Chapter Six
Churches
are like cows, they digest slowly.
Pastor’s
especially are often frustrated at how long it takes to get a church to change
its direction or it way of doing things.
But I have found this to actually be a great protective measure to keep
a congregation from being blown side to side by every new “doctrine” or really
half baked teaching going around!
When I was going
to college there was a local church who sent its pastor off to a conference he
was interested in. When he came back he
surprised his conservative congregation by saying that he no longer was a
follower of Jesus but believed that Noah was the great leader they should
follow! But the whole community was even
more surprised when the congregation followed their pastor!
“10 ¶ Then the brethren immediately
sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea. When they arrived, they went into
the synagogue of the Jews. 11
These were more fair-minded than those in Thessalonica, in that they received
the word with all readiness, and searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were
so. 12 Therefore many of them
believed, and also not a few of the Greeks, prominent women as well as men.”
(Acts 17:10-12 NKJV)
The people of
Berea were like cows. They were either
Jews or God-fearers and when they heard Paul’s message they went home and took
everything he said and compared it to scripture. When they saw that their teaching went along
with scripture they believed!
We live in a
world of fad diets and of fad science.
Just look at the incredible edible egg.
When I was a boy eggs were a cheap source of food for people who didn’t
have a lot of money. Like us. Then science discovered that eggs were a high
source of cholesterol and therefore very dangerous to your heart. Sales went down as people tried to eat
healthier. New studies showed that eggs
were a good source of protein at a cheap price and contained a healthier kind
of cholesterol and the price went up! Can
I get a baa!
Mooving
along
Think about cows
for a minute. I know this is not
scientific but from what I remember from my days serving in farming country
cows eat very slowly and grass takes a long time and lots of processing to
become milk or hamburger.
A cow will take a
bite of grass and begin to chew. It is
fun to watch a cow take a bite and chew, then chew and then chew some
more. After it reaches a rather
disgusting consistency they swallow it and it begins a long process through the
multi stomached processing plant that a cow is so it can turn plant matter in
hamburgers and milk. At times if the
grass has not been chewed enough the cow will regurgitate it and chew it some
more. Gives new meaning to seconds
doesn’t it?
With that in mind
let us look at the people of Berea. They
listened to the message and started to chew on it. They took the message home and passed it
through the stomach of the Bible. Here
it was processed some more. They kept
coming back hearing more and digesting more and eventually they were processed
from Jews or God fearers to become Christians!
“Please
take an illegal u-turn.”
A friend of mine
has one of those wonderful GPS devices in his car and it was giving us
traveling advice in real time. We
stopped so I could take over the driving and the GPS emphatically said, “Please
take and illegal u-turn.” We have
laughed about that for years!
But that is the
world for you! The world wants to get
you in the same path as everyone else (remember the baa) and when you are
following God that means they want you to take an illegal u-turn! Because the world will do everything in its
power to divert you from not only following God but getting to God in the first
place.
Some will say I
am being paranoid (as opposed to pessimistic) but if you have read your Bible
(you have haven’t you?) than you will have discovered that God is paranoid like
that! God has some really terrible
things to say about the powers in the world and if you missed it the worst
statements are about religious leaders!
Moove slowly as
you grow in the faith about your understanding of God and of the Church. Understand the difference between the little
c church (congregation or denomination) and the Big C Church (the Body of
Christ!).
Like the people
of Berea keep going back to the Bible to check out not only what you hear, but
what you believe. And remember that
Jesus is Lord! And that means you are
not!
When issues are discussed in the church or in society what impact
does the Bible have for you?
Do you see God as the ultimate kill joy?
Could the 10 Commandments be God’s process of turning us into
Christians?
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