This is the beginning of at least three posts which are going to focus on how we as the church have crippled Christ. It is my belief that the church has crippled itself through denying its true identity and by denying the true identity of the God it serves. I am not saying that we have actually done damage to God but we have done damage to our-self (the church) by treating God as if he were crippled. My hope in this series is to expose where we are crippling God and get us thinking about how we can move on to a place where we can truly live as the body of Christ. I would also like to explain that the critiques I am making are generalizations of the church in America and are not representational of every congregation everywhere. Many congregations are living as the un-crippled body of Christ, to those congregations I am not speaking.
Vol. 1-Mute Master
I am astonished at how reluctant the church is to preach the word of God. A couple of nights ago I was speaking with my brother and mentioned to him that God has gifted me to "be his voice to his church." At first this statement might seem heretical, however if it is understood it is not. What I am saying is that God has gifted me to preach. He has not gifted me to merely repeat the Bible, anyone who can read can do that. He has gifted me to speak his words. This does not make the Bible meaningless. On the contrary, the Bible is the authoritative word of God, and I must not contradict it, I must remain within it. Anyone who feels called to preach the word, needs to preach the words of God's.Yet, the church has muted God. The church tends to believe that once John wrote "amen" that was it, God stopped speaking. This could not be further from the truth. God continues to speak today. It is God's desire that we are in relationship with him. If he does not speak how can we be in relationship with him. A relationship where only one person speaks is a poor relationship. And don't go off and say that he speaks through the Bible. I know he does. But, imagine if my wife stopped speaking to me and I only talked to her and the only way she spoke to me was through the letters she wrote at the beginning of our relationship. That relationship would suck. As important as early letters are, quite possibly the backbone of the relationship. If my wife stopped speaking to me, we would not have a good relationship. If God stopped speaking after John finished his Revelation of Jesus Christ, we would have a relationship with him which sucks.It is about time that preachers realize that GOD IS SPEAKING TODAY. I have been called to be (one of many) God's voice to his church. It is time that preachers realize that when they preach they need to speak the words of God. Preaching is not to be taken lightly. Preaching is the speaking of God's word to his church (and beyond). I hope that this can allow us to remove the gag from God's mouth. We need to stop muting the master.
4 comments:
DId you come up with this idea yourself? I mean really, you don't believe that God still speaks today, and that we are to be speaking His current compassionate words? Scripture is sufficient right? Sola Scriptura...
The tenor of the article is difficult for me as well. I agree that we aren't just supposed to be readers of the Word and that we should also contextualize the Scripture into our world (preaching). I like Scott's convictions and I think I see his point.
I believe that God still speaks today -- though never in contradiction with Scripture. What I hear Scott saying is that God still wants to talk to His people and it's not only through the Bible.
This should never minimalize the Bible's role in the process of revelation. The Word of God is the only authoritative revelation that we can truly rely on -- prophecy and new revelation don't carry the same weight.
Of course, this is a debate that has raged for about 1,998 years or so.
God does want to speak to each one of us today in our world, in our language, in our context. The Spirit will sometimes "put a yellow highlighter" on specific thoughts in the Bible as we read. These highlights can speak pointedly into our hearts. The Spirit also uses these highlighters when someone else teaches.
I've been in church and the speaker was talking about a passage and following the path of the passage or a topic, but God sticks my mind and heart on one small element that the preacher didn't even focus on.
God uses His Word to speak directly into our lives and He also uses people. Preachers should certainly speak the Word into our context, but this can only be one message, spoken to all those who hear. The Holy Spirit's incredible and absolutely unique power is that He brings God's message uniquely to each of us according to what God has to say to each one of us.
So, I guess we should probably teach the Bible, try to make it relevant to our culture and to the hearers, and give God the opportunity to be heard. He will not be muted if we do simply this.
Derek Maxson
www.missionalmuse.com
Aaron, I think I have a friend with a similar name to yours ;) who might have helped me move forward in this direction. And to explain your sarcasim which others might not get. If we have Sola Scriptura, we have no Father, Son or Holy Spirit, we will be worshiping a book not God (hence the name of this blog).
Derek, If God does speak today, and that speaking is done through a prophet, or pastor, or whatever you want to call the person speaking God's words and that message is from God and does not contradict the cannonized word of God, why would this word have less authority than what is found in the Bible. The Bible's authority is not found in it's being approved as cannon by the church. It has authority because it is the word of God, it is God's written word. If God does (and he does) speak today that word would have it's authority from God also and be just as authoritative. I do understand that people can abuse this and appear to be speaking God's word when they are not. But, dealing with false prophets is another issue.
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