By Staff
Families can be dysfunctional. Religion can be dysfunctional. Religion put Jesus Christ on the cross.
The church, in the sense of including every believer trusting in the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross and being the body of Christ, could never be dysfunctional in principle, but in practice, the visible church can be dysfunctional.
The church needs to be neither tolerant nor inclusive of deviant or unruly lifestyles. The church does need to be tolerant and inclusive in matters of culture, race, and personal preference as long as that preference does not violate the Holy Scriptures. If there is any place on earth that should model acceptance within the bounds of scriptural piety, it is the church.
There are many people in this country who say the last place they would go for comfort or solace is the church. Why is that? The church and its leaders have possibly slipped into prejudicial attitudes and political correctness, and have forgotten the vision and mission of the New Testament church.
This is not a new phenomenon. The first visible church of Jesus Christ was in Jerusalem. This church emerged on the Day of Pentecost some fifty days after Jesus Christ the Son of God was resurrected from the dead. The church grew rapidly and included people of Jewish background and culture from all over the world (Acts 2:5).
There were minor logistical problems in this new church (Acts 6:1), but for the most part, things progressed well. God's plan was to include Gentiles into the church. The Jews felt they were the "keepers of the church" and inserted extra-biblical criteria into the church dogma. They would accept a Gentile reluctantly, but only after the Gentile had become a Jew first.
The Apostle Paul was a Jew who became a Christian (Acts 9:17-18), and was then commissioned by God to take the gospel of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles (Acts 9:15). Paul was faithful to God and did establish many churches in the Gentile nations.
The Jewish believers persisted in trying to force Gentile believers to adopt Jewish culture (Acts 15:1). A rift developed and the church was dysfunctional in the sense that the mission was lost in the midst of a petty conflict based on personal preferences.
Paul traveled to Jerusalem and ran headlong into a storm that would eventually lead to his death. The leaders of the church in Jerusalem, which was made up of Jews and possibly others who quickly conformed to Jewish culture in order to keep peace, reacted against Paul's ministry (Acts 21: 20-22).
Rather than taking a strong stand for the gospel of Jesus Christ and the ministry of Paul, these leaders were seeking to be politically correct with their people and asked Paul to consent to Jewish rituals to appease the Jewish believers (Acts 21:23-24).
Paul did what the leaders asked, but the crowd saw Paul in the temple and wrongly judged his actions (Acts 21:27-31). Paul was seized and almost killed before the Roman soldiers rescued him.
This church was dysfunctional because they allowed personal preference and prejudice to blind them to the true message of the gospel. In Jerusalem, the center of all religious activity, this new church that was the hope of so many was now mired deep in a public controversy that polarized every person.
The church must stand for truth, but it must be done in loving acceptance. Jesus Christ is the Head of the church. The Holy Spirit of God is the energizer, the teacher, and the bond of the church. When we forget that Jesus Christ is the Head and cease to rely on the leadership of the Holy Scriptures and the energizing of the Holy Spirit, we lose the mission and the church becomes stymied.
There is hope. People long for reality, transparency, and loving acceptance. When the church returns to Jesus Christ and elevates Him above all personal preferences, and cultural and racial differences, the church will be what it ought to be-God's kingdom on earth.
The gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John reveal Jesus Christ the Son of God. He was called the friend of sinners, befriending and interacting with them for the purpose of leading them to God (Matthew 11:19). Is that what we are?