Capital Punishment and Church Discipline: Lessons from Deuteronomy 13

If church discipline, and ultimately expulsion from the fellowship of the church, is the New Testament parallel to the capital punishment prescribed for certain sins in the Old Testament (as I have argued before), what can Deuteronomy 13 in particular teach us about the discipline of the church? Deuteronomy 13 has three specific stories of idolatry and false teaching, each with its own implications.

In Deuteronomy 13:1-5, Moses deals with false prophets, those who claim to speak for God or to have had dreams from God. These are not actually true prophets, but while claiming to speak for God, they were leading people to follow other gods. Moses says not to listen to these false prophets because God is using the false prophets to test His people, to see if they love Him completely (13:3). The people were urged to obey the commands of God completely (13:4) and to put this false prophet or dreamer to death. In so doing, they would purge the evil from among them (13:5).

What is the lesson for the church today? We must root out false teaching from the church. Those claiming to speak for God who are in fact leading people into idolatry must be removed from the church. These people are an evil that must be purged from the church if they refuse to repent of their false teaching. There are several important implications here. First, just because someone claims to speak for God does not mean that they really are speaking for God. We must test the spirits as John says to see what is from God (1 John 4:1). Second, we cannot sit idly by and allow false teaching to go unchecked. We cannot simply hope that it will go away or avoid the issue. False teaching must be dealt with by the church. As Paul says, we must nourished by the words of faith and of good teaching, but we should have nothing to do with irreverent and foolish myths (1 Timothy 4:6-7).

Deuteronomy 13:6-11 deals with a situation involving a close friend or family member. Moses mentions a person’s brother, their son or daughter, their wife, or their close friend. If any of these people tried to lead someone into the worship of other gods, then the person was not to spare or have sympathy on their relative or close friend, but they should cast the first stone in putting them to death for their idolatry (13:9). Their death was to serve as a witness or warning to all of Israel in order to prevent this kind of evil from happening among the people in the future (13:11).

This story is likely rather jarring to many Christians today. How could God command people to put their own family members to death, and what can this law have to do with Christians today? This law teaches us something very similar to what Jesus said in Luke 14:26, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple” (ESV). If we refuse to obey the commands of God related to the discipline of the church because those who have broken God’s commands are our family or close friends, we are placing friends and family above God. This is a form of idolatry.

So the biblical command here is that we should not show partiality in how we obey God’s commands. If one of our friends or family members is causing problems in the church, teaching false doctrine, engaging in unrepentant sinfulness, then we should actually take the lead in expelling that person from the church if he or she refuses to repent. One of the reasons that church discipline is not practiced today is that church leaders are often afraid that if they deal with a certain person’s sins, then their parents or grandparents or children or friends, will be upset and leave the church because the church is “picking on” one of their family members. But here we see that family members or close friends should not oppose the discipline of those close to them, they should not shield them from that discipline, but they should actually take the lead in making sure that the discipline is carried out.

Another important principle from this section is found in Deuteronomy 13:11. The death of this idolator was to serve as a warning to the rest of the people so that they would be afraid and not engage in such evil. So the expulsion of a member from the church is to serve as a warning to the rest of the church. Paul makes the same point in 1 Timothy 5:19-20 in reference to church elders found to be in sin. If church leaders are found to be in sin, they are to be rebuked publicly “so that the rest might be afraid” (5:20). In other words, church leaders found to be in sin should not be fired discreetly, but they should be publicly rebuked before the church as a warning to the rest of the church. Here we see in both the OT and the NT that this act of capital punishment in the OT, now acted out through removing members from the church in the NT, is to be a warning or sign to the rest of the church that will hopefully keep them from similar kinds of evil.

Finally, Deuteronomy 13:12-18 deals with a situation where word has gotten out that an entire town has been given over to idolatry. Here Moses says that a thorough inquiry should be undertaken to make sure that these claims of idolatry are true (13:14). In other words, the people were not to act based on gossip or rumors, but they were to test the claims to determine if in fact that town was full of idolatry. If the claims of idolatry were substantiated, then the entire town was to be destroyed. They were to completely destroy the entire city so that God’s burning anger might be turned away from the land (13:17).

This text is slightly more difficult to make specific application because we have to ask what the modern parallel of this other town in the land would be. One possible application could be the relationships among churches today. Certainly some groups that call themselves Christian churches have been given over to idolatry. The are not worshipping the God revealed to us in His Word but some god they have created in their own image. I think Deuteronomy 13 would suggest that our churches must take pains to disassociate ourselves from these so-called churches that have become nothing more than houses of false teaching and idolatry. For some, this may mean disassociating from churches with which their church has a long-standing history when the other church begins to move away from God’s Word and obedience to God’s commands. God’s judgment will ultimately come on churches and pastors who are peddling false teaching and encouraging rebellion against God’s commands, and we should want to have nothing to do with alliances with those kinds of “churches.”

Finally, let me close with why I would write on a topic like this. First, I am preaching through the book of Deuteronomy, and much of this information simply comes from my recent sermon on Deuteronomy 13. But second, I think we as Christians need to be reminded of the unchanging nature of God, the continuity between the Old and New Testaments, and the continuing ability for God’s law to show us what godliness looks like. We are too prone to ignore much of the OT today, particularly the law, and we do so too our detriment. As I have been preaching through Deuteronomy, I have been reminded of the unchanging nature of God, and I have seen how an emphasis on the OT law can help us see what godly living looks like in the church and in our own lives. If our love for God is demonstrated by our obedience to His commands (John 14:15), then we certainly ought to want to know what His commands are and what obedience to those commands might look like today.

Capital Punishment and Church Discipline: Dealing with a Possible Misunderstanding

Earlier I made the argument that expulsion from the fellowship of the church is a New Testament application of the death penalty prescribed for breaking the Old Testament law in Deuteronomy. Before addressing some applications of this principle from Deuteronomy 13, I would like to address a possible misunderstanding of this claim.

Some Christians might look at this issue on its surface and think that the New Testament downplays the punishment for sin found in Deuteronomy. In Deuteronomy, people were to be put to death for sexual immorality (22:22 for example), but in the New Testament, people are to be removed from the fellowship of the church for sexual immorality. This seems, on its surface, to be a much lighter sentence. Some Christians might even express a sense of gratitude for not living in the days of the Old Testament because they feel they are not subject to these harsh Old Testament punishments.

This misunderstanding demonstrates an error concerning the nature of the church and the nature of church discipline. The author of Hebrews helps us understand this point:

28 Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses. 29 How much worse punishment, do you think, will be deserved by the one who has trampled underfoot the Son of God, and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has outraged the Spirit of grace? 30 For we know him who said, “Vengeance is mine; I will repay.” And again, “The Lord will judge his people.” 31 It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. (Hebrews 10:28-31, ESV)

The punishment for lawbreaking in the Old Testament, if confirmed based on the testimony of two or three witnesses, was physical death by stoning. The author of Hebrews shows us that the punishment for those who reject Christ is greater than the punishment for those who died under the law in the Old Testament. Those who reject Christ are subject to a fate worse than physical death, falling under the vengeance and wrath of the living God.

The New Testament does not lessen the penalties prescribed in the Old Testament, but in fact the New Testament demonstrates the true significance of the Old Testament law. Sin leads to death. And while it is true that sin leads to physical death, there is a fate worse than physical death, which is the ultimate consequence of sin, the judgment and wrath of  God.

Those who infer that the New Testament lightens the load of Deuteronomy’s punishments do not fully understand the importance of the church or the seriousness of church discipline. In removing a member from the church, the church is in effect proclaiming that the unrepentant sinner is subject to a fate worse than death. Paul refers to this as handing them over to Satan (1 Corinthians 5:5). As best the church understands, the unrepentant sinner is trampling underfoot the Son of God, and profaning the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and outraging the Spirit of grace (adapted from Hebrews 10:29). Therefore this person has demonstrated that he is subject to the righteous vengeance and wrath of God as made visible in his removal from the fellowship of the church.

Church discipline is not an issue to be taken lightly, especially in a day when so many churches will welcome in those under discipline from another church. Church discipline is designed to help destroy the flesh of the unrepentant member (the unrepentant sin in their life). In other words, church discipline is intended to cause pain in the life of the unrepentant member with the hope that he will repent and be restored to God and to the church (1 Corinthians 5:5).

Some will object that the gospel is supposed to be good news, but this doesn’t sound much like good news to them. Where is the good news in all of this talk of church discipline? The good news of the New Testament is not that sin ceased to be a problem. In fact, the New Testament helps us to understand the dire nature of our enslavement to sin. But the good news comes as we see our desperate state of affairs in slavery to sin and death, and we realize that we can be free from the condemnation of sin and sentence of death through faith in Jesus Christ (Romans 7:24-8:1).

So we as Christians rightly ought to celebrate that we live after the coming of Christ. But we do not celebrate because the penalties of the Old Testament have been lessened, leaving us free from the penalty of capital punishment for breaking God’s law. We do not celebrate because we are free from the law in the sense that we can live however we choose, not having to worry about all those “bothersome” commands of God. Instead, we rejoice because we have seen the greatness of the solution to the problem of sin provided in Christ. We see what the Old Testament prophets longed to see (Matthew 13:17), and we see the fulfillment of what they prophesied about (1 Peter 1:10-12), the glory of the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ. “For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit” (1 Peter 3:18, ESV).

Capital Punishment and Church Discipline

I have been preaching through Deuteronomy for several months now, and one issue that comes up repeatedly is capital punishment, specifically that capital punishment is prescribed by the law for certain sins. Deuteronomy 13 is a particularly drastic example of this. In Deuteronomy 13:1-5, the people are to put to death a false prophet or dreamer who attempts to lead them into idolatry. In so doing, they would purge the evil from among them (13:5). In Deuteronomy 13:6-11, they are to put to death a brother, a son or daughter, a wife, or a close friend who tried to entice them into idolatry. They were specifically not to shield this relative or close friend from the death penalty, but they were literally to cast the first stone (13:9). In so doing, they would cause the people to be afraid and to avoid this kind of evil and idolatry. And finally, in Deuteronomy 13:12-18, if it was confirmed that a city had been led away into idolatry, then the entire city was to be destroyed, including people and livestock, and the spoils of the city were to be gathered in the city square and burned.

In a sense, many of these passages on capital punishment are fairly easy to understand. But of course modern Christians will have many questions about how to apply these texts today. Some will apply these texts Christologically. In Deuteronomy 21:18-21, parents are commanded to take rebellious sons who refuse to respond to discipline to the elders so that the son might be stoned. Especially based on Deuteronomy 21:22-23, which talks about exposing the body of one executed by capital punishment on a tree, Christians will make application to Jesus, the obedient Son of God hung on a tree for those who had rebelled against God (Galatians 3:10-14).

Some will use these passages to point to the seriousness of sin and how all who have sinned by breaking God’s law are subject to death as punishment for their sin. I do not want to reject either of these views, but I do want to point to a further application of these laws on capital punishment based on Paul’s quotation from Deuteronomy in 1 Corinthians 5:13.

In 1 Corinthians 5, Paul is dealing with a situation in Corinth where a man was engaged in an inappropriate sexual relationship with his step-mother, his father’s wife who was not his mother. And not only did the Corinthian church refuse to do anything about this sexual immorality, but they somehow perversely took pride in it. Instead, the Corinthian church should have removed this person from their midst (5:2). In closing, Paul quotes from Deuteronomy to urge the people to “purge the evil person from among you” (5:13).

While Paul was quoting from Deuteronomy, we cannot highlight a specific verse from which he quoted because a form of this phrase is found 11 times in the book of Deuteronomy. In essence, what Paul did was take a phrase from Deuteronomy used to explain the reason for capital punishment, and he applied this phrase to the removal of a man accused of unrepentant sexual immorality from the church.

By implication here, we see one of the reasons for church discipline through the lens of capital punishment in Deuteronomy. In Deuteronomy, capital punishment was prescribed in order to purge evil from Israel. God was concerned with the purity of His people in the land, and rampant, unrepentant idolatry or immorality was to be purged from the land through death. The people’s continued existence in the land was tied to their obedience to God’s commands (Deuteronomy 28:62-63), and in order to maintain obedience to God’s commands and purity among the people evil had to be dealt with. The New Testament parallel to this punishment is not capital punishment, but expulsion from the church, the last step of church discipline (Matthew 18:15-17).

As in the Old Testament, so in the New Testament, God is concerned with the purity of His people. If God is concerned with the purity of His church, then we should have that same concern. The reason the church is obligated to remove unrepentant, persistent sinful members from the fellowship of the church is the same reason that the death penalty was prescribed in the Old Testament, to maintain the purity and holiness of the God’s people.

In the modern church, removing someone from the church is often considered unloving and cruel. Consequently, many churches have simply refused to obey the commands of Scripture, and specifically the commands of Jesus in Matthew 18:15-17,  regarding the discipline of the church. We need to be reminded that failure to keep God’s commands is not an act of love for God, nor is it an act of love for other people. Our love for God and our love for others is not to be defined by the world, but it is to be defined by obedience to the commands of God. As Jesus said, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” (John 14:15). Let us pray that the church will love God and love others by keeping His commandments, and that we will not allow the world to redefine for us what it means to love. Let us pray that the church will imitate the character of God by being concerned with the holiness and purity of the church so that we might serve as a witness of the transforming power of the grace of God.

A note to those in “shrinking” churches

Is your church growing? We all know what this question usually means. Are more people coming now than last year? And for many churches, the answer is no. According to this standard, these churches are not growing. In fact, they are declining or even dying.

But we need to be reminded that not all growth is good, and not all decline is bad. Imagine the doctor who says to a patient, “I have good news. Your tumor is shrinking!” Growth in size must be put in context. And in order to find that context, we need to answer the question about church growth using some different standards.

For example, is your church growing in its love for God and for one another? Or is your church growing in its concern for the holiness and purity of Christ’s church? Is your church growing in its knowledge of and love for God’s Word? Is your church growing in its conformity to God’s commands? Is your church growing in its evangelistic boldness and fervor?

When measured by these standards, we see that not all numerical growth is gain, and not all decline is decay. Sometimes unrepentant members must be pruned for the sake of the health of the church. Sometimes evangelistic fervor and boldness are not followed by large numbers of conversions. Sometimes people flock to have their ears scratched by false teaching.

And when we focus on growth solely in terms of numbers we are often focusing on the things we can’t control. We can boldly proclaim the gospel, but we can’t save anyone. We can invite people, but we can’t make them come. We can call people to repentance through church discipline, but we can’t make them repent. Sometimes when people don’t come, they don’t come even though we were faithful to proclaim the truth. And sometimes when people leave, they leave because we faithfully followed God’s commands.

As our church studies Deuteronomy on Sunday mornings, we have seen how God is intensely concerned with the righteousness and purity of His people. God does not call His people to pursue prosperity, but He calls them to pursue justice, holiness, and godliness and to entrust Him to bless them.

“Shrinking” churches can learn a lesson from God’s commands in Deuteronomy. Pursue holiness and godliness. Diligently keep God’s commands. Guard the purity of Christ’s church. Boldly proclaim the gospel. And entrust the rest to God.

If your church is growing in all of these areas, praise God. Continue in faithfulness to Him and be encouraged. If your church is not growing in these areas, repent of any sinfulness and begin to pursue godliness. Don’t pursue prosperity and numerical growth, but pursue God and obedience to His commands. And entrust the rest to Him.

 

What we do and why we do it

When my wife and I bought our minivan about 6 years ago, I discovered that with just the touch of a button, the rear passenger doors would come sliding open. Early on, I loved walking up to the van, hitting the button, and watching the doors slide open so the kids could jump in. Such luxury!

Fast forward to this week, and our family is cruising around town in a brand-new, 2017 minivan. It’s not our van, but we are driving a rental while our van is in the shop. This van’s doors also open with just the touch of a button, but the newer model has seat warmers, a backup camera, and now the van itself starts with just the touch of a button. Suddenly our old van doesn’t seem so impressive. Soon I was wondering how much the payment on a vehicle like this would be.

Our passage for study last Sunday night included 1 Timothy 6:6-8, “But godliness with contentment is a great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with these” (HCSB). As we talked about these verses, I was struck by how much we focus on the what instead of the why when it comes to material goods.

If we only focus on the what, like the new car, we will be prone to assess people based on the material goods they own. We will find the person who has a newer car than ours, and we will wonder why they don’t love Jesus like we do. After all, they are not suffering for Jesus like we are in our late model vehicles. Clearly they have succumbed to the love of worldly things. However, we will rarely turn this assessment on its head and think about those who have older cars than ours. There has to be some limit to this kind of analysis, some year at which all cars become spiritually neutral. And that limit, as it turns out, is probably about the year our car was made.

So to answer the what question rightly, should we buy a new car, we can’t just ask what, but we must also ask why. Why are we buying the car? If our family had gone out immediately and bought a new van, we would have done so because we were discontent with what we had. It was not that our van stopped working or became insufficient for our needs, but we would have made the purchase because we were lacking in godly contentment. Upon seeing what we didn’t have, we would have grown discontent with what we did have. And so the what, the buying of the car, would have been a sin because of the why, discontentment. This is not to say that the act of purchasing a new car is sinful. After all, our van will not work forever. The day will come when we will move on from it and purchase another vehicle. The problem with the what would have been found in the why.

But I think there is one more confusion that might plague us when making these kinds of decisions. We might now think that it is always the why that matters and not the what, as though it doesn’t really matter what we do, only why we do it. But we must be reminded that it is not really the what or the why that inherently matters. What matters is obedience to God. What matters is what God has said. And sometimes God’s Word addresses the what, and sometimes it addresses the why. If you get drunk, you have sinned (Ephesians 5:19). There is no reason you can come up with to make the act anything but sinful. You are not getting drunk to better minister to drunks. You are breaking God’s command.

But when it comes to purchasing a new car, taking a better paying job, or many other decisions that we must make from time to time, God has not given us commands concerning the what in many of these instances. So we must ask if God has addressed the why. Why are we buying the car? Why are we taking the job? Often we think that the Bible does not address so many of the questions that we might ask, like what job to take. But this is because we are looking only for commands related to the what of our lives, not the why.

I see this clearly demonstrated in our kids. Sometimes they get the what right while missing horribly on the why. Pouting and muttering while they clean their rooms might check the what box, clean your room, but it misses the why by a mile, obey your parents as you would the Lord and honor your father and mother (Ephesians 6:1-2). So even in cleaning their rooms, they might sin in how they do it. And on the other hand, sometimes they think they can negate the what because of their creative whys. I know you told me not to do this, but let me explain.…

As children of our heavenly Father, we are also called to obedience, both in what He has called us to do, and how He has called us to do it. So as we consider all the decisions that we have to make, let us consider first what God has said, both in what we do and in why we do it. Let us remember that both the what and the why matter, but they matter because God has spoken.

Drunkenness as sinfulness

With the removal of Perry Noble as pastor of New Springs Church, a lot has been said in the last few days about alcohol and drunkenness. Many people are urging complete abstinence from alcohol, something that I practice. But in the midst of the conversation, I wanted to add a note on the issue that I know I need to remember. As one prone to legalism, I need a frequent remember that dealing with this issue cannot just be about rules.

I recently read an article by John Piper addressing the issue of modesty. His main point, as I understand it, is that addressing modesty cannot be about rules only. He argues that addressing modesty starts with “God and the gospel and the Bible and the Spirit and faith and joy.” In other words, even if a church were to enact a dress code to ensure that all members were dressing modestly, this rule in itself would not be able to deal with the deeper heart issues involved. These rules would not be able to destroy the sinful desires that lead to immodest dress. This same argument could be made concerning alcohol and drunkenness.

I am not opposed to rules concerning alcohol. I do not drink, and I will discourage my kids from doing so. And while they are underage, I will surely emphasize the law that tells them not to drink. But at its core, drunkenness is a sin issue (Ephesians 5:18). As such, it cannot be dealt with through rules alone; it must be handled through repentance and faith in God. As 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 indicates, drunkards are demonstrating their alienation from God’s kingdom. They are sinning against the commands of a holy God. Paul says such people will have no part in God’s kingdom. Of course alcoholics can be forgiven and cleansed, and Paul is not saying that a Christian will never get drunk in the same way that there is no guarantee that a Christian will never lie or be greedy. But this does mean that drunkenness is a sin that places us in need of the cleansing power of the gospel of Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 6:11).

Many families today have been affected by alcoholism, drunkenness, or drug abuse, so we will likely all face these issues at some point. And we must deal with them as sin issues. When alcoholism or drug abuse hits our family, we are prone to want to blame the drugs and alcohol. We want to paint our family members as essentially good people that were derailed by an evil or dangerous substance. Perhaps if better rules were in place, these problems never would have arisen. But James teaches that our sin comes from our own evil desires. These desires give birth to sin, which leads to death (1:14-15). And though Jesus does not specifically mention drunkenness in Mark 7, he does speak of all the evil desires that come from within our own hearts that then defile us (7:21-23). So if drunkenness is a sin, it comes from within, from a heart that needs to be replaced (Ezekiel 36:26), just like so many other evil and wicked desires. We sin because we want to sin, not simply because we have been tricked into sin or stumbled into sin or failed to have the right rules in place.

Ultimately all sin destroys. The destruction brought about by the sin of greed might not be as obvious to some as the destruction caused by drunkenness, but Paul is clear that the love of money is terribly destructive (1 Timothy 6:9-10). In the same way that rules will never defeat the sin of greed, rules will never defeat the sin of drunkenness. Rules have their place. Putting solid guidelines in place can be of benefit in our walk before the Lord. But ultimately they will never solve the problem of hearts turned away from God. We must deal with sin issues as just that, sins against a holy God. The ultimate power to defeat the sin of drunkenness comes neither from the principle of moderation or the rule of total abstinence, but from faith in the gospel of Jesus Christ and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

So why do I say any of this? A sinful tendency of mine over the years has been to glory in my own rule keeping. When I have had this attitude I am nothing more than the Pharisee of Luke 18, thanking God that I am not like those other people who commit those other sins. And when I have done this, my own rule keeping has done nothing more than alleviate the sin of drunkenness while I have plunged headlong into the destructive sin of pride. So while I believe in the wisdom of keeping certain rules that prevent certain behaviors, I know I need the constant reminder that the true power to defeat sin in my life comes not from following these rules, but from repentance and faith in the gospel of Jesus. So when I deal with my kids and alcohol, I need to be reminded not just to teach them rules (whether commands from God or rules that I believe are good, solid principles to follow), but I must proclaim to them the gospel of Jesus, which is the only power to set them free from their sin, whether that sin be drunkenness or pride over never having been drunk.

Copying the world or living the Word?

Are we copying the world or living the Word? I am becoming convinced that many Christians and many churches are being conformed to the world in ways that we don’t even understand. We simply copy the world, even if what we do violates God’s Word. I want to use two examples to demonstrate this point.

The Discipleship of Children

For the average child in a Christian home, their primary Bible teacher is a Sunday School teacher, children’s worker, or youth worker. Many Christian parents are not regularly teaching their kids the Bible or how to follow Jesus. Why? Mostly because they have copied the educational principles of the world. We are not the primary ones to teach our kids math or science, so why do we have to be their primary Bible teachers?

The Bible commands fathers to do otherwise, to bring up their children in the training and instruction of the Lord (Ephesians 6:4). So the father who is not actively discipling his children is copying the educational patterns of the world instead of living the commands of the Word. And we wonder why each generation seems less and less biblically literate when we have taken our cues from the world rather than the Word.

Church Discipline

I am convinced that the average church today will not exercise biblical church discipline. Most churches have many members who are living in the sinful pattern of complete disassociation from the church. Matthew 18:15-17 sets a clear pattern for handling this problem. We should approach these people privately and rebuke them. This means that we should confront them and prove to them from the Scriptures that what they are doing is wrong. If they won’t listen to us, we should bring another person or two with us as witnesses. If they still won’t listen, we should take the matter before the church. If they won’t listen to the church, we should remove them from church membership.

But most churches refuse to follow this pattern. Why? Because we follow a worldly wisdom instead of a godly wisdom. This worldly wisdom tells us that it is unloving to enact church discipline. This worldly wisdom tells us that doing so will disturb the peace in the church, lead to division, and drive people farther from God. And so we don’t do what the Scripture clearly teaches because we have bought into a false wisdom from the world about what is loving and peaceful.

I could give other examples, but the point is this: we cannot follow God according to the wisdom of this world. As James says, the wisdom of this world does not come down from God but is earthly, unspiritual, and of the devil (3:15). I have a deep concern for the church today. I am afraid that in many instances we are unable to ground what we do in the Scriptures, and too often this is because we have conformed ourselves to the world instead of being transformed to live according to the Word. If it’s true in these two areas, how many other areas might we be living out the patterns of the world instead of the commands of God?

So what do we need to do? James says that true wisdom from God is open to reason or submissive (3:17) and that God gives wisdom generously to those who ask in faith (1:5-6). We will not ask for what we think we already have. The first step is to humble ourselves and admit that the problem is real. Only then can we begin to seek God’s wisdom and evaluate all we do in light of Scripture, striving to make sure that we are being transformed through a godly repentance and renewal, rather than a conformity to the patterns of this world.

Individual Disciples or a People for God

Church leaders, including myself, often bemoan the individualism of our American culture, and we lament how this individualistic spirit has invaded the church. I attended a conference on discipleship this week, and as I left the conference, I began to reflect on how individualism has affected even our thoughts on discipleship. As I look back on the last few days, I am struck by how individualistic our conversations about discipleship were. We began with the Great Commission to make disciples and then asked what a disciple looks like. From there, we tried to formulate plans or processes for making this kind of disciple. This process was helpful, and while we regularly focused on how disciples would have to be part of a group of believers, we still approached the question from an individualistic slant. What does a disciple look like? While we acknowledged that a disciple must be involved in corporate activities, we still focused heavily on building individual disciples.

The problem I have with this process is that God never intended to make individual disciples. Jesus did tell his disciples to make disciples, but long before that, God made clear that his ultimate aim was a people for himself. When God chose Abraham, God did so to make Abraham into a nation (Genesis 12:2). God promised his people that if they obeyed, he would establish them as his holy people so that all the nations of the earth would see that his people were called by his name (Deuteronomy 28:9-10). In the New Testament, Paul stated that Christ died to purify for himself a people that are his own (Titus 2:14). As Peter called his audience to holiness, he reminded them that they were a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his possession (1 Peter 2:9). In the new creation, God will dwell among the people that he has made for himself. He will be their God, and they will be his people (Revelation 21:3).

So perhaps the discipleship questions we ask should be corporate rather than individualistic. Instead of starting with what a disciple looks like, perhaps we should ask what the people of God should look like. This shift might seem insignificant, but some characteristics of God’s people cannot be reflected in individual disciples. For example, individual disciples cannot be intergenerational, while we know that God’s people are made up of many generations. God’s people are interracial, made up of people from many tribes, tongues, and nations, while individual disciples do not have to reflect this characteristic. Currently many churches form groups revolving around the individual: a small group for young adults, a church for horse people, a worship service for those who like traditional music. But if we began with the people rather than the individual, our churches might look vastly different. We might begin to  look more like the diverse families of faith that God created us to be.

Is everyone welcome at your church?

I talk often about how much words matter, particularly words like “church” (and the related “God’s house”), and perhaps sometimes the use of these words borders on being a pet peeve for me. But I think the way we use words matters. I don’t think we can deny that the word “church” has come to be used to refer more frequently to a building than to a group of people. While most Christians would agree that biblically “church” refers to a group of people and not to a building, we continue to use the word “church” to refer to the building where the church meets. It may come across to some like I’m being too picky on this issue, but I’d liked to suggest one reason why the way we use this term matters.

“We welcome everybody at our church.” This simple statement seems uncontroversial, loving, and Christ-like. Such a statement makes us seem loving to those who would accuse us of being close-minded and intolerant. When we are accused of being hateful for standing for biblical truths (or for calling sin sin), we can respond by saying that we welcome everybody at our church. After all, shouldn’t we welcome all people with open arms? But what do we really mean when we say this?

What I think that most churches mean is that everyone is welcome to come into their building and be a part of their worship service, or any of the various activities of the church. Even the little word “at” implies that we are open to people coming to a certain location. So if we mean that we are open to anyone coming to hear the gospel proclaimed, to hear biblical truth taught, and to see God’s people as they worship him corporately, that’s one thing. As we open our doors to our buildings in that way, hopefully people will be convicted, called to account, fall on their faces in worship of God, and declare that God truly is among this body of believers (1 Corinthians 14:24-25).

But do we really welcome everyone into our church, not into our building but into our fellowship, into our family of faith? This is after all how the question of whether we welcome everyone into our “church” should be framed. Hopefully we do not. To give just one example, we don’t welcome into our faith family those who believe that they have access to God apart from Jesus Christ. As Paul said in 1 Corinthians, division should exist in the church to show those who are recognized and approved as part of the church (11:19), and consequently those who are not. Some divisions have no place in the church, divisions along the lines of race, wealth, age, etc. Fractures along these lines are contrary to the truth of the gospel message and those who cause division along these lines should be rebuked and called to repentance. However, and this is a big however, division is actually necessary in the church. For example, those living in unrepentant sexual immorality should be separated from the church (1 Corinthians 5:13). We should not welcome such people into our church family unless they repent of their sinfulness. And if members of our church fall into sexual sin, we should separate ourselves from them if they refuse to repent.

So do we really welcome everybody at our church? Considering that the church is a people and not a location, the question should really be do we welcome everybody into our church? Hopefully the answer to this question is yes, if. We welcome anyone who will believe the gospel and repent of their sins, no matter what. But we reject anyone as a part of our church family who does not believe and will not repent. We may be called intolerant when we do so, but better to be called intolerant than to reject biblical truth and give people false assurance of their salvation.

Many of our churches have become too accepting. Perhaps our intentions have been noble, a desire to see the church grow and for all to be saved. But these noble intentions are no excuse for ignoring biblical truth. As Mark Dever wrote in Nine Marks of a Healthy Church, “If we really want to see our churches grow, we need to make it harder to join and we need to be better at excluding people. We need to be able to show that there is a distinction between the church and the world—that it means something to be a Christian.” While we don’t want to set up false barriers to the gospel or to church membership, we do want people to know that faith and repentance are necessary to be included in the family of God. While we can keep our buildings open to anyone, we should not keep our church open to everyone. And the difference between the two is crucial.

Leave your reputation behind, and follow me

A buddy recently sent me a quote from Thom Rainer, “Churches don’t change until the pain of staying the same is greater than the pain of change.” That quote resonated with me, not just as it relates to our church, but also as it relates to my life. There are aspects of my life I seem unwilling to change until the pain of staying the same is greater than the pain of changing.

I suppose we all enter into new situations with a bit of naiveté. When I began as pastor of our church, I knew the job was supposed to be hard. It’s one thing to know in theory that a job might be hard, but it’s another thing altogether to do hard things when the time comes. Deep down we are fooled into thinking that things won’t be that hard for us. Why do we think this? Because we think we are special or specially favored by God? I don’t know, but I think we tend to expect things to be easy, when Scripture suggests the exact opposite will be true.

One of the hardest areas for me is my reputation. I like for people to like me. I grew up as the shy kid in the corner who didn’t say enough to get anybody upset, and I generally stayed out of the limelight enough to keep people from being mad at me. That’s a lot harder to do as pastor of a church. Jesus’ words have been echoing in my mind recently, “Woe to you when all people speak well of you, for their ancestors did the same thing to the false prophets” (Luke 6:26). In other words, everyone liking what you do is not necessarily a good sign. I’m not sure that I’ve been prepared to live these words, but I hope I’m getting there. It’s part of what following Jesus looks like, leaving our concern over reputation behind and following him.

Another phrase that has been rattling around in my mind is, “Do hard things.” This is the title of a book I ran across a while back (full disclosure: I haven’t actually read the book), and I think it sums up where our church is and where I am right now. Changing and growing for us as a church and for me as a leader will mean doing hard things. As Rainer warns, change is painful, but sometimes staying the same is much more painful in the long run. Whatever is in store for us won’t be easy, and things will probably get worse before they get better, but Scripture gives us the hope that it will be worth it in the end.

I really want my life to be easy; I really do. And that’s part of the problem. Life isn’t easy. We expect the Christian life to be easy, but it’s far from it. When we follow Jesus, we open ourselves up to loss, rejection, ridicule, pain, and confrontation. But these are all things Jesus endured for us. And they are all things we must be prepared for if we want to follow Him. It’s easy for me to say that “those people” don’t want to change, or “they” are unwillingly to do what it takes, but until I’m willing to do the hard things, like leaving my concern over my reputation behind, then I’m not ready to follow the path my Savior walked.