When a Church Becomes a
Business
It’s far worse than most
professing Christians have imagined. Because a
Christian church is incorrectly thought of as a place, a service, a
building, etc, and not the called out people of God that it really is (the Ekklesia), most people assume that a church needs to be
organized and managed by a CEO (disguised as a shepherd). They end up
with a worldly business disguised as a church fully equipped with a worldly
military chain-of-command hierarchy (Senior Pastor, Executive Associate Pastor,
Associate Pastors, Music Pastor, etc,). This is pure rubbish as it is nowhere
to be found in the Bible.
It
is impossible to “go” to church or “have” church. That is because Christians
ARE the church. We can only BE the church. This is 24 hours a day, 7 days a
week and is not something that we can turn on and off like a light switch.
Popular Sunday “once-a-weekism” is absolute nonsense.
The church is to meet daily wherever they can, usually house-to-house. Anywhere
we go, to our jobs, to the store, wherever, there the church is because we as
Christians are the church. Christianity is far simpler than most professing
Christians try to make it seem. In so many words, Paul the Apostle said that he
was concerned that as Eve was deceived by the serpent that some have departed
from the simplicity that is in Christ.
Today
"the church" jumped out of a van on the way to work to help a little
old lady who was shivering in the cold. This is because a Christian jumped out
of his van to help that dear woman with her needs and to preach the Gospel to
her, showing the love of God in action in tangible reality. This is the church
in action. Theatrical stage shows, pulpit-pew lectures, music concert churches
and Broadway-like productions passed off as the real church assembling are
ludicrous at best.
The
popular yet monumental misunderstanding of authority in the church is probably
the biggest problem driving the false church system. The main problem is with
the people that the Bible calls "Nicolaitans",
those who Christians ALLOW to conquer and suppress them. (From the Greek, the
word "nico" means "suppression or
conquering of" and "laos"
is where we get the word laity which means people). In Revelation 2:6 and 2:15,
Jesus said that He hates the practices and teachings of the Nicolaitans.
Not
surprisingly, most Nicolaitans refuse to acknowledge
and admit that they are Nicolaitans. They make the
false claim that no one can really know what a Nicolaitan
is or is not. Most just quote a popular fairytale that the word means a
follower of the mythical heretic Niclaus. Not so. The
truth is we know quite clearly exactly what the word means and exactly who
these people are. Plus, it doesn't make any sense that Jesus would mention
something that He hates and then never let us know what exactly that He was
talking about.
Today
there is no shortage of those who want a counterfeit Saul to be king over them
and there is no shortage of Nicolaitans who want to
be that king in the place of Christ. (By the way, The defintion of an antichrist is one who opposes Christ and/or
stands in His place). At least God told Samuel to appoint Saul as king. Even
though God was displeased with the fact that Israel wanted a man as king
instead of Him, he still authorized Saul’s appointment. Today’s multitude of counterfeit “Sauls” have
no such authorization from God. They are self-appointed and people powered.
Here’s why we know that they are counterfeit leaders (they may be real
Christians but they are false pastors):
- All authority in heaven and on
earth has been given to Jesus (Matt 28:18).
- Jesus alone is the Head of the
church (John 5:26-27, Eph 1:22-23, Col 1:18).
- God does not permit Christians
to have controlling authority over other Christians in the church (see
Matt 20:25-28, Mark 10:42-45, Luke 22:24-27, 1Pet 5:3, Matt 23:8-12,
etc.).
- We do not have multiple special
high priests over us. There is only One High Priest, Jesus Christ (see
Hebrews 3:1, 4:14).
- We have One Master Christ and
we are all brothers (see Matt 23: 8-12).
- You cannot obey two masters;
you will love the one and hate the other (Matt 6:24, Luke 6:13). You
simply cannot obey Jesus as master and a pastor as master at the same
time.
There
is a big difference between genuine behind-the-scenes loving elders who stand
firmly for sound doctrine and admonish the Body of Christ to obey the Bible
compared to a Nicolaitan one-man show who teaches his own agenda and draws men away to himself
through manmade teachings and traditions.
For
there to be any hope for any church to navigate through the ever worsening
apostasy that is upon us, now more than ever, Jesus alone must be recognized as
the One solely in charge and His Word the Bible must reign
supreme. That is how it was always supposed to be, at all points in church
history, but that is not how it has been, and that is certainly not how it is
today.
Paul Howey
as of 11-2007