It seems to me that that it’s impossible for anything a human being does to be absolutely without some kind of error. We simply don’t have the capacity to do absolute good, and probably not likely to do absolute bad. Even in doing evil, it seems that there’s usually a hint of something good—however misguided or warped it may be. And likewise, even in the greatest intentions, we mingle in at least a hint of pride, or selfishness or fear.

So, in the less extreme cases, it would seem that most things become a cost-benefit situation.

Obviously, we’re never to choose to do something evil, regardless of how good a benefit it might serve. It would be wrong steal a million dollars no matter how much good that money could do for the poor. It would be wrong for a prostitute to continue her trade no matter how many unlikely people should could share the Gospel with.

But what about things that are good, but with a margin for bad? For example, what about wishing to work hard at your business to glorify God and provide for your family, but with the potential to alienate and neglect them?

I suppose we would have to assess the risk and decide whether the negative effects outweighed the positive ones. (All of this assuming your heart and mind were in the proper place). Frankly, it just seems logical. Even with the right frame of mind, if the good intentions weren’t panning out and family was being neglected, you’d have to concede that even though the intentions and motivation were good, it’s simply something you shouldn’t do.

Reading in the book of Haggai today, it got me thinking about all this stuff. This is what the Lord said to the people of Israel. Haggai 1:7:

Consider your ways. You have sown much, and harvested little. You eat, but you never have enough; you drink, but you never have your fill. You clothe yourselves, but no one is warm. And he who earns wages does so to put them into a bag with holes.

Now, the nation of Israel was not in the same position that I’m describing. Their neglect of the temple of the Lord was decidedly wrong. But I think his call to them to “Consider your ways” isn’t too much different than what I think God could say to the church today.

For all of the church’s good intentions and ideas, it’s simply not panning out. The expensive buildings, contemporary bands, the multitude niche ministry programs and corporate services simply aren’t producing the effects we’d expected. Studies continue to confirm this. Our popularly accepted system of church isn’t working. In fact, I think it’s doing more harm than good.

People often defend the church in this way. “Good things are happening”. They’ll often cite people who have personally benefitted from our specific system. But I think this violates logic. Just because a father works hard and provides well for his family, if they are neglected and estranged, the benefit is not justified. It’s nullified. No one would defend his methods. Not for long.

Yet this may well be the case with the church system we’ve accepted today. I believe it should be abandoned.

God is gracious for no reason outside of himself. Whatever it is that drives his desire to forgive sinners is imbedded somewhere within his being and it isn’t for us to understand. At least not now, not fully.

God forgives to satisfy his desire to forgive. It is as William Gurnall describes:

You know the reason why God stands so long waiting on sinners, months, years, preaching to them; it is that He may be gracious in pardoning them, and in that act delight himself. Princes very often pardon traitors to please others more than themselves, or else it would never be done but God doth it chiefly to delight and glad His own merciful heart. Hence the business Christ came about (which is no other but to reconcile  sinners to God) is called “the pleasure of the Lord.”

I discover profound encouragement knowing that God has forgiven my sins because it pleases him, and not because I have in some way convinced him to do so.

Twice in the last short stretch of Jesus’ high priestly prayer he mentions the concept of unity. And both times he attaches it to the world’s belief.

John 17:20-26:

“I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one,  I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me. I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them."

He illustrates unity by his own relationship with the Father (a relationship marked by perfect love and respect). “Just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you…”. Then, moves on to express how this unity opens opportunity for the world to believe. He distinctly makes this comparison twice, all within just a few breaths. All of the Word is crucial, but I think we would be wise to pay special attentions to things that God saw fit to say over and over again.

Now, I don’t necessarily believe that the splintering of denominations is a bad thing. In fact, that’s really much to large an argument for right now. But even in the existence of many denominations within our faith, this prayer for unity isn’t lost.

See, when the world looks at the Church and dismisses her because she has splintered into all these different sects, I don’t think it’s the disagreements they’re seeing and responding to, it’s their lack of love, respect and cooperation.

Lets say there were an agency started by two friends. Its business was to help deal with conflict resolution in families. If the two business partners had a disagreement and out of frustration and anger, they broke apart and formed two competing conflict resolution agencies, we would probably have difficulty trusting either one. However, if the disagreement was over the best methods to resolve conflict, and the individuals, in cooperation with each other, decided the best thing to do was to start two different agencies, each with its own unique method—well, then people would just pick the one that’s right for them or their situation.

Well, the Church’s business is love. First for God, then for the church, then for the world. Trouble is, the church fails all three of these. The problem is not unity in a geographical or even theological sense. The problem is love—or lack thereof.

When Christians love God, and love and respect one another, regardless of disagreements over fringe-topics, the unity that Jesus is speaking about here is fulfilled and people do see it. Christians should be encouraged by this, and empowered to love and respect even their brothers and sisters they have disagreements with.

Of course, on a larger level, this is all null and void until the ‘church’ makes love for God and people her main objective— instead of the next gigantic mortgage payment on her brand new church building.

In circles of people with extremely charismatic language, I often hear people say things things like, “The Lord is telling me…” or “I feel like the Lord is saying…”. Whether I agree with that or not is not so much in discussion right now. But what is actually said is.

Before Jesus’ death, he told his disciples that his death was necessary that the Holy Spirit would come. He explained the Spirit’s function in John 16:14:

“When the Spirit of truth comes…[v14] He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you.”

When the Spirit of God speaks to us, it is about Jesus; of Jesus. It is about God’s Word. The Spirit will not speak to us about things that aren’t taught to us from God’s word. This is why the Puritans understood that the modern gift of prophecy is when a person, usually a teacher, is given insight and understanding of God’s word.

You might not agree with that last paragraph, and that’s alright.

What bothers me is when people use the concept of the Spirit’s speaking to a believer as a means to make a point, or convince hearers of their opinions or personal beliefs.

For example, If you’ve dated within the Church, you’ve probably heard something like, “God is telling me I need to be single.” Or maybe you’ve just heard of people saying that kind of thing. In charismatic worship settings (which I tend to enjoy, by the way), you might’ve heard someone say something like, “The Spirit is telling us we need to lift our hands,” or “The Spirit wants us repent of [fill in the blank].”

I strongly believe this language is an abuse of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. Well, at least about 90% of the time anyway.

When the Spirit speaks, it is to glorify Jesus—namely in the Word of God. It is more sound to say, “God’s Word says [fill in the blank]—I believe we are guilty of this, and should repent.” If this message is truly from the Spirit, this language will still cut people’s conscience and lead to repentance. And if it doesn’t, either people’s hearts are hard or else the Spirit wasn’t highlighting that issue in specific.

Or, perhaps, “I have been reading the word of God and praying and I feel that I need to be single for some time.”

When the Spirit speaks, it is from God’s word, which is about Jesus, of Jesus. And the language chosen is important. There are at least two major dangers in speaking with this kind of hyper-spiritual language.

1. Human beings are a complicated mess of flesh and emotion and ideas. Unless the the word being spoken can be thoroughly confirmed by God’s written word, it can only truly be spoken with some marginal level of confidence. Anything more than that is probably a confidence conjured from elsewhere inside us. Speaking with such presumption is clearly dangerous. Prophets of the old testament who prophesy falsely were to be put to death. That’s not the case today, but the principal stands. Speaking for God when God may not be speaking is big deal.

2. Human beings are also rational, intellectual creatures. These are gifts given to us by God. And, we have a thorough and complete written Word from God. When language such as “God is saying…” is used, it effectively closes the door to disagreement and rational discussion. It makes it impossible for “iron to sharpen iron”.

It is wisdom that we would use our language carefully when talking about the Spirit’s speaking to us and to our congregation. When the Spirit speaks, he is teaching what he has already said in God’s Word to the church.

We should be so hasty as to assume the Spirit is saying what we might think he’s saying but be confident that if he is speaking, it will be heard even if we don’t use such confident language.

For three transgressions and for four God would not stay the judgment pronounced on seven different peoples. But on only one of them God was angry for the injury to himself.

In the first two chapters of Amos, God pronounces judgment on Gaza, Damascus, Edom, the Ammonites, Tyre, Moab.

But to Israel he says this (Amos 2:6-7):

    "For three transgressions of Israel,
   and for four, I will not revoke the punishment,
because they sell the righteous for silver,
   and the needy for a pair of sandals—
…

a man and his father go in to the same girl,
   so that my holy name is profaned”

I had to stop and think about this. It was specifically the people called by God’s name that their sin not only stood in its own as a heinous crime. But was much worse than that. Their sin was actually profanity against God’s holiness.

Today, when the people called by God’s name fail to emulate his character to the broken world around them it’s not only a bitter failure, but it’s a caustic reflection of God himself. The church’s abhorrent behavior toward each other and the world is many people’s only picture of God.

Is it any wonder they don’t listen to us?

I doubt I’m ever really going to understand this. The iconic fish used by Christians as a kind of spiritual badge has roots in a lot of different things. Biblical, historical, social, literary. But why we put it on the bumper of our cars, I’m really not sure.

It’s really not clear to me what benefit there is in placing this on the back of your car. It’s not like they’ll see it. And Jesus isn’t a public figure running for office. Seeing a symbol of him everywhere isn’t going to sway people’s voting decisions. Neither is the gospel clearly wrapped up in it. Most people don’t even know why we use it.

As far as I can tell, all it does is say, “hey, you, I’m a Christian!”. In that, I suppose there’s some miniscule value. But hardly enough to balance out the damage it does in the minds of hurt people who’re already skeptical or critical of Christianity—usually with fairly good reason.

For example, take a look at the backlash from the other side of the fence. I’m sure you’ve seen this one too.

The Darwin fish. For Christians, it’s offensive. It’s supposed to be. Of course, I  disagree with its meaning, but its more subtle social commentary is quite good. “Why the hell are all you Christians putting those stupid badges on your car?”

Offensive as it might be, parts of the Christian culture have responded poorly. No, downright wrong. You’ve probably seen these too.

This is a massive, massive oversight. Christians may be offended, slandered, even put to death. But we’re absolutely not to seek revenge. But that is the most plain meaning here. A wise-crack, a jab in return. It’s completely devoid of grace.

I have to wonder what the maker of these was thinking and if he or she was even a Christian. But what’s more, I have to wonder what Christians are thinking when they choose to put these on the back of their car.

Souls are not won for Christ on reason and fact alone—but with truth in love, grace, patience and compassion. These barely demonstrate fact and reason, let alone the rest of it. All these badges do is say is, “Hey, you, I’m a Christian… and probably not one you’d want to meet.” And I wish it would stop.

We know from the rest of scripture that Job wasn’t perfect. He wasn’t ultimately blameless. But he was innocent of the crimes his ‘friends’ accused him of. The calamity that befell him wasn’t the result of his sin, but God’s prerogative. But his friends continue to come at him with theological sounding arguments, which amounted to condemnation of him in his difficult life situation.

Job responds to them. Job 16:2-5:

"I have heard many such things;
    miserable comforters are you all.
Shall windy words have an end?
   Or what provokes you that you answer?
I also could speak as you do,
   if you were in my place;
I could join words together against you
   and shake my head at you.
I could strengthen you with my mouth,
   and the solace of my lips would assuage your pain.”

I think that Job’s words are echoed in many, many who have been bruised and burned by Christians and our American Church culture. Difficult situations and challenges have befallen them and rather than patiently and quietly empathize and encourage, we attempt to define and classify, and ultimately solve the problem with a kind of spiritual algorithm.

But this is a problem. Because it amounts to very little more than judgment on our part.

I think the human experience is vastly complicated and confusing. Even for the one experiencing it, let alone those around him. Although spiritual as it may be, I think we err when jumping to conclusions about other people’s struggles and difficulties.

Although there is a time for careful examination of each other’s struggles, and there is a time for instruction, exhortation and rebuke. I think most of the time, it’s not. But rather, grace, patience, love and empathy.