There are so many lost sheep and Jesus wants to restore them.
"Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them.
Does he not leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it?
And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders. Luke 15:4-5 (NIV)
This parable is ignored in practice by many but when it is taught, it is used to encourage evangelism. This is not wrong but it misses an important point.
Jesus was talking to Jews, who were God’s chosen people but many had become spiritually lost.
When we apply this text to evangelism, we must not overlook the lost sheep, the children of Christians, the church members who have left and not come back, the Christians who have been bullied and escaped into the wilderness.
The wonderful pastor of our church died last year.
He loved his church people and he was passionate about evangelism but he also had a big heart for lapsed, neglected or isolated believers in no man’s land. There are so many!
So often pastors preach against the church leavers and unattached Christians. This helps nobody.
Some time ago my wife and I kept chickens in the back yard.
We saw how hens bully their sisters but when we adopted a chicken of a different breed, we saw how brutal and racist chickens can be.
The odd hen out had feathers on her head instead of a red comb.
She was tormented and driven away.
She hid behind bushes or stood lonely at the other end of the yard. Her life was a misery. When I fed the chickens, I put some grain behind a bush, so she could eat in isolation.
Jesus is like that. Pastors tell us to come to church to be fed but Jesus also feeds the outcasts through Christian books, the Internet and Christian TV.
Certainly some Christian loners are over sensitive deserters but many are victims of abuse and bullying, bullied in Christian families and churches.
Traditional legalists are good at quoting three or four proof texts, just like Jehovah’s Witnesses, but how many women have had their hearts broken like this?
There are Christians whose lives are torn apart by Pastors who claim to be God’s representatives who cannot be questioned. This happens in Catholic churches but also some Pentecostal and strict Fundamentalist churches.
I know Christians who have suffered this and been more helped in psychiatric clinics than in the churches where they were mistreated.
Persecution of non conforming Christians also happens in respectable traditional churches.
Bullying happens everywhere, in the workplace, in schools, in Mosques and football clubs.
But it is so terrible when people are torn to pieces by bullying in Christian families and sadly in some churches.
"Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them.
Does he not leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it?
And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders. Luke 15:4-5 (NIV)
This parable is ignored in practice by many but when it is taught, it is used to encourage evangelism. This is not wrong but it misses an important point.
Jesus was talking to Jews, who were God’s chosen people but many had become spiritually lost.
When we apply this text to evangelism, we must not overlook the lost sheep, the children of Christians, the church members who have left and not come back, the Christians who have been bullied and escaped into the wilderness.
The wonderful pastor of our church died last year.
He loved his church people and he was passionate about evangelism but he also had a big heart for lapsed, neglected or isolated believers in no man’s land. There are so many!
So often pastors preach against the church leavers and unattached Christians. This helps nobody.
Some time ago my wife and I kept chickens in the back yard.
We saw how hens bully their sisters but when we adopted a chicken of a different breed, we saw how brutal and racist chickens can be.
The odd hen out had feathers on her head instead of a red comb.
She was tormented and driven away.
She hid behind bushes or stood lonely at the other end of the yard. Her life was a misery. When I fed the chickens, I put some grain behind a bush, so she could eat in isolation.
Jesus is like that. Pastors tell us to come to church to be fed but Jesus also feeds the outcasts through Christian books, the Internet and Christian TV.
Certainly some Christian loners are over sensitive deserters but many are victims of abuse and bullying, bullied in Christian families and churches.
- A teenage girl in church becomes pregnant. The gossip and condemnation is savage and it is the girl who is blamed.
- A young man is a smoker when he is converted and his zealous evangelistic church tolerates his habit for a few months but before a year is out, he is ex-communicated for his sinful habit.
- A woman shows great dedication and gifting in bible teaching to children and women but she is condemned to second class ministry status because she is a woman.
Traditional legalists are good at quoting three or four proof texts, just like Jehovah’s Witnesses, but how many women have had their hearts broken like this?
- There are churches which teach that the husband is the boss and the woman must always obey. This often encourages brutal oppression, soul destroying psychological control and even escalating violence.
- When an abused woman complains to pastors in authoritarian churches, she is often not believed, not taken seriously or told to suffer for Jesus because divorce is a terrible sin.
There are Christians whose lives are torn apart by Pastors who claim to be God’s representatives who cannot be questioned. This happens in Catholic churches but also some Pentecostal and strict Fundamentalist churches.
I know Christians who have suffered this and been more helped in psychiatric clinics than in the churches where they were mistreated.
- Some suffering Christians are not destroyed by direct bullying but are simply abandoned and ignored. A man leaves his wife and disappears. His wife becomes depressed and disturbed and no longer goes to church. The church forgets her.
Persecution of non conforming Christians also happens in respectable traditional churches.
- A Lutheran minister in Germany preached that Islam and Buddhism were incompatible with the Bible. He was the target of a witch hunt because he dared to preach Bible truth instead of political correctness.
Bullying happens everywhere, in the workplace, in schools, in Mosques and football clubs.
But it is so terrible when people are torn to pieces by bullying in Christian families and sadly in some churches.
No comments:
Post a Comment