"God is most glorified in you when you are most satisfied in him in the midst of loss, not prosperity." --John Piper

Saturday, November 20, 2010

Tough words.

Hosea 4:6 "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge; because you have rejected knowledge, I reject you from being a priest to me. And since you have forgotten the law of your God, I will also forget your children."

In some regards, I don't think you can say this about the American church culture. We have more knowledge floating around out there than is comprehensible. I don't think that is what God is concerned about, the quantity of the knowledge. I think he is more concerned about the quality, is it really knowledge, or is it the latest psycho-babble wrapped in a Scripture text?

Because many have rejected the truth, the knowledge that comes from God, and have followed whatever tickles ears, you will stumble (see 4:5).

But that is not us, because our church is growing. Read on...

(Vs. 7) "The more they increased, the more they sinned against me; I will change their glory into shame."

So maybe it is not talking about church growth, but rather their own supposed intelletual growth. Yet I see a parallel.

The writers of the New Testament warn us to guard our doctrine. Not the doctrine of a particular denomination, but the teachings of Christ. Yet so much of what is taught in not centered in Christ, but rather wrapped in a layer or two of Christianity.

To quote Mark Driscoll, "...if we ever study anything and don't connect it to Jesus, we are bound to get into a lot of trouble."

Amen!

5 comments:

kc bob said...

I like the Driscoll quote. Had supper last week week with some young Christians who befriend and hang out with gay and lesbian folks. They think that it is what Jesus would be doing if he lived today. I do wonder if Jesus would attend some of our churches or if he would spend His Sunday mornings with those who preachers condemn on Sunday mornings. Something to think about.

Spherical said...

I look at Jesus' life, and he did spend time in the synagogues. I think he would be in church, but I don't think he would quietly sit in the back and just watch! I just wonder what kind of welcome he would get at some churches.

kc bob said...

I agree. Jesus was brought up as a Jew and as such attended synagogue. And I imagine that he would go to church if Mary and Joseph raised him in the church. Yet I do wonder what a 30 year old Rabbi Jesus would be doing on Sunday morning. I wonder what kind of church he would attend if he attended one. Would it be a Roman Catholic one, a Protestant one, a nondenom one or a house church? Or would he go to church on Saturday night? Alas, we may never know. :)

Happy Sunday!

Chris Meirose said...

Thanks again for visiting my blog! I mistakenly deleted your earlier comment so I cut and pasted it back in so it shows.

Big Chris
Because I said so blog

Robin said...

The wisdom of man is folly.

Yeah, we are definitely not short on quantity of "knowledge", but quality has attributes that we ignore as well - like application.
"If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, [read: knew everything and could do everything] but didn't love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal." (1 Corn. 13:1, NLT)