The churches are packed with millions and millions of members who should not be there, according to Jesus. They are not the sort to repent of their sins, and should have been confronted about it and put out a long time ago, yet they are given quarter, and with flagrant disregard for Jesus’ instructions:
15 “If your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over. 16 But if they will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’ 17 If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church; and if they refuse to listen even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector.
Matthew 18:15-17. NIV.
The churches have simply decided to disobey Jesus in this regard, and this results in a fellowship unlike what Jesus had in mind for his followers. It’s a very difficult culture, indeed.
Jesus’ design was one in which everyone was accountable and responsible for his actions, and willing to admit his faults and change his behavior right away. But the modern church is nothing like that, from what I’ve seen. Members, who seem to show up already having that sense of common courtesy that says that belching in public is improper, have somehow failed to glean from Jesus’ teachings the idea that sinning against others and not repenting is improper for God’s people.
And how could they miss it? It’s right here in plain words, and the idea most certainly pops up in other passages of scripture. So I can conclude that they are simply not reading the scriptures, or not paying attention to them when they do read. And in most cases, I think they have the help of the church to do so. That is, the leaders/teachers/elders who assume authority over their congregations are being lousy shepherds to the sheep, and are not reminding them to be careful to follow Jesus.
Well, such a “shepherd” is a travesty in Jesus’ eyes (an idea I get from scripture). And so is such a sheep, who would not listen to Jesus’ “voice”:
My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.
Jesus. John 10:27. NIV.
I believe Jesus would look at someone who disobeys this Matthew 18 passage and say, “Not my sheep.” But the modern churcher may well say something like, “Oh, I’m his sheep, alright, I’m just not perfected yet―but thank God that his grace covers me!”
But here’s the thing. If they were not in their own modern congregation, but in one of the original congregations from the First Century, that kind of slowness to repent would have cause them to be put out of the congregation. They would have been shunned by all the real sheep, who were not to tolerate fake-sheep in their midst.
This is a huge difference between the churches of today and the original of Jesus. Huge.
And where are the people lining up to discuss this terribly-important topic? Nowhere. That’s where. Nowhere. They ought to be rattled with fear that they so commonly disobey in this matter, but it’s hardly possible to get their attention about it. They are complacent. Hardened. Unresponsive. They simply don’t seem to care that Jesus is upset with them. After all, they’ve got the approval of their various churches, and that seems to be quite enough for them.
As a result, people who would have been run out of Jesus’ real church long ago are still sitting in the pews, and still active alongside whatever genuinely-responsible sheep there may be there. But how can there be genuinely-responsible sheep there if the congregation does not follow Jesus’ policy? How could a genuinely-responsible sheep stand to stay there, disobeying along with everybody else, and continuing in fellowship with people that Jesus says should be avoided?
Are they not all in rebellion?
Surely, some in any congregation will be the sort to approach a sinning-against-them brother or sister privately about it. But when that talk doesn’t go well, what shall they do? Perhaps they can find “one or two others” to take it to the next level, as per Jesus’ instructions, but if that doesn’t go well, are they going to find that the church is responsible in the matter, and willing to hear it out in public? And even if they’re willing to have that hearing, are they willing to shun the unrepentant sinner?
If they are not, shouldn’t this whole method start over with them? That is to say that the one who was originally being sinned against by the one individual is now being sinned against by the whole congregation, who refuse to stand in support of righteousness as per Jesus’ instructions. So, who is the wronged party going to turn to for help now?
Wouldn’t the authentic follower of Jesus have to leave that congregation if they won’t repent? How could he or she stay in clear conscience? Indeed, why would he or she want to stay in the company of those who claim to follow Jesus, but refuse to obey him?
This teaching of Jesus is so utterly radical compared to the way of this world. And there are a great many worldly churches that have blinded themselves to it. It’s still in their Bibles, but it might as well not be there, for they have trained themselves to ignore it whenever it comes up―although surely there are some who make use of it it one way or another when it suits them―when they have some member they actually want to get rid of.
In another radical passage (below), surprising to the duller modern sentiments about church fellowship, Paul doesn’t paint it in terms of needing to be patient with people who are slow to repent or change or grow. No, he puts it in terms of “righteousness and wickedness” and of “light and darkness”. And Paul would call the unrepentant one an “unbeliever”. That is, he would look at their rebellion as evidence that they are not relying/believing on Jesus in the scriptural way, whereas in modern church sentiment, a person is a “believer” simply for saying he is, and you have to take his word for it, or else you are “judging” him, and are thus worthy of being condemned yourself.
14 Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? 15 What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? Or what does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? 16 What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said:
Paul. 2 Corinthians 6:14-17. NIV.
“I will live with them
and walk among them,
and I will be their God,
and they will be my people.”
17 Therefore,
“Come out from them
and be separate,
says the Lord.
Touch no unclean thing,
and I will receive you.”
Paul seems to be asking, “Why are you hanging out with people like this?”, and “How does this make sense for you to still be yoked together with the disobedient?”
But in the modern churches, there are millions whose behavior would have had them kicked out of Jesus’ First Century fellowship. And the modern churcher has no idea how completely different is the atmosphere in his church from what it would have been like in one of the original congregations. No idea.
I think this calls for some gut-wrenching, soul-searching overhauling of one’s own convictions. But most churchers, I’d venture, are the sort who will not have read this far―who will have switched off their minds to all this already, and moved along to some topic they find more palatable. In other words, they will reject Jesus’ words here, and Paul’s, and will proceed as they please.
Some will think it unthinkable that a whole church should be in need of repentance. (They do not know the scriptures. For example: Galatians and 1 Corinthians.) Some will find all this repulsive, and will judge me for “judging”― which is certainly a hypocritcal practice. But this bad interpretation of Matthew Chapter 7 is so prevalent, and so many fellowships eaten up with is cancer, that I’ll just drop in a one-liner here, which should stun any churcher that has any real respect for Jesus left:
9 I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people— 10 not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this world. 11 But now I am writing to you that you must not associate with anyone who claims to be a brother or sister but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or slanderer, a drunkard or swindler. Do not even eat with such people.
Paul. 1 Corinthians 5:9-12. NIV.
12 What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? 13 God will judge those outside. “Expel the wicked person from among you.”
Are not today’s churches filled with people who are immoral or greedy or swindlers or slanderers or idolators or drunkards? And have they not been protected under this “Judge not” policy (which cheating clings to the first two words of Matthew Chapter 7, while ignoring all the other words in that chapter?)
These people should not be able to find any church that will accept them without demanding first that they repent of these sins. Yet in today’s twisted sense of spirituality, the churches are to recruit these very people, not demanding repentance up front, but slathering them with “grace” and “patience” and “forgiveness” and such, sheltering them from the demands of none other than Jesus that they, too, must repent of their sins.
This is utter rebellion against the teachings of Jesus and his authorized apostles, yet it has been normalized today by countless congregations that claim to belong to Jesus. And the outlook for them is not good, according to Jesus. He is the sort to ask cutting rhetorical questions like this one:
“Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?
Jesus. Luke 6:46. NIV.
And he was the sort to tell them in advance what to expect for their disobedience:
21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ 23 Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’
Jesus. Matthew 7:21-23. NIV.
In short, the modern churches have got the idea somehow that one can be a follower of Jesus without following him―a servant without obeying―a student without learning ―a child of God without heeding the Father. But they are in rebellion to God and Jesus alike, even while sitting in their churches, daring to use his name by which to call themselves and their church, and daring to believe that he will not do as he says and hold them accountable for it.
These are the sorts who fill the churches, and who could not possibly still be there if the churches were obeying the Matthew 18 passage I quoted in the beginning.
They are in rebellion to God, having commandeered some of the things of God for their own use (not much unlike a certain angel of ill-repute, whom they consider their enemy, even as they emulate his own policies of disobedience). Theirs is not a reality-based religion, but a twisted one. And this is nothing new, for this sort of person was pegged long before Jesus was born:
Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.
Isaiah 5:20. NIV.
They have filled their pews with people of the “darkness”, who will not repent of their sins, but continue in them. They have corrupted what Jesus meant to be a sweet fellowship, and have let it fester with bitterness. And when someone tries to point this out, they rebuke him for “judging”, as if judging those inside the church were not expressly condoned by the apostle’s own words.
These people think they are very wise and enlightened, but they live in a sinister darkness, and cannot manage to obey the Lord in this fundamental structure of his church. And when I say “these people”, I know I’m talking about many, many millions of people, spread across a great many churches. And they will hate me for writing this, but I’m not writing it on their account. Rather, I’m writing it on account of Jesus who gave these directions in the first place, and whom I think deserves a hearing from time to time―especially among those who already claim to be listening to him. If they are mad at me, so be it.
For the record, Jesus did not commission me to write this. No, this comes from my own desire to see his teachings taken to heart. My convictions have not formed as the result of some special magic that God has done in my heart; they have come from the regular magic of reading and considering the scriptures, and taking them to heart, and putting them into practice, imperfect as I am. And the hypocrite will rejoice to find (or to pretend) some fault in my, by which he may “justify” dismissing everything I have written here. But he makes the mistake of treating this like these commands were coming from Jack, and not from Jesus. Discount me as he may, he’ll not be able to discount Jesus when finally they meet in person.
