How to deal with fault-finders

So Jude, the half-brother of Jesus, describes the false-teachers who caused his readers to doubt their faith as 'faultfinders' (Jude 16).  What an apt description of those that we might think of as super-spirituals!  they may not be false-teachers, but they certainly can find faults!

But why are some people - Christian or not - so intent of finding fault in others?  What motivates them?  What causes some people to always seem critical?  I thought about this, and came to no solid conclusion.  I asked a friend of mine, who is a psychologist, and she seemed not to know what made them tick.

I suspect that many people who have an obviously critical attitude are the children of people who are faultfinders.  Thinking of those I know who are prone to a critical attitude it seemed that they are driven more by a possible inferiority complex than any superiority complex.  There may be a need to justify themselves, and self-justification is always comparative justification ('I am okay because I am as good as, or better than, them', or as one Pharisee prayed to himself, 'I thank you God that I am not like other people').  They may be people with a competitive personality.

However, whatever contributes to someone having a faultfinding personality, the fact of the matter is that the root cause is the sinful nature.  Upbringing and environment may tempt someone towards harsh criticism, but these facts do not excuse it.  In Galatians the Apostle Paul says that the the deeds of the sinful nature are obvious.  They include things like hatred, discord, jealousy, dissensions, factions and envy (Gal. 5:20-21).  All these attitudes contribute toward a desire to put people down.  

So, what do we do with these acts of the sinful nature?  I think the starting place is to own-up to the fact that we ourselves are prone to having a critical attitude.  We are vulnerable to comparative justification.  We don't fully understand ourselves until we see that root of all sin lies within us.  Then we need to do the opposite of satisfying the works of the sinful nature, by walking in the Spirit.  We are told that the fruit of the Holy Spirit includes love, joy, peace, kindness and gentleness (Gal. 5:22-23).  I would suggest that when love, kindness and gentleness are the dominating characteristics in our lives it going to be impossible for us to be harsh faultfinders.

Such walking in the Spirit is tied to preaching the gospel to ourselves.  We need to be reminding ourselves that God does not treat us as our sins deserve but according to His loving-kindness (Ps. 103:10).  It is possible to have an attitude towards knowledge that just leaves us puffed up (1 Cor. 8:1), but actually knowledge of God is designed to transform us (1 Thess. 2:13).  It is as we look at the cross that we see what true love is (1 John 3:16).  It is as we think about how much we have been forgiven that we love much (Luke 7:47), it as as we realise how much we are loved that we are enabled to love others (1 John 4:19).

But what about helping those we know who are notorious faultfinders?  I suggest that we begin by seeking God's help to love them.  When I asked a senior pastor his advice on how to deal with a difficult person in church he said, 'let them be in no doubt that you love them.'  That can be hard.  Then, seeking to speak to them in love, we might model confident-vulnerability.  We must not act like those who claim to be without sin (1 John 1:8).  When we are real with people about our struggles, that enables them to be real with us.  If a faultfinder has grown up ion an atmosphere of faultfinding then they may never have felt the freedom to be real with anyone before.  But you have to be careful, there are some people who may be intent of slandering you.  Faultfinders tend not to be safe people to open up to.  I have even blocked (a phone number and Facebook account) some people who I felt would use whatever I said against me.  Finally, there may come a time when the person needs to be confronted about their faultfinding.  The temptation is never to address the fault-finding friend about this sin.  We are not to be driven to inaction by fear of people.  In this letter to Titus, the apostle Paul tells us to warn the divisive person once, then twice, and then having nothing to do with them (Titus 3:10).

However, we must remember the purpose of the discipline Paul calls us to enact is that the person might come to repentance (1 Cor. 5:5).  It is not about spite, but praying that God wakes them up.  This process of discipline must also be done in community (Matt. 18:17).  One of the problems of the super-spiritual Christian is that they tend to reach judgements about people on their own.  There is to be no place for making unilateral declarations about people, that are rooted in spite and have no concern about the person's well-being.  

Can you be a Christian if you don’t go to church?

They say that exceptions prove the rule, and there are certainly exceptions for the answer I am about to give you.  There will be people who simply can’t go to church, like those isolated Christians who live in parts of the world where they don’t have contact with other believers.  There is also the housebound elderly, whose stage in life means that the church should come to them rather than they going to the church.  Those sorts of exceptions been noted, I have to say that if you claim to be a Christian but you don’t go to church, there is something very deficient in your faith.  You may even need to stop and ask if you are actually born again.

I should explain what I mean by being a Christian.  Being a Christian is not simply about being a respectable and good person.  Being a Christian is about having a living relationship with Jesus.  It is centred on his death and resurrection.  You don’t become a Christian because of anything you have done for God, but by accepting what he has done for you.  Bible-believing Christians talk about been saved by grace through faith (Ephesians 2:8).  We are saved from our sin and God’s judgement, because Jesus has taken our punishment on the cross.  We are saved to be adopted as beloved children of God (Galatians 4:5).  This happens by grace—which is God’s free, unmerited and undeserved favour.  This is received simply by faith - the sort of faith that is spoken of in the hymn that goes, ‘nothing in my hand I bring, simply to the cross I cling.’  This new life that we receive in Christ, includes a new heart (Ezekiel 36:26), and this new heart shows itself in our love for other Christians (1 John 4:20).

I should also explain what I mean about going to church.  In the Bible church is portrayed as being the body of Jesus.  It is not a building.  It is a community of people who love Jesus.  In the apostle Paul’s letters to the Christians at Ephesus he talks about what we might call the universal church—all God’s people everywhere (Ephesians 2:21-22).  Every Christian is a part of this global body.  But in his letters to the Corinthian Christians he talks the body of Christ in terms of the local community of Christians (see 1 Corinthians 12).  He also speaks about times when Christians come together as church (1 Corinthians 11:18).  Being a part of a church is more than going to meetings, but making a priority of going to the church’s main gathering is a vital part of being in a church.

Church is not supposed to be easy.  We are called to bear with each other (Ephesians 4:2).  Bearing with other Christians can be trying.  God doesn’t only rescue the type of people we find it easy to get on with.  We are given gifts to serve each other (1 Corinthians 12:7).  Most shockingly for our society, we are called to submit to one another (Ephesians 5:21), including submitting to the church’s leaders (Hebrews 13:17).  Too many people fall out with church because they really want to be the leaders of the church.  They don’t want to submit to anyone else, and they make too big a deal about secondary points of doctrine.

So, what should we say to someone who claims to be a Christian but has no meaningful relationship with a local church?  This is an increasing problem in a day when you can simply think you are doing church by watching or listening to religious television or radio.

We have to show them the importance of church.  We were baptised into a body (1 Corinthians 12:23).  Christianity is not a private faith, it is becoming a part of a people.  We have to ask them about their heart, for we have been recreated to delight in God’s people (Psalm 16:3).  And we have to warn them, for in the book of Hebrews falling away from the faith is linked to giving up meeting with God’s people (Hebrews 10:25).  They are placing themselves in great spiritual danger.

I hesitate to end with this piece of advice, but if you can’t get on in the church you are involved in then you may need to move church.  Moving church should never be taken lightly, for it is separating a limb from a body, and that always causes pain.  In fact, for many Christians moving church is simply not an option because they only have one local church to choose from.  If moving church is simply a way to find a church that entertains you better, puts you in a more central role or enables you to avoid difficult people, then moving church may not actually help your heart.  But you may have your reasons, and they may even be legitimate.  However one thing you must not do is to give up meeting with God’s people.   

The cross is the brand (1 Cor. 1-4)

We were handing out some Christian magazines in the area around our church building in Limerick when a woman invited me into her home.  She claimed to be a Christian and she said that she was into ‘the deeper things’ of God.  I am not sure what she meant by deeper things, but I suspect it centered around speculations concerning the end times.  She then told me that she couldn’t find a church that taught these deeper things.  She had visited one church, but they didn’t go into the deep things that she knew about.  So, she went to no church.  She thought that she was on a higher spiritual plane than other Christians.

But I noticed something strange, that I did not ask her about.  It seemed that she did not take the Bible’s teaching on sexual morality very seriously.  She seemed to make up her own rules for living.

That woman makes me think of the super-spiritual Christians in Corinth.  They too were obsessed with deeper things.  They too had a loose relationship with sexual morals.  They too thought that they were too spiritual for other Christians.

I love the way that the apostle Paul opens the letter that we call First Corinthians.  He calls them the sanctified in Christ Jesus (1 Cor. 1:2).  Yet this is the most messed up and immoral church that we read of in the New Testament.  There were men sleeping with prostitutes in this congregation.  They boasted about their Christian freedom and so they didn’t confront a man who was sleeping with his mother-in-law.  The rich gorged loads of food at their community meals and left nothing for the poor.  Yet Paul calls them saints.  Unlike, the super-spirituals of our day, he does not quickly write off the church.

Vaughan Roberts points out that there are four buzz words that are found in the letter that we refer to as 1 Corinthians: ‘power’, ‘wisdom’, ‘knowledge’ and ‘spiritual’.  In fact, the word translated spiritual occurs more in this letter than in all the rest of the New Testament combined.  They thought that they were spiritual, but the apostle Paul did not.  They really showed evidence of super-spirituality.  As the apostle tackles this immaturity, we get to see what true spirituality looks like.

Corinth was a major port and commercial centre in what is now modern Greece.  God had used Paul to establish the church there during his second missionary journey in the early 50s A.D. (Acts 18:1-17).  He had stayed there for around eighteen months.  When he moved on, Apollos became their leader. 

Two are three years have passed since Paul had been in Corinth, and Paul has heard that things are not going well.  People associated with a woman called Chloe had told him that there were divisions in Corinth (1 Cor. 1:11).  The Corinthian Christians had divided around who their favorite leader was.  The apostle Paul had planted the church, so some liked him.  Apollos had taken over from Paul, and he was a more impressive communicator (Acts 18:24), so some favored him.  There were those who looked to Peter (or Cephas), who after all was the great leader who had spoken on the day of Pentecost.  Then there were those who simply said ‘I follow Christ’.  I wonder if they were the most super-spiritual of all, thinking that they were uniquely following Jesus. 

‘Our group is the best because we follow the founder of the church in Corinth, the apostle Paul’.  ‘Our group is the best because we follow Apollos, who as you know is a far more dynamic preacher than Paul was.’  ‘Our group is the best because we follow Peter, who was the apostle who speak on the day of Pentecost’.  ‘No, you are all wrong, our group needs no leader, we are the true church of Christ.’

I am not entirely sure why people are drawn to celebrity preachers, but it can be in a desire to be better than other people.  That certainly seems to have been the case in Corinth (1 Cor. 4:6).  But we need to remember that there was not problem between Paul, Apollos and Peter.  People who claimed to follow of them may have had an attitude of rivalry, but they did not.  Paul points out that himself and Apollos were only servants of Christ.  Their work complimented each other.  ‘I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow.  So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow’ (1 Cor. 3:7). 

Paul wants to downplay his importance.  He doesn’t want to be centre-stage.  That is so different from our obsession with celebrity preachers.  There was a celebrity Christian whose character and style got him into a lot of trouble.  One of the things that he did wrong was to centre his church around himself.  On one occasion he told the other leaders that ‘I am the brand.’  What he meant is that he was that church’s unique selling point.  Their job was to get people into the building.  His job was to present the gospel to those people.  It was his responsibility to do the speaking, because he was better than it than any of the rest of them.

In our day, it is not just leaders that we gather around but local churches.  We have all seen churches spring up and attract Christians to it.  I remember one church that seemed to think that they had discovered what every other church had was doing wrong.  There members would meet you and spend all their time telling you how great their church was.  But that church soon fell apart, leaving a lot of disillusioned people in its wake.  There was something wrong in their spiritual foundations. 

One of the key ways that we build the foundations of a church with the wrong material is to build with anything other than Jesus (1 Cor. 3:11).  We might be attracted to a church because that is where the crowd is going.  We may be promised some new spiritual experience.  The praise might be spectacular.  The preacher might be a gifted communicator.  Yet if the foundation is not being laid on teaching the cross of Christ, then its ministry will not be commended by God on the last day (1 Cor. 3:13-15).  The brand must be Jesus, and Him crucified.  Paul can sum up all he teaches by simply saying, ‘I preach Christ crucified’ (1 Cor. 1:23).

Now Christ crucified was a fairly unimpressive message in the Roman world.  The Jews of that day wanted great displays of power (1 Cor. 1:22).  They wanted a powerful messiah who would overthrow the Roman empire.  The apostle Paul came telling them that their promised Messiah had been put to death by the Romans.  The non-Jews (from a Greek cultural background), wanted wisdom.  But what can be clever about a man being put to death with a form of execution that was so shameful it was not mentioned in polite company.  We can see how foolish the Roman world thought the cross of Christ was by seeing a piece of graffiti dating from around the year two hundred.  It has the inscription, ‘Alexamenos worships his god’, and shows a man with the head of a donkey being crucified, with a man before the cross with a hand raised in worship.  Alexamenos may have been a soldier, who was a Christian, and his fellow soldiers thought his message of the cross so foolish that they portray Jesus as having the head of a donkey.

But Paul tells the Corinthians that the message of the cross is the power and wisdom of God (1 Cor. 2:4-5).  It is the power of God because it changes lives.  Paul will be able to point to his own life as one that his been turned upside down by the gospel.  He went from being a persecutor of the church to someone to loved the church of Christ with all its imperfections.  The cross is also so amazingly wise.

Think of the wisdom of the cross.  In Islam, Allah may choose to forgive you, but he can only do so by ignoring his justice.  If you were in a court and the judge said that you were guilty but then said that he was not going to punish you then the victims of your injustice would have reason to accuse the judge of not caring about right and wrong.  But through the cross God is both just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus (Rom. 3:26).  He does not turn a blind eye to our sin, but takes the punishment of our sin upon his own shoulders.  God’s love and mercy meet.  On the cross the love of God is magnified as the wrath of God is satisfied.  The Jehovah’s Witnesses believe that Jesus was the archangel Michael, but then it wouldn’t be God who is saying us but one of His angels.  Jesus means Yahweh Saves.  Think of the value of God’s ransom price for sin.  The only person who was sinless, and so qualified to be an unblemished offering.  Perfectly human to stand as our mediator (1 Tim. 2:5).  God the Son, and so an offering of infinite value.  When you wonder if God can take away your sin, remember that the price He paid to redeem you is greater than you sin ever could be!

The factions and their desire for deeper wisdom revealed the pride of the Corinthians Christians.  They wanted to be better than each other.  But their attitude shows that they are out of touch with God.  They need to just need to think of who they were when God chose them.  ‘Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth’ (1 Cor. 1:26).  God choses the weak to shame the strong, and the foolish to shame the worldly wise, so when we try to go out of our way to show the world that we are a trendy crowd, with impressive speakers and a cool show, we may be robbing ourselves of the real power of God.

The apostle Paul certainly didn’t rely on style.  He came to the Corinthians in weakness, fear and trembling (1 Cor. 2:3).  I am not sure that he would have been taken on to be the pastor of any of today’s mega-churches.  He didn’t rely on fine-sounding arguments.  He knew that the wisdom of God is the cross, and that the Holy Spirit reveals the truth of the cross deep into our lives (1 Cor. 2:12).  There is a good emphasis on the Holy Spirit in our churches today, but don’t think that the teaching of the church is spiritual if it is not leading us to Calvary.  Like so many of the prosperity gospel preachers that we see making their fortunes on religious television channels, the Corinthians were falling for the lie that we are supposed to have all the blessings of the kingdom in the now.  How unimpressive a man like Paul appears to those who say that there will be no sickness and suffering in this life.  Super-spiritual people always want to walk in triumph, but Paul pictures himself, along with the genuine apostles of Christ, being brought into an arena as condemned prisoners (1 Cor. 4:9).  The apostles hadn’t the message of simply your best life now, but experienced hunger, poverty and homelessness as they stood alongside a crucified Messiah (1 Cor. 4:12).  There is a great church in Denver called ‘Scum of the Earth Church’.  I have had little success in convincing our members’ meeting to adopt that name for our fellowship, but that is how the true apostles were considered (1 Cor. 4:12).  The apostles of the church were not like the flashy and impressive leaders we are so often drawn to.

In the second half of chapter two we see Paul use the sort of words that attract every super-spiritual person.  He talks of the hidden things of God (1 Cor. 2:7) and the deep things of God (1 Cor. 2:10).  However, the context of these verses shows us that the deep things are all centreed around the cross and how the message of the Christ is brought home to our hearts through the Holy Spirit and how spiritual people never move away from the cross, but deeper into the cross.  True spirituality is cross-centered.  Look at what Paul teaches the church at Ephesus on marriage and you will see that the husband is to give himself up for his wife like Christ gave himself up for us, when he died on the cross (Eph. 5:25).  Look at what he tells the Thessalonians regarding being prepared for the days of the final antichrist and he will tell them that standing firm is holding on to his teaching, which is summed up by the cross (2 Thess. 2:15).  Look at how the apostle John defines the love that we are to exercise towards each other and you will see that it is modeled on the cross (1 John 3:16).

Conclusion

There is a liberal super-spirituality that wants to move away from the cross.  I heard one outreach leader explain that he thought that the cross is bad public relations, and explaining that they deliberately omitted the cross from his organization’s logo.  A chaplain wrote in his university’s newspaper that the death and resurrection of Jesus are not the crux of Christianity.  But Paul sums up his whole message as being that of Christ crucified (1 Cor. 1:23) and says that the cross is both the power and wisdom of God (1 Cor. 1:24). 

Don’t get sidetracked with promises of great spiritual experiences, unless those great spiritual experiences point you to the cross of Christ.  Don’t be impressed when someone speaks of deeper truths, unless those deep truths are focused on how to model your life on the cross.  Don’t buy into the next thing for church growth if its confidence is not centred on Christ crucified.  Instead, grow spirituality as you grow deeper into the teaching of the cross.

True Spirituality

The human heart is never changed through laws.  It is changed through grace’ (Rick Warren).

We were handing out some Christian magazines in the area when a woman invited me into her home.  She claimed to be a Christian and she said that she was into the deeper things of God.  I am not sure what she meant by deeper things, but I suspect it centered around speculations concerning the end times.  She couldn’t find a church that taught these deeper things, so she went to no church.  There also seemed to be some things about her life that suggested that she did not take Christian morality very seriously.  She seemed to make up her own rules about how she should live.  There are things in 1 Corinthians that would have been very relevant to her.

The church in Corinth was a mess.  Behind that mess was the problem of super-spirituality.  They were impressed with those travelling teachers that moved around the Roman world who promised an elite wisdom.  They were fascinated with the idea of special spiritual experiences that would place them in an exalted spiritual class.  They all were acting like they were better than each other.  In the process they just showed how immature they were.  As the apostle Paul writes to correct their super-spirituality we will see him show them what true spirituality looks like.

True spirituality embraces other Christians

It is amazing how the apostle opens this letter.  ‘To the church of God in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be a holy people, together with all those everywhere who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ—their Lord and ours’ (1 Cor. 1:2).  They may be a mess, but he does not write them off as Christians.  Unlike many super-spiritual Christians, he is not quick to question the faith of imperfect believers.

The Corinthian Christians had divided around who their favorite leader was.  The apostle Paul had planted the church, so some liked him.  Apollos had taken over from Paul, and he was a more impressive communicator, so some favored him.  There were those who looked to Peter (or Cephas), who after all was the great leader who had spoken on the day of Pentecost.  Then there were those who simply said ‘I follow Christ’.  I wonder if they were the most super-spiritual of all, thinking that they were uniquely following Jesus.  ‘Our group is the best because we follow the founder of the church in Corinth, the apostle Paul’.  ‘Our group is the best because we follow Apollos, who as you know is a far more dynamic preacher than Paul was.’  ‘Our group is the best because we follow Peter, who was the apostle who speak on the day of Pentecost’.  ‘No, you are all wrong, our group needs no leader, we are the true church of Christ.’  This sort of factionalism often exists in our society between churches as much as within churches. 

There was no rivalry between Paul, Apollos and Peter.  Paul writes, ‘I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow (1 Cor. 3:6).  He says they that have one purpose and that they are co-workers.  Super-spiritual churches are quick to write off what God may be doing in other fellowships.  We should want to co-operate and meet with other churches.  Leaders should never be rivals.  We should not think that we are better Christians because we believe that we chose a better church than others.

True spirituality values love over knowledge

One of the repeated words in this letter is ‘knowledge’.  True knowledge is a good thing.  We study God’s Word to get to know Him better, and to be guided in how to live for Him.  But David Jackman warns that, ‘Knowledge alone simply inflates its possessor, because it separates him out from those who do not know … he will be tempted … to put others down.’[1]  J. I. Packer explains that, ‘if we pursue theological knowledge for its own sake, it is bound to go bad on us.  It will make us proud and conceited.’[2]  Paul writes that while knowledge puffs up, love builds up (1 Cor. 8:1).  Maturity is not simply the learning of doctrine, for ‘if a head full of knowledge is not governed by a heart full of love, all you have is a swollen head!’[3]

God’s word works within us (1 Thess. 2:13).  It transforms us.  If what you know about God does not cause you to love His people then there is something wrong in the way that you know.

True spirituality goes deep into the cross

Another repeated word in this letter is ‘wisdom’.  Paul points out that their understanding of wisdom is culturally conditioned.  They were impressed by the fine sounding teachings of the travelling philosophers that went around the Roman world.  But they were embarrassed by the seeming foolishness of a faith centered on a crucified messiah.  Paul can sum up his whole message by saying, ‘I preach Christ crucified’ (1 Cor. 1:23).

There is a liberal super-spirituality that wants to move away from the cross.  I heard one outreach leader explain that he thought that the cross is bad public relations, and explaining that they deliberately omitted the cross from his organization’s logo.  A chaplain wrote in his university’s newspaper that the death and resurrection of Jesus are not the crux of Christianity.  But Paul says that the cross is both the power and wisdom of God (1 Cor. 1:24). 

Power is another of the buzz words that runs through this letter.  The power of God is most clearly seen in a changed life.  The Christian died to their old self on the cross of Christ, and they have been raised to new life.  The cross turned some like Paul from being a hater of the church into being a loving leader of God’s people.  When someone comes boasting about a great spiritual experience, measure that by how it points to Jesus and if it makes them more loving.  When someone comes with a ‘deep teaching’ remember that they only deep teaching that we want is one that spells out the implications of what Jesus did at Calvary.

You never move beyond the cross.  You only move deeper into it.  The Christian is to live a cross centered-life.  Don’t get caught up in speculations and debatable issues (2 Tim. 2:23 and Tit. 3:9).  Rather think about how the cross should impact our everyday lives.  When Paul teaches on marriage he thinks in terms of the cross and says that should love their wives as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her (Eph. 5:25).  When he speaks about the coming of the future anti-Christ he tells the Thessalonians to hold fast to the teachings that I have passed on to you, which must be the message of the cross (2 Thess. 2:15).  When the apostle John wants to define love, he points to Jesus on the cross (1 J. 3:16).  True spirituality goes deep into the cross.

True spirituality puts love over giftedness

Like many super-spiritual people, there were those in Corinth who believed that they were better than others because they had more impressive spiritual gifts.  In particular there was debate concerning the gift of tongues.  There were also those who looked down their noses at tongues-speakers, and Paul has to tell them not to forbid speaking in tongues (1 Cor. 14:39). 

While super-spiritual people often find it hard to love those in the church fellowship, the apostle Paul speaks of our giftings in terms of being a part of one body.  Those with seemingly impressive gifts should never look down on those with seemingly humble gifts, as if they did not need them (1 Cor. 12:21) and we should value those whose gifts seem humble and ordinary (1 Cor. 12:23).  God gives us different giftings not so that we can think that we are better than each other, but so that we can build each other up (1 Cor. 12:7).  One friend told me about her brother who wouldn’t go to church for seven years because he could not find one good enough for him.  However, there really is no place in the apostle Paul’s teaching for a Christian who is not intimately involved in a local church body. 

It is in the middle of addressing the issue of spiritual gifts that we get Paul’s wonderful teaching on love (1 Cor. 13), for no matter how great your gifting may be, if you have not love you are nothing.

True spirituality gets the relationship between sin and grace

There was a man in the church of Corinth who was sleeping with his step-mother, and yet some of the Corinthians were proud about this (1 Cor. 5:2).  They seem to think it shows how free they are.  Paul warns them that people who live a lifestyle of unrepentant sin will not inherit the kingdom of God (1 Cor. 5:10).  If you think that sin does not matter, then you are not really a Christian.

They are to discipline this man, in love.  The hope is that he will come to his senses and repent (1 Cor. 5:5).  I am not sure if it is this case that is being picked up in 2 Corinthians.  But in that letter tells them that when a person has repented, the Corinthians are to reaffirm their love for the person and comfort them so that they will not be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow for what they have done (2 Cor. 2:7).

Do you see that we are to treat the person who stubbornly refuses to address their sin, completely differently from those who have fallen and need to be restored?  Church will be messy. 

Also, notice that he leaves judgement of the world to God.  ‘What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? (1 Cor. 5:12).  If someone wants to join us for our meetings yet there are not lived under the rule of Christ, it is not our place to worry about that.  We are not trying to get people simply to conform to an outward morality.  Indeed, as they join us, the words that are spoken might actually convict them of their need of Christ and they may come to worship Jesus (1 Cor. 14:25). 

A lot of the problems for the Corinthians were based around a belief that the body was unspiritual.  They thought that our bodies don’t matter, so what harm if you sleep with a temple prostitute.  But our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 6:19).  There were others who thought that their bodies were evil and so sought to deny it of all pleasure, including refusing to sleep with their spouses (see 1 Cor. 7:1).  Paul has no place for such false spirituality that divorces itself from commitments to love.

True spirituality gets the now and not yet

Some of these Corinthians were saying that there was no resurrection of the dead for the Christian to look forward to (1 Cor. 15:12).  If there is no resurrection of the dead than everything we are going to receive in the Christian life, we will receive in this life.  But Paul teaches that there is a wonderful resurrection body to look forward to when Jesus returns.

True spirituality realizes the difference between the now and the not yet of the Christian life. Now we are as forgiven as we will be in heaven, for there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (Rom. 8:1).  Now we are as secure in Jesus as we will be in heaven for Christ will sustain us to the end (1 Cor. 1:8).  But now we have bodies that are decaying, but when Christ returns we shall receive bodies that are imperishable (1 Cor. 15:42). 

You will hear super-spiritual teachers on television and the internet that will tell you that it is never God’s will for you to pass through times of sickness.  That was not Paul’s experience (e.g. Gal. 4:13).  We shall all die, if Christ does not come in our lifetime.  Yes, there are times when God graciously steps in and heals.  But these are first-fruits of what is to come.  Truly spiritual people are aware that in this life it will be hard.  They seek to grow through these difficulties (Rom. 5:1-5). 

There was a young Australian coupe who had three boys.  But the wife was diagnosed with cancer.  They prayed for healing and did have a reprieve, but then the cancer returned.  The wife explained to one of their friends, ‘I would have thought that it would be best for Bruce [her husband] and the boys, that it would be better if I was healed.  But if I am not healed I believe that God knows that must be best.’  Some super-spiritual people would criticize her for not believing she will necessarily be healed, but I see true faith in her words.

A woman in Australia marveled at her neighbor who struggled with crippling arthritis.  She wanted to know what was the secret to her neighbor’s ability to suffer well.  So, she started to go to that neighbor’s church.  She came to know Christ in that place, as did her son, who incidentally happens to be a leading Bible commentator.  The Christian with arthritis may not have known why she was suffering, but she suffered well, and God used that for good.     

Conclusion

Finally, we can learn something about true spirituality by the way that the apostle Paul uses the word spiritual in this letter.  ‘Spiritual’ (along with wisdom, knowledge and power) is the fourth buzz word that Paul uses again and again to make his point. 

In chapter 2, Paul talks about interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual (1 Cor. 2:13).  This is in the context of his teaching on the cross.  True spirituality is seen in our love for the message of Christ-crucified.

In chapter 3, he says that he can not address them as spiritual people (1 Cor. 3:1).  Because there was jealousy and strife among them.  Truly spiritual people are humble and loving towards other Christians.  They are not divisive, pushy and arrogant.

In chapter 14, he says that anyone who is spiritual will acknowledge the things that he is writing are a command of the Lord (1 Cor. 14:37).  The apostle Paul wrote was aware that he was writing with apostolic authority.  Truly spiritual people submit to the teaching of the Bible.  I once heard the wife of a liberal minister say that she liked it when a preacher would close the Bible before he spoke because it showed that he was enlightened.  I have heard people downgrade Paul’s authority by saying that we need to interpret Paul through Jesus not Jesus through Paul.  That assumes that they disagree with each other.  If the Holy spirit inspired Pauls’ writings then the cannot disagree with what Jesus taught.  We don’t understand the teaching of Paul or Jesus if we cannot see that they are in harmony.

 

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[1] P 131.

[2] P 7.

[3] Jackman 132.

Don't let the super-spiritual steal your freedom

‘Someone will say, “You need to spend at least an hour a day in prayer,” and you can say, “No, I don’t.  Prayer is a good thing, but I don’t have to do it in order to earn God’s favour’[1] (Ken Blue).

The first sermon I ever preached was in Dungannon Methodist Church when I had just began working in a group of churches as a pastoral assistant.  For my text I chose, ‘You shall know the truth and the truth will set you free’ (Jn. 8:32).  I actually didn’t feel very free at that time.  I was haunted by my sin and was sure that I wasn’t good enough for God.

Super-spiritual Christians will try to rob you of your freedom in Christ.  Some will look down on you for your past failings and often they think that maturity in Christ is seen in terms of strictness of our Christian walk.  They may judge you by their rules, even though some of their rules are found nowhere in the Bible.

However, we are called to be free.  Therefore, we must not let arbitrary rules of the super-spiritual Christian rob us of the joy that we are to have through faith in Jesus.

A manifesto for freedom

The apostle Paul’s letter to the Galatian Christians has been called a manifesto for freedom.  The Galatians had started their Christian lives well, understanding that belonging to God was the result of placing your trust in the promises of God.  Paul had preached the message of the cross to them (Gal. 3:1).  On that cross Jesus had taken all their guilt and shame.  Jesus alone had done everything necessary to make them beloved children of God.

But some super-spirituals had infiltrated the church and thrown them off track.  The super-spirituals said that you weren’t a real Christian if you weren’t circumcised and obey the Old Testament Law.  These people who said that they loved the Old Testament Law didn’t actually understand it.  The way to be put right with God is the same in both the Old and New Testaments.  We see this through the life of Abraham, who simply took God at His word and was given the free gift of righteousness (Gal. 3:6).  The later giving of circumcision to Abraham and the Law through Moses didn’t change this way of being made right with God.

No one was ever supposed to rely upon obeying the Law as a means of being justified by God (Gal. 3:24-25).  The Law through Moses was given from the time of Sinai to reveal to us our need of God’s forgiveness and mercy and was only in place until the time of Jesus (Gal. 3:19).  If you try to earn God’s acceptance through law-keeping you are denying the gospel (Gal. 5:4).  Jesus comes as the end of that Law (Rom. 10:4).  We see Jesus showing us that this law is no longer to govern us as He does things like declare all food clean (Mk. 7:19).

The super-spiritual legalists were stealing the Galatian Christians of their freedom in Christ.  They were insisting on obedience to a Law that no longer binds believers.  They made the message of the Bible one of grace plus effort rather than simply grace alone (see Eph. 2:8-9).  I once met a student who insisted that the Law of Moses was still in force today.  So, I asked him about rules concerning tassels on his garments (Num. 15:38).  To my surprise he lifted his shirt and showed my little tassels hanging from the belt straps on his jeans.  Still, he didn’t seem to follow the rules around hair length (Lev. 19:27).  He told me that he was still trying to figure that one out.

Today’s super-spirituals may not insist on observing the Old Testament Law, but they will try to force you to obey laws that aren’t given to the Christian.  They may take something like alcohol, what you wear to church, what sort of entertainments you like or how much you give to and suggest that you are a weak Christian at best, and possibly not a Christian at all, if you don’t reach their standards.  In the face of such legalism we need to hear the apostle Paul’s call to stand firm in our freedom. 

Freedom from legalism

The legalists in Galatia denied this gospel of grace by suggesting that you contributed something to being made right with God.  What a terrible message.  How would you every know if you had done enough?  No wonder that it robbed the believers of their joy (Gal. 4:15, GNB).

The apostle Paul tells us to stand firm in our freedom (Gal. 5:1).  But what does freedom look like?  If you think that your law-keeping is earning God’s love, then you don’t get the gospel.  If you are adding laws to the Christian life then you are denying the gospel.

When I was in Dungannon I was aware that many Christians disagreed with going to the pub.  That might be right for them, but I could see nothing in the Bible that says I couldn’t go. 

At that time, I was playing rugby with the bottom teams in the local club.  I wanted to get to know those guys better, so when they asked me to join them for a drink I knew it was the right thing to do.  But I did not feel free.  I actually considered staying in that bar until it was dark, so that no church people would see me leave.  When I did leave my heart sank when I heard someone call out my name, but I breathed a sigh of relief when I realised it was one of the other rugby players that was calling me.

I am not saying that going to the pub is always a good idea, and for some Christians it may be a very bad idea.  But it helps to remember that Jesus was condemned by the super-spirituals of His day.  They saw who He associated with and the places He went to and called Him a glutton and drunkard (Matt. 11:19).  Ken Blue explains that ‘if you aren’t accused by the religious of being sift on sin, if you aren’t accused of encouraging people to be “too free,” then you are not yet preaching the gospel.[3]

You also don’t get the gospel if you think that God is simply interested in how tight you are.  I was talking to a man who left the church where I was ministering.  He felt that we were too lax.  He boasted about his new pastor saying, ‘when you listen to him you would question whether you are really a Christian at all.’  That made me wonder what this pastor actually was teaching.  It also makes me wonder why people would enjoy been condemned all the time.

Sometimes people come up with rules for the best of reasons.  They might want to protect themselves and others from temptation.  After all we pray, ‘lead me not into temptation’ (Matt. 6:13).  Avoiding places where you might find yourself tempted is not necessarily legalism.  I don’t drink alcohol because when I was a teenager I could not handle it.  But I must not make this a rule for other people, or look down on those who feel free to drink.

When to curb our freedom

Rule-making is dangerous.  It can rob people of their freedom.  But there are times when we should sacrifice our freedoms in love for each other.  This is especially true for leaders, for some people will decide what is right and wrong for them simply on the basis of watching what you do.

The apostle Paul told the Christians in Rome not to quarrel over opinions.  There were those whose conscience would not let them eat foods that the Jews considered unclean.  They weren’t like those legalists in Galatia who claimed that you weren’t a real Christian if you didn’t abstain from such meats.  They were simply Christians who had a weak conscience, who felt uneasy about not adhering to Old Testament food laws.  He tells those who knew that they were free to eat all foods not to despise those who didn’t share their freedom.  He also tells those whose consciences were not free not to judge those who did eat all meats (Rom. 14:3).  He further adds, that the person with the strong conscience must not put pressure on others to act against their tender conscience (Rom. 14:23).  If you are having someone over who feels strongly that Christians should not drink alcohol, then don’t serve such drinks at the meal.  Don’t hurt them with your lack of consideration.

Of course, when someone disagrees with us on a disputable matter don’t assume that they are always wrong and you are always right.  It could be that what you call freedom is actually compromise.  They may refuse to go to some of the movies you go to.  But might they have a point?  Maybe they are not being legalistic but fleeing from such things as sexual immorality (1 Cor. 6:18).

Good things turned bad

In our church we are trying to encourage people to join a small group.  When someone asks to become a member, we tell them that we expect that they will connect with one of these groups.  But we need to be careful.  Being a part of a small group doesn’t make you a better Christian.  In some instances, where people’s work life is very demanding, it might actually be better that they spend time at home with their family than going out to a church meeting. 

I have heard Christian complain about those who do not attend the church prayer meeting.  But attendance at the church prayer meeting is not necessarily a measure of spiritual maturity.  I have been in churches where people complained about those who didn’t go to the evening service as well as the morning service.  But there is nothing to say that you need to go to church more than once on a Sunday. 

When we started an evening service in our church we made it clear that this was not about encouraging people to come out twice but offering an alternative service to those who would benefit from it.  I think it is a subtle form of legalism when we judge people for not being as enthusiastic as us in their praise or when we think that they are being over the top in their praise.  Only God knows what is going on in their hearts.  Be careful not to make laws around good things like fasting, Bible-reading, giving and prayer, or using these as a means of trying to make yourself a better Christian than other Christians.

Don’t judge people on issues that are disputed

I think we need to be particularly careful on issues that Christians have debated for centuries.  Some see ‘the Lord’s Day’ (Sunday) as form of the Old Testament Sabbath.  Others believe that the Old Testament Sabbath is fulfilled in the rest we have in Christ and so there is not special holy day.  The arguments around this are complex.  Someone may treat Sunday in a way that you don’t, but don’t assume that they are either being legalistic, or that they are simply ignoring the commands of Scripture.

Legalism turns people away from Jesus 

Cathy grew up in Miami.  She was from a comfortable middle-class Jewish family.  Then she met Barry.  Barry was a Jehovah’s Witness.  Through Barry’s influence she too joined the Witnesses.  She did the obligatory hours of sharing her faith.  She went along to the meetings.  It was fine at first.

But then it began to feel toxic.  Kathy and Barry were married and moved to another part of the country.  There some of the stranger rules began to affect her family life.  For example, you weren’t allowed celebrate birthdays.  When she bought a Mother’s Day card, Barry saw it and called it sacrilege.  She found that being a Jehovah’s Witness sucked all the joy out of her.

She began to want to leave the Jehovah Witnesses, but this was not easy.  Pressure was put on her by that cult.  Leaving left her with emotional scars.  Kathy no longer has any interest in anything that calls itself Christian.  In fact, she actively works to keep people away from controlling religious groups.  She told one writer: ‘the hardest thing for me to cope with now is the realisation that there’s no paradise to go to one day.  That when I die, I’ll just end up as nothing in a box, in the ground.  That’s been the toughest thing about losing my faith—knowing that there’s no hope of resurrection.  Knowing that this is it.’[4]

The legalism found in a cult robbed Kathy of freedom and left her disillusioned.

The freedom to obey

But freedom scares people, particularly those who lead churches.  How will we get people to behave if can control them through rules?  The author of Pilgrim’s Progress, John Bunyan, was accused of telling his congregation that God loved them too often.  ‘If you always tell them that God loves them,’ the complaint went, ‘then they will simply do what they want.’  Bunyan replied, ‘if they realize that how much God loves them they will do what He wants.’

The super-spiritual Christian does not understand the dynamics of true holiness.  True holiness comes from the inside out, but the legalist is focusing only on outward performance (Matt. 23:25).  While people judge by appearance God cares about our heart (1 Sam. 16:7).

There is a formula that leads to holy living.  Forgiveness leads to love.  When Jesus forgives a woman, who was notable for her sinful lifestyle, she responded with adoration.  Jesus explained to the legalists who held her past against her that she loved much because she was forgiven much (Lk. 7:47).  They didn’t love because they didn’t realize that they needed to be forgiven.  When we realise that depths of sin in our hearts and that God’s grace is more than sufficient to forgive and cleanse us, then love is stirred up in our hearts.

This love that is stirred up by grace leads to a desire to obey Jesus.  Jesus was not nagging the disciples when He said, ‘if you love me, you will keep my commands’ (Jn. 14:15).  He was simply stating a spiritual truth.  When we understand the freedom and love we have in Christ, we will want to lovingly live a life that pleases Him.  We will not want to abuse grace.  This is what Augustine meant when he said, ‘love God and do as you please.’

God not only provides us with the desire to obey, He also gives us the power to obey.  The truth is that we can’t produce true holiness by our own efforts.  The power of the cross has freed us from slavery to sin (Rom. 6:6).  When temptation comes remember that it is no longer inevitable that you will fail.  Look to the way out that God promises you (1 Cor. 10:13).  God is working within you to will and act according to will and act according to His good purpose (Phil. 2:13).  The Holy Spirit is transforming us into the likeness of Christ (2 Cor. 3:18).  We act as we flee from sin, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness (1 Tim. 6:11).  But we know that we can only flee sin and pursue righteousness in the power that God provides. 

In the first sermon I ever preached I thought that I was showing how cultured I was by referring to the film, ‘The Three Colours Blue’.  This film was a part of a trilogy celebrating the ideals of the French Revolution: ‘liberty, equality and fraternity.’  In this film the heroine loses her family in a car crash.  She realises that she is now free from the bonds of family.  So, she cuts herself off from all her previous friends and lives in isolation.  But she finds that she is not free.  It is only when she starts to fall in love again that she is truly free.

Freedom comes in the bonds of relationship.  Christian freedom comes when we understand the love of Jesus.  We know that we cannot be truly free when we live for ourselves.  When we follow Jesus, we are denying ourselves for the only one who has the perfect love and wisdom to show us what is best for us.  Jesus said, ‘you will know the truth and the truth will set you free’ (Jn. 8:32).

Could grace be a better motivator than law?

I served in a church where they produced a list every year where they listed who gave how much.  When I suggested that this was wrong, someone explained that if they stopped telling everyone how much people gave the church would lose money.  Surely such an attitude denies God’s faithfulness to provide.  Do we think that God cares more about how much we give than why we give?

Some churches put a big emphasis on tithing.  I actually can’t see the principle of a specific tithe in the New Testament.  It seems to me that each Christian is given the freedom to give what they have decided in their heart to give (2 Cor. 9:7).  But if we simply encourage people to joyfully give, will our churches go bust.  It might actually be that as people are motivated by God’s grace to respond generously that giving might go up.  Why do we automatically assume that law is a better motivator than grace?

Conclusion

Sadly, many super-spiritual Christians burn out.  Aiden Swan points out that in his twenties he began to encounter Christians who had been raised to see Christianity in terms of dos and don’ts and who insisted that there were things he had to do to become a ‘better’ Christian.  He saw the agony that these people went through trying to follow their rules, and the feelings of guilt because they never felt good enough.  He also noticed that some of them got so tired of this performance treadmill that they simply gave up. 

I heard of a man who was involved in a Bible study for those ‘elite’ Christians in his church who agreed with his particular theurgical leanings.  He looked down and quarrelled with those who didn’t hold to his particular beliefs.  But, as far as I know, he believes nothing anymore.     

Some studies in America have shown that the least happy people in that culture are conservative evangelical Christians, because they hold to a high standard to which they believe God has called them, but they are stuck without the power to reach that standard.[5]  This should not be.  God does not treat us as our sins deserve but according to His loving-kindness (Ps. 103:10).  Yes, Jesus tells us to be perfect (Matt. 5:48), but His blood covers our blood covers our imperfection (1 Jn. 1:7).  In Him we should be enjoying the power to change.  We are in the glorious and gradual process of being made like Christ (2 Cor. 3:17-18).

Finally, remember that we are free.  We are free from condemnation, and we are as accepted by God as much when we are having a bad day spiritually as when we are having a good day spiritually.  We are also free from trying to earn brownie points from God by trying to out-preform other Christians.  We are free to ignore the rules that legalists try to place upon us.  We are to be free as we refuse to listen to the voices of those who condemn and criticise.  Let your freedom bring you joy!

We have seen that super-spiritual Christians condemn and criticise those who don’t live up to their own rulers, but what motivates them to do this?  Why do super-spiritual Christians feel the need to be better than everyone else?  That is what we will look at in the next chapter.

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[1] Ken Blue 104.

[2] Russell Moore, ‘Abortion and the Gospel’.  Https://www.russellmoore.com/2015/01/22/abortion-and-the-gospel-2/

[3] P173.

[4] Kennedy p. 32.

[5] Ken Blue and Aiden Swan, The Gospel Uncensored (Bloomington, Indiana: WestBow Press, 2010), p. 184