******WARNING: EXTREME THEOLOGICAL CONTENT******
Let me recap yesterday's blog.
God made three promises to Abraham.
1. His family would be a great nation
2. Land
3. That they would be a blessing to all the earth
The Hebrew people seemed to forget the third promise. Instead, they focused on promises one and two.
Now, what about the church? Through Jesus, we are grafted into Abraham's family. Thus, we are grafted into this promise. How are we doing? I fear that we are forgetting the third promise as well.
1. Great Nation
In the age of the mega church, it is not hard to see how important numbers are to the church as we go about our business. We go to great lengths to grow and to sustain. I'll give you an example. There is always great interest in a list of North America's largest churches. The scandal recently was when Willow Creek dropped from the top spot on that list.
The goal for many of the "successful" churches is to simply take in more members than leave.
What's more, our membership is mostly made of Christians that we have poached from other congregations. We take great pride in wonderful programs at the church. But, they mostly attract folks who are already a part of another church. Instead of doing the difficult work of real evangelism and dealing with folks that may not be as "together" as some of our church goers, we stick with a chase for people who look and act like us.
Plus, I'm not even going to delve into the whole line of thought that is circulating among fundamentalists that America is the "new Israel."
2. Land
We love our land. We love it so much that we close the doors to the building so that it will be safe. We protect our land, just like Israel. If there is a weakness in someone who owns land adjacent to the church, we swoop in to take it over.
I truly believe that there is nothing wrong with nice facilities. The real problem arises when we seek to keep the community out.
3. Blessing to all the earth
The church is about Good News. Yet, it seems that we are much more willing to do the things it takes to build a great nation and protect our land. We have a great opportunity to offer the world, including our own communities, hope and love and forgiveness.
Unfortunately, it seems that we have neglected the third promise as well.
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1 comment:
Brian, great posts. It seems that Israel started to see means as the ends. Promises one and two were made because God was most interested in bringing light to the nations. The Church was/is an even more radicalized way of accomplishing this mission. And I'm afraid that, in many ways, you're right about the church. For our first few hundred years or so, we were largely a Spiritual movement. With the advent of Christendom, we became more tied to land, buildings, and conquest. Our marriage to the state (though still used by God), in many people's minds was the worst day in church history (probably an overstatement). My question to you is, "Where is the hope?" The answer I might put forth, is the church's becoming again a community of the Spirit, and not of nations, and land.
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