I Feel Sorry for the Christian Church

Much like I do

For America, I feel sorry for the modern Christian Church. Like the country, the Christian Church stands for something. It offers freedom, a new start in life, ability to become someone and a lot more.

Yet there are people who are not happy with the things the church teaches.

There are people unhappy with the rules

Again, much like America, the Christian Church has people who do not like God’s rules or his instructions. They like the part found in the Bible about how God loves them and they can have eternal life, but that good news is about as far as they go with their Christian belief.

When these people start reading the rest of the Bible, they start to get nervous as they see that God is not just about giving away his love and eternal salvation for free. God has also outlined how everyone should live if they want to be counted as a follower of God.

These instructions do not sit well with most of these people, for whatever reason they may have. So they get educated a bit and try to change those instructions to fit their own preferences and try to make the Christian faith more like the secular world’s beliefs.

These people prefer cultural practices over spiritual ones

This behavior is seen through a lot of different activities the church has done over the past 60 years or so. Different church people have adopted many secular philosophies to help them be seen in a different light by unbelieving people.

They like using secular culture to guide their Christian activities and strategies, instead of adhering to God’s culture which tells everyone how to live a godly life. Secular culture makes allowances for a lot of behaviors that God has said to be wrong and different church members go right along with those faulty choices.

In the end, it seems that the secular world has been a light unto the Christian Church instead of the Christian Church being a light unto a dark world. There is a problem with that scenario.

Their decisions and behavior send a message

When the followers of God do not follow what God has said, several strong negative messages are sent to the unbelieving world. These messages work hard to counteract the gospel message the believers are to brig to those lost in their sins.

Here are some of those negative messages:

l It tells the world that God’s rules do not matter

l It tells the world that God’s & Jesus’ instructions do not matter

l It tells the world that they can live as they please and still get into heaven (Of course, that won’t happen)

l It tells the world that they do not have to listen to God and be Christian

l It tells the world that humans know better than God

l It tells the world that the Bible is not worth the ink and paper it is written on

There are more negative messages and they all add up to the fact that both God & Jesus are not who they say they are and that their words are not divine, holy and meant to be followed.

Who would want to follow a God whose followers do not do as their God said? The church wins souls in spite of these negative messages, which is a testament to the power of God not the impact of the Christian Church

There are some problems

That is for those people who want to be seen as Christian yet do not follow the God or Savior they claim to follow. First, every ancient manuscript backs each other up. They all say the same thing except in minor cases. Those people trying to re-translate the Bible to fit their personal views have no ancient support except in heretical circles. Both God’s and Jesus’ teachings are the same throughout history.

Second, if these alternative believing people are correct and the Bible and ancient manuscripts are in error, where are God’s modern divinely inspired words for the Christian Church today? Who has them and when can we read them? Who wrote them down and when? How do we know that they are truly God’s word for the modern church and why do they differ from the words written by the original biblical authors?

These are difficult questions that those people cannot answer. That is because the alternative practices these people bring to the church originate from their own person thinking influenced by evil, not God. They like to freedom of the broad road the secular world offers ,and reject the straight and narrow road that God offers.

Sadly, they bring their alternative ideas into the church and convince many unwary believers that their false ideas are correct.

This is why I feel sorry for the church

In the original first century church, all believers were of one mind and dedicated themselves to following the disciples’ teaching. After the original witnesses died out, the church was vulnerable to the alternative ideas brought by those who did not want to follow God’s rules and instructions.

This trend has not changed in the modern era as the secular world continues its departure from the truth and pursues ungodly ideas. Many in the church continue to follow the secular world over God.

The situation has come to the point where it is hard to see God’s teaching in the Christian Church today. Too many people who call themselves Christians want their own ideas and think they know better than God.

If Christians want to make an impact for God today, they need to remove those false teachers from the church or correct their misguided thinking. You can’t bring people to your God if you are not following his words.

A believer may bring people to a god but it is not the God who wrote the Bible. Secular culture may change but God does not. That means his words do not change.

His and Jesus’ instructions given to the ancient world through their various writers are the same words for the Christian Church and the world today. The only alternatives to those instructions are heretical and false teachings.

This is why I feel sad for the Christian Church. Too many members are ignoring God’s instructions and promoting their own preferences in hopes of getting people to sit in their pews.

Also, the people are far too divided, following everything but the disciples’ teachings. We have those teachings in the New Testament but because they go contrary to modern thinking, they are re-translated or pushed aside for something that allows people to follow selfish and sinful ways.

That makes me sad as far too many unwary innocent people are taught the wrong ideas about God, Jesus and the Christian life.