earlier about the need to control their congregations. He told me in the context of bemoaning the fact that some of the leadership in the church he was already planting while he was still in school was really giving him a hard time. He then went on to tell me that there was one pastor in particular that he really admired for being able to control both his leadership and church body. When I said to him that I didn’t think that was very Biblical, he agreed with me, but said it was a great temptation to want to do that when the way you thought your vision should be carried out was being opposed. By the way, both of these individuals went to different seminaries just to let you know that it is not an isolated problem.

If You Are Still Following This

You may be fed up with the harsh views taken in this letter with regard to today’s present leadership and the spiritual condition of the Church. Honestly, I am not trying to beat a dead horse by taking this even further, but the problem, I believe is so great, and yet so hidden, that without taking a look at many applications of Scripture in order to depict a picture that will provide the greatest clarity for understanding the full extent of the deception that today’s church has fallen under, everything I have written might seem like it is coming from a spirit of bitterness or resentment when that is not the case at all. As I said earlier when I sat down to write this newsletter I really didn’t know what I was going to write about. In Fact, it was not until I began to write that this was the direction that I found myself engaged in almost before I knew it.

An Indisputable Priority

In Deuteronomy 14:28-29 God tells His chosen people “to bring all of their tithes from that year’s produce in for the care of the Levites, the aliens, the fatherless and the widows who live in your towns so that they might eat and be satisfied.” He says that if they will do this that God will “bless you in all of the work of your hands.”

In all of the years that I have been doing widows ministry I have never heard of or seen this practice put into place either in a local church setting or in a citywide setting. I bring up the city setting, because in Scripture God always seems to be dealing with cities and nations. He especially seems to deal with cities in the New Testament when it comes to the Church. In the first of Revelation He speaks of the church in the city of Ephesus etc., with 7 cities being included in all. I personally have come to believe, based on this alone, that God views there to be one church in a city. In the city where I live, for instance, in God’s eyes there is one church in Chattanooga. If that is true then those ministries, that we have come to refer to as “para church ministries” because they operate more according to a universal church mandate in the ways that they try and reach across all of the walls and barriers that typically separate churches and denominations today in order to minister on a city wide basis and beyond, are probably seen by God as being more of the Church in a city than the individual congregations that think they are.

Along these same lines, it is very interesting that when you look at Isaiah 58, which has often been given the title of the “true fast” (as a chapter heading in most translation today) also reveals some very interesting insights on worship that I think really relates to everything else that already been said about this matter.

First, it should be noted that there are 14 verses that modern translators have broken this chapter into. The first 12 of these verses describe how Israel’s practices and God’s views on fasting are different. God say’s in the first part of this chapter that Israel has reduced fasting to a day of doing without food and the bowing of the head and based on their harsh treatment of others when they do they fast it has become obvious to God that it is more about the outward appearance rather than an inward concern, or burden, that they have for others. In effect, that their prayers and fasting would be aimed at and lead to the needs being met of those who have fallen into much more unfortunate circumstances and conditions.

Incidentally, that is still a problem today with most prayer and fasting movements in this Country both inside the church as well as outside of it. These movements tend to become more about the group and the credit they get for everything that is perceived to take place as a result of their prayers. The problems with most of these intercessory prayer movements is that the object is not about either themselves or God’s people (the Church) fulfilling God’s true fast. Instead, it always seems to be about the same thing, praying to God for revival so that we can be delivered from all of the mess that is going around us. And there also always seems to be a sense that goes along with these movements for wanting to be the individual, group, church or denomination that gets credit for it when it happens.

Of course, none of these same groups, nor for that matter any of us as Christians is willing to first take responsibility for the mess that we are all in.

That is the devils fault, the government’s fault, the fault of sin and anything else’s fault other than ours. We are great at quoting that verse in Chronicles that says if we will fall on our faces and repent that God will heal our land. Again, the problem is that I have heard Christians go through this again and again, crying out to God in repentance, but what follows is the same behavior. True repentance means that there must be a change in our actions and those changes must be in keeping with the fruit that God calls us to produce. Obviously, that is not happening, because as many times as this verse is quoted and repentance is offered up there are no visible signs of healing taking place.

Could It Be Any Clearer

In Isaiah 58: 6-12 God clearly spells out what His true fast looks like and the role we serve to fulfill it. If we do not read these passages in the context of how God defines worship then we will not only misunderstand the necessity for fulfilling them, we will also be guilty of standing in the way of those who do understand it and who have devoted their lives and ministries to its fulfillment. The incredible thing about these passages are the promises that they contain from God for what will occur both in us as well as our communities around us if we devote ourselves to the fulfillment of His true fast as fruit that is in keeping with our repentance. In order to find out what will ultimately happen to us and to our communities when we do not understand and fulfill this then, again, I would encourage you to read Zechariah 7. The condition of the church and her leaders in Israel that is described in this chapter, I believe, could be seen as the exact same condition of the church and her leaders in America today. What that chapter is really saying in the context of today’s church is that we are filling up the church every time the doors are open, but that we lack credibility with God as to whether we are really doing this unto Him, because we have reduced our understanding for the fulfillment of worship in the exact same way that Israel did.

Based on the final outcome for Israel that is recorded in this same chapter, it is obvious that the church leaders continued to turn a deaf to Zechariah’s warnings and continued to tell the people that everything was ok. That there was ample evidence that God approved of what they were doing because the Gospel was being preached every Sunday, membership was up in astonishing numbers, giving was reaching record levels and the 2, 7, 10, 20 or 40 million dollars to build a new church building to accommodate even more people for worship was within reach.

In Ezekiel, chapter 13, God calls this “plastering the walls with whitewash in order to cover the breaches in the wall from view.” The result of this is that it gives us a very false sense of security for fulfilling God’s purposes. According to this same passage in Ezekiel, though, nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, what it says is that when the day of the Lord does finally come these walls that have been plastered over with the whitewash of deception will not stand. Whereas, Ezekiel 13 condemns Israel’s prophets, chapter 14 condemns her elders, and for much of the same reasons. They were all guilty of deceiving those who had been placed in their care and as a result not only stole fruit only meant for God, but also caused their flocks to be guilty of the same.

The Sin of Adam and Eve

In reality, was this not the guilt of Adam and Eve? By eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil that they had been commanded not to eat from. Did they not, in effect, commit the very first recorded act of idolatry? Did they not take fruit that was meant only for God and give it to themselves? By doing so didn’t they not only commit the sin of disobedience, but by the very nature of that act of disobedience did it not have the effect of putting them in positions of self-worship? Was that not really what was going on in Ezekiel 13 and 14 and is that not what is going on in the Church today?

I believe the guilt of the church today being one of rampant idolatry is due to our falling into a state of self-worship. This might strike you as being impossible since we not only know the truth of the Gospel and have accepted this truth, but we have also been faithful to preach and teach it as well. The reality is that the same could and was said by Jesus about Israel. Our guilt is exactly the same as theirs was for not being able to admit that we are vulnerable to the same temptation that Eve was for deception, and the consequence in both cases will ultimately be the same.

Backing Up

Back to Isaiah 58, as I mentioned before, there are 14 verses in this chapter. 12 deal, essentially with our prayers and fasting leading to the offering up of fruit that is in keeping with repentance. The last 2 verses (2 out of 14) are focused on our observance of the Sabbath, and even though there are equally wonderful promises for us that are contained in these 2 verses when we fulfill this area of worship too, there are still just 2 verses being devoted to observing the Sabbath. The point is not to diminish the significance of Sunday worship, but rather to call attention to the perspective that God would have us view it with in the context of His broader view of worship. And it should be noted, that both in what He says about worshipping Him through the doing good and sharing with others as well as observing the Sabbath, they both have in common the absolute necessity of turning away from our own pleasures in order to produce the kinds of fruit that He mandates to be in keeping with our repentance.

God's Standard

Holding Isaiah 58 up as the standard for measuring our own fulfillment of God’s “true fast” today, if we follow the money trail, I think all of us could honestly admit that we have poured most of our resources into the fulfillment of what has been described in these last 2 passages as Sabbath observances. Jesus, himself, said “where our treasure is so will our hearts be.” It has occurred to me as I have been writing this letter that Jesus’ own ministry would really be viewed by much of the Church today as a para church ministry if He were fulfilling it here among us. When you think about it that is really not that much of a stretch when consider that most of His ministry took place outside of the church, including His greatest offering of worship, the sacrifice of His own life. The irony is that He is still fulfilling His ministry here among us today, but He is doing it through many different ministries and the majority of these ministries, I suspect, are considered by much of the church today to fall under the heading of “para church” ministries. May God have mercy on His Church and her leaders so that she may truly be the “pure and undefiled bride” that He desires her to be.

AMEN!

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