Sunday, October 1, 2023

Dear Pastor, Elder and Member- is it time to EXAMINE ourselves?............

 ………not only individually, but as a church congregation…..and collectively as the church AT LARGE!

And where do we begin? Are we in the faith? Do we prove all things? Are we producing fruit? Why did Jesus curse the fig tree which looked good from a distance? Is Christian examination limited to individuals only? For example: Are we in any way connected to or responsible for the existence and welfare of Western Civilization? Was the development of WC even possible without Christianity? And most importantly – why and how have we lost it?

How many of us are familiar with the history of Christianity AFTER Jesus walked the earth 2000 years ago…….that wasn’t written by a humanist?

“Historians abandoned any commitment to neutral history a century ago. Yet they pretend that they are sufficiently neutral to be entitled to financial support by taxpayers. Public day schools and tax-funded universities teach anti-Christian history.”

“Christianity is a religion based on history. Yet Christians are remarkably ignorant about the history of the church. They are even more ignorant about the culture-transforming effects of the church. Even if they know a little about a few key figures in the history of the church, they cannot explain exactly why these people were important in the history of Western civilization. They cannot tell you what difference these people made outside of the institutional church. They have no understanding of the relationship between the church’s teachings and historical progress.”

“I wrote this book so that a hard core of Christian leaders and prospective leaders will read it and then will act on what they have read. Leaders act representatively. Action is crucial to all forms of leadership: in households, churches, and everywhere else. Knowledge alone is insufficient for meaningful change, either personally or institutionally. We must act in terms of what we believe. But, before we act, we had better count the cost. Jesus said: “For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it? Lest haply, after he hath laid the foundation, and is not able to finish it, all that behold it begin to mock him, Saying, This man began to build, and was not able to finish” (Luke 14:28–30).

“Maybe you do not want to be a leader. You are a leader anyway. If you are a parent, you are a leader. Parents teach their children. If you make decisions on behalf of others, you are a leader. Basic to all forms of leadership is the knowledge of history. Every organization has a history. Successful leaders must know something about the past of the organizations in which they possess God-given responsibility. They need to know how they got into the positions they occupy. They need to know something about the successes and failures of previous leaders.- The Biblical Structure of History by Gary North – I guarantee you will have some challenges here as I did.

(Dear reader – as is true for most writers – and I am not really a writer, more of a librarian who connects dots – when I started this particular post, I had a general outline in my head - but as I plod through it, it’s becoming somewhat painfully obvious to me that I’ve bitten off more than I can chew in one day. Therefore it will become a work in progress, with perhaps regular updates as time and occasion dictate.

However, that should not prevent you from using DaLimbraw Library for your own research on this topic or any other…..and perhaps edify me as to what you have discovered.

As is true for everything in life – discovery of truth is a process!

I will add some lessons here I have learned from my reading in the last 15-20 years, but your decisions are yours to make.

Good hunting! – CL)

 

When seeking Biblical truths  - expect to be corrected and sometimes severly admonished. After all, admonishment for the children of God is a constant from Genesis to Revelation, is it not?

Here is one of my pet peeves with all three suspects – individually, as a congregation and certainly collectively – just judging by our fruits.

Have we moved on from milk to meat – so we can by constant practice – determine good from evil? These are just for starters – so let’s get started and connect some dots.

Let's get On with It | Heb 5:11 - 6:12 | RayStedman.org

The passage before us is so important and so provocative that I will waste no time in introduction. I shall follow the suggestion of our title and "get on with it." The section from 5:11 to 6:12 gathers around four figures, or pictures, though one is implied rather than stated. We shall call these four figures the milk drinkers, the meat eaters, the stillborn, and the fruit growers.

And after reading Ray Stedman – take a bite out of this collection - Maturity – a list of headnotes that will take hours, if not days to read.

And then on to: CAP – Kingdom of God Study List

Jesus Christ to His Church: "Do Your JOB!"

I will conclude at this time with a question: Are we advancing the Kingdom of God?