Follow the Teachings of Jesus

Encouraging Christians to Follow the Teachings of Jesus

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God is Sovereign

God is sovereign – this means that God has absolute power and his decisions and actions cannot be wrong. There are a number of passages in the Old and New Testaments that make it very clear that God is Sovereign.

 

Pic7Here are some of those passages:

  • Job Chapters 38-41 where God points to his role as creator and challenges whether the understanding or creativity of a mortal human can match his own.
  • Isaiah 40:12-28 is somewhat similar to Job 38-41. The sovereignty, majesty and power of God are represented as being completely without equal.
  • Jesus’ parable about the workers in the vineyard (Matthew 20:1-16). This is a passage that reminds us that God’s sovereignty is not only absolute; it can be very uncomfortable. Jesus tells a story in which the owner of the vineyard, clearly representing God, behaves in a manner that seems to human logic to be completely unfair. He pays his workers exactly the same amount whether they have worked all day or whether they have only worked for about an hour. He even pays those who have worked the shortest amount of time first, leaving those who have worked all day until last. Yet he defends his actions by saying that he paid the workers exactly what he said he would pay them. He also asks whether there is any question about his right to do as he likes with his own money.

The important point is that God is absolutely sovereign and human beings will never be able to make sense of all his decisions or identify rules that govern his behaviour. Yet, throughout the history of the church, that is exactly what many Christians have tried to do.  Mostly, it is a waste of time. The devil wants us to believe that we can identify the rules or procedures that God follows and the devil wants us to waste our time in trying to do so when we have much more important work to do.

The bottom line is that we need to remember that God is God – and we are not.

A New Movement in Christianity: Don’t-Knowism

I belong to a movement that I may have started and of which I may be the only member. The movement is called Don’t-Knowism. Put simply it means that I acknowledge that I don’t know the answer to many, perhaps most, of the questions that Christians love to discuss. I may have an opinion, but I could be wrong.

Don’t-Knowism is a good place to be.  The fact that I don’t know stuff is truth.

 

Pic2Let’s face it. We Christians don’t know everything. We can’t know everything. The important thing is that we don’t need to know everything and we certainly don’t need to pretend that we know everything.  God does know everything and we trust him to look after us and to make good, just and loving decisions.  Our present and our future are perfectly safe in his hands.

God gave us, his human children, enquiring minds.  We love to think about things, speculate about things, make up theories about things and discuss things. This is very good. However, since the early days of the church, many of the issues that Christians have debated have been, perhaps, not very important. The topics have often been about how God makes his decisions or who will be saved – topics that we cannot know the answer to because God is sovereign.  He doesn’t make decisions according to rules that we humans can define or even comprehend.  Nonetheless, debates on these issues have sometimes gone on for centuries and have sometimes become violent. Very violent.

I believe that the devil uses this tendency in humans to distract us from the things that God wants us to focus on.  We get tied up in discussion of these topics when we should be focussed on Jesus’ very clear commands as to how we should live from day to day.  We talk and argue amongst ourselves when there are an awful lot of people very close to us who need to hear the words of Jesus and need to be loved and discipled.  It is particularly evident that many of Christianity’s brightest and best spend much of their time researching and discussing obscure points of theology and doctrine when they could be assisting and guiding the many, many people who need help right now.

Here is a quick test which can help us to tell whether a contentious topic is important or not.  Imagine that an angel appeared, sent by God, and told us the absolute truth about the topic under discussion. How much difference will knowing this truth make to the way we live our lives today and tomorrow?  If the answer is “none at all”, or even “not very much”, then the topic is probably not worth spending a lot of time on – and it certainly isn’t worth getting angry about.

Another test is whether there is disagreement among Christians about the topic.  If it is an issue that devout, sincere, godly Christians disagree about, then it is an issue that God has decided not to clarify, and therefore it probably isn’t that important.

I often say, when involved in a discussion on some point of theology “I can tell you what the truth is. The truth is that we do not know what the truth is.”

Let’s just admit that there are, and always will be, a lot of things that we don’t know and accept that we probably don’t need to know them.  Then we can get on with the important stuff – following the teachings of Jesus.

Where are Christian churches going wrong?

Where are we going wrong? It is not surprising that many people are leaving Christian churches.  Many, perhaps most, Christian churches focus their activities and energy on things that are not found in Jesus’ teachings.

 

 

Layers of stuff

For nearly 2000 years we, Jesus’ followers, have been adding layer upon layer of stuff to his teachings. We have developed doctrines, beliefs, rituals, traditions and all sorts of stuff that we have come to think of as being Christian – but this stuff is not Christian. (If, at this point, you are thinking that this applies to other denominations, not yours, or that other denominations are particularly guilty of these things; pray, and read on thoughtfully).  Jesus was passionate, perhaps brutal, in his criticism of the religious leaders of his day for teaching human rules as if they were rules made by God:

“You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you: ‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are merely human rules.’” (Matthew 15:7-9)

Much of what has been taught in churches over the centuries, and is still taught today, is just human teachings. These teachings have built up in layers to the point where our churches are now overloaded with stuff that is not helpful to people who want to follow Jesus. Indeed, this stuff hinders us from doing his work. This stuff hinders the coming of the kingdom of God.

Take a moment to think about some of the words and phrases that you hear in our churches – in the songs, prayers and sermons.  Is the meaning of these words and phrases clear to someone who is not familiar with our particular brand of Christian culture?  Think about the rituals and the forms of service you see.  Did Jesus clearly instruct us to do these things? If not, why are we doing them?

The traditional language and practices that we use every week seem strange to outsiders, and they are strange. The commands of our loving Lord and Saviour do not seem strange to outsiders. They seem very logical and right. (Go to the home page for a list of these commands.) Let’s face it, in our church services we behave in ways that are very strange and it is not surprising that we do not make the impact on our communities that the very early Christian church did.

 

A few words about denominations.

We Christians often tend to identify ourselves by our denomination – emphasising the divisions between us, rather than by our allegiance to Jesus – emphasising our oneness. This is a problem that has affected the church for centuries. But things are improving. Today, many Christians are going out of their way to have conversations with Christians from different backgrounds. They are listening to each others’ experiences of God and they are expressing their love for each other. This is very good.

Christians who belong to one denomination are not very different from their brothers and sisters in other denominations or to those who do not belong to any denomination. We serve the same just and loving God. We follow the teachings of the same Saviour. We agree on the important things:

• God loves us.
• He wants us to love him.
• He wants us to love each other.

However, unfortunately, some of us behave as if our own denomination is right and others are wrong. We seem to believe that the problems facing Christianity would be solved if everyone else believed what we believe, adopted our way of thinking and followed our rules. This is not good. Jesus told us to be humble servants of one another.

It must be true that none of us have got our beliefs and practices absolutely right. We all make mistakes and get things wrong sometimes.  We need to focus on living according to the teachings of our loving Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, rather than focussing on the activities and beliefs that have been laid on us by human teachers.

Jesus is Lord.

What Did Jesus Say About the Church?

Jesus only made three references to ‘the church’. All of them are recorded in Matthew. He said nothing about how we should organise our churches or church services.

However, in John 17, Jesus does explain his vision for his followers and it is beautiful. He also said some other things that help us understand how we are to live as members of his church.

 

Jesus talks about the church

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On two of the three occasions on which Jesus talks about the church he is talking to Peter:

“And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.” (Matthew 16:18)

Then Peter came and said to him, “Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?” Jesus said to him, “Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times”. (Matthew 18:21-22)

On the third occasion Jesus is speaking to the disciples and gives some very clear instructions about how we are to behave if we have a problem with someone else in the church.

“If another member of the church sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone. If the member listens to you, you have regained that one. But if you are not listened to, take one or two others along with you, so that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If the member refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if the offender refuses to listen even to the church, let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.” (Matthew 18:15-17)

This is simple and it works. Jesus knows that when a human being feels that they have a problem with someone else, their first reaction is often to look for sympathy and support from others – so they talk to other people who they hope will see things the way they do. This is how conflict starts in a church. This is how factions form. Jesus said that if you have a problem with someone, the very first thing you should do is to talk to that person, and that person alone. If you can’t get a reasonable outcome then take one or two others along and talk to that person again. This is treating your fellow church member with respect and love. This is treating others the way that you would like to be treated yourself.

I’m not sure what the reference to the “Gentile and a tax collector” means.  Jesus’ general guidelines for how to treat Gentiles and sinners is to forgive them, accept them and treat them with respect.

So, Jesus speaks about “the church” on only three occasions and in two of these he focuses on how members of the church should treat each other:

  • We should forgive each other; and
  • If we have a problem with another member, we should talk to them before talking to anyone else.

It is worth noting that all of Jesus’ commands are either about loving God or about loving others.  He doesn’t tell us how to organise ourselves but he does tell us, very clearly, how we are to behave towards each other.  If we focus on this then it is possible that the organisation and structures will take care of themselves.

Jesus’ vision for his church

Jesus’ vision for his church is set out in his prayer, just before his arrest, in John 17.

“I ask not only on behalf of these (that’s the disciples), but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word (that’s us), that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.” (John 17:20-23)

Jesus prays that we will be one. In other places he teaches us to be a radically different sort of community. He teaches us to love our enemies and do good to those who persecute us. He teaches us to love our neighbors the same way that we love ourselves.  He says that our love for each other is to be so evident that outsiders will know that we are his disciples. He teaches us to be humble. He teaches us not to judge each other.  Overall, he teaches us to live our lives in ways that are clearly very different to the ways promoted by our current western culture.

Let’s pray the same prayer as Jesus. Let’s pray that we will be one with each other and with God. Let’s pray that we will play our part in bringing on this oneness.  And let’s live it.  Let’s love each other, encourage each other, pray for each other and focus on the things we have in common – not the things that divide us.

What is “The Word of God”?

What, exactly, is “the Word of God”? When we read the words “Word of God” in our Bible, what does the author of the passage mean?

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There are many passages in the Bible that refer to “the Word of God” or “the Word of the Lord”. The Hebrew and Greek words for “word” both mean a message. So, in the Bible, “Word of God” means a message transmitted directly from God to an individual or group.  

The Old Testament

In the Old Testament there are many occasions when God spoke to his people through prophets. (A prophet is, primarily, someone specially appointed to pass on a message from God. A prophet is not someone who foretells the future.)  Passages dealing with these occasions usually begin with a formula indicating that God is communicating something important to an individual or group; “The word of the Lord came to…”; “Thus says the Lord…”; or “Hear the word of the Lord”. The actual language used to describe these occasions is very strong. For example; a better translation of “The word of the Lord came to…” would be “The word of the Lord became actively present to…”. This form of words is a little clumsy in English but it shows that this was a very significant event – God was actively communicating his wishes or intentions to, or through, a human being.

The New Testament

In the New Testament we find something completely new. A person, Jesus, is referred to as “the word”. The writer of John’s gospel starts off by telling us that Jesus always was, and is, God and that his very existence on earth was, and continues to be, a message from God “And the Word became flesh and lived among us” (John  1:14). Jesus’ birth, life, death, resurrection and teachings constitute God’s word to us in a way that nothing else ever has done or ever will.