"Hi, can I give you something to read please?"

Here I go with another flip side observation.  “Oh you are just picking all the things that used to believe in and do and preaching against them now?” Well, thats not really the case but if you want to believe that what do I care. Sorry!  

I can’t help it.  It’s just my makeup I guess.  It is my knack to teach doctrine through disproving traditions and many human elements that have slipped in under the radar into our ways of service and worship.

Now, lets all get together and go pass out some tracts.  Have you ever heard or participated in such events with your church? There is a danger with such things as gospel tracts, tract blitzes and track bombings.  

I’m not opposed to tracts, but there is the danger of people handing out a million papers to a million people and never opening their mouth to actually witness.  I have seen tracts evolve from a form of opening conversation to more of a “just read this and God bless” and many go on there merry way with their conscience appease that they did something for God. It’s all very Catholic of us isn’t it.  The same as a confessional crutch.  I know people who feel miserable about themselves unless they fulfill some daily or weekly quota. 

In large groups, public outreach operations, especially amongst youth groups there is  this tendency to “one-up” the other that leads more to one becoming a nuisance more than a testimony.  I have seen this hundreds of times in several different places.  Gospel tracts used in such manners turn in to gospel trash.   

A Convoluted Commission

The fact remains is that men have long made it a practice to use the word, and I cannot stress enough how serious I mean to say, “use the word of God” for private agendas and to further their private kingdoms.  For the common good or whatever lies they have to tell themselves these days, many just continue on, examining others, never examining themselves.  Men will privately interpret passages for private reasons.  It is a common practice displayed among decent and devious men  alike and has been in the works since the time of Christ. 

Missionaries and preachers have long claimed unfounded and loose interpretive callings for ministerial nonsense and money grabbing shakedowns by way of using the Great Commission. They have long found, as the definition of commission states, their doings, performing, perpetuating, sending, act of entrusting, duty; and it is now their proper authority and warrant for exercising certain powers, administrations, and duties in the Great Commission passages.  

These passages in the gospels have been used for centuries to solicit services and funds from among Christian bodies.  Sure their is gain, but no one ever discusses the other spectrums of disorder. To use these passages to solicit service, or even funds and offerings is unscriptural and dangerously close to adding to his word.  

In many cases now, I can only see it as defraudation or using guile and gimmicks to obtain an desired affect.  By applying a teaching or doctrine to these scriptures, then saying they are directly for the body of Christ is adding to the doctrinal position of the passage.  To do so, one must ignore the scriptural integrity of Gods book.  There is a very specific reason for men to deny that there is any disorder.

You will see variations of this in every evangelistic, Baptist church you can find. It is the big idea that is fully entrenched in well fortified Baptist traditions and preserved by some mafia like omerta! It is why there is never a real discussion or theological sit down over it.  Men will look at you like a two headed dragon just for suggesting this may be an off base position. They act this way because the great commission is the prominent “big idea” that many Fundamentalist, and Evangelical, Bible Believing Christians have in their minds for the reasons for doing much of what they do.  Who would ever dare question it right?

The Purpose of the Church

Before I talk about this one, let me say that I feel uncomfortable doing so. Maybe I am just going through some weird transitional phase in all of my doctrinal thinking and processing.  But the whole point of  "silent platform" is to have a place to talk about such things.   

What is the purpose of the church?  Well, I have been told emphatically numerous times the answer to this; I just have yet to find the scriptural support to back it up as emphatically as others.  Maybe it is my error.  Maybe I am in the wrong here on this topic.  

"The purpose of the church is to win souls".  "The purpose of the church it to win the lost to Christ".  This all sounds good! This all sounds right doesn't it.  What Christian would hear this statement in a public setting and disagree?  Maybe 1 out of 100, maybe more, maybe less?  Look, I don't disagree with leading a man to the Lord Jesus Christ in the least, but is it the sole purpose of the body of Christ?

I used to think this way. But is this really our purpose?  The church, the body of Christ, the assembly of brethren, what is the purpose for existence?  In the Pauline Epistles, it is much more about building a working body then saving the world.  I know how that sounds to most Christians, and I know how hard it is for some of you to hear that but this is extremely important to understand.  

I am to the point of seeing this so strongly now I don’t understand how people can not see as much as they claim to read.  Its about giving him Glory.  So do we witness to the lost?  Of course.  It is a role we can all play in adding to the body of Christ, but it is not our sole reason for being.  

The body IS comprised of all people who were all at one point lost.  I say that to say again, of course I believe in winning the lost!  What Christian doesn’t want to see others have what they found in Christ?  It should be natural.  You truly don’t understand it until you are in HIM.  

"What if it's the Pastor that is the Heretic?"

Heretic~A person under any religion, but particularly the christian, who holds and teaches opinions repugnant to the established faith, or that which is made the standard of orthodoxy. In strictness, among christians, a person who holds and avows religious opinions contrary to the doctrines of Scripture, the only rule of faith and practice.

I listed this definition to prove a point.  The established faith is in the word of God.  It’s in Paul’s gospel.  The gospel of the grace of God was revealed to him.  The inner workings and administrations were revealed to Paul from Christ. It was by the order of Christ. If we operate outside that umbrella, we are heretic’s are we not?  If we hold and teach opinion contrary to the established faith, the faith Paul, Peter, Jude, and James wrote of, we are heretics!

Titus 3:10~A man that is an heretick after the first and second admonition reject;

When most people think of withdrawing from heretics, or others, it is usually because of false doctrine, perversions of the gospel message, gross sin, or many other unruly things. But sometimes, believers must withdraw for other reasons.  When most think of heretics they have a picture in their mind but they would never think their own pastors, or those they run with as heretics.

For reasons that may be more apparent than you may think.  What if men lie and speak not the truth? Are we not to withdraw them?  We have every right according to scriptures to withdraw and separate from men who hold not to the Pauline Epistles, and the gospel, doctrine, tradition, and commandments found therein. We have every right to depart from disorderly men.  Let them know you love them, pray for them, and walk on.  Why is this so difficult for us.