The Apostle Paul on the Contemporary Church: “Don’t Abandon The Gospel!”
Not for itching ears is a blog dedicated to discussing the serious issues that face the evangelical church. The main issue, as we see it, is that the church has grown perilously close to abandoning the Gospel. All around us we see churches relaxing their grip on it, in danger of fumbling it. In a recent message I delivered titled “Don’t Abandon the Gospel”, I took a look at what the Apostle Paul challenged the church of his day with. Based on 2 Timothy 4:1-8, it provides a clear remedy: Preach the Gospel!
Posted on August 6, 2011, in Christianity, Contemporary Church Culture, Early Church History, The Cross, The Seeker-Sensitive Church Model and tagged 2 Timothy 4:1-8, christianity, contemporvant, early church history, El cristianismo, Not For itching Ears, Passion of the Christ, seeker-sensitive, The Cross and Christian Ministry, theology. Bookmark the permalink. 3 Comments.
Not For Itching Ears 
Fantastic sermon.. I have been in a seeker-sensitive church and I left from my convictions. They talk about the Bible, they try to get people to serve, and they try to get people to go get connected to the life groups in the church, but the service itself includes no preaching of the Word. The preacher has a conversational style..
I think this model is backwards.. because the Bible says that nobody seeks after God. So, even if you coerce people to do things for the church and motivate them to read the Word… I don’t know, I just think it doesn’t make as much sense as preaching the Gospel? Basically people in the church are just unbelievers who come to enjoy a good time so after the music worship in the beginning is over the message is ambiguous for everyone and SPECIFICALLY for unbelievers.. so the flock are starving.
Yet, their doctrinal beliefs are on-point except for one thing: They obviously don’t follow through with honoring the Word of God because they would understand the point of the church is to feed the flock.
The hardest thing is questioning: Is it worth leaving a church for this kind of thing?
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Hi Ryan,
Thanks for stopping in and leaving a comment.
I think it is worth leaving a congregation whose leadership does not get it. Having been a senior pastor, I know that nothing will ever change until senior leadership wants it to. If the senior leadership want to be seeker-friendly, the church is going to go that route. Period. The more difficult thing will be finding a church that is as commited to the gospel in practice as much as in their Statment of Faith.
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Leaders are afraid to correct, to rebuke, according to the Word of God. Prophets cannot speak because they are led out of the service to no longer speak such things to ‘their’ sheep. But whose sheep are they really?! We are only good stewards. Yet, God says that there is no one good but God. God will call for ‘His’ sheep [His people] to come unto Him when He sends forth ‘His’ Shepherd unto His sheep….to feed them and to water them, to take care of them truly.
God is raising up true shepherds unto Himself who will hear His voice and do according to His Word in bringing forth Life into His house.
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Unless we pray and seek the Lord ‘to know His voice and His will’, we will not know nor truly follow Him.
Christ Jesus sought His Father….alot, to know His will and to do accordingly. He was ‘sent’ by His Father, not on His own.
How can we be sent unless we hear His directions clearly?
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We will be judged for our faith in Christ, not just by the rebellious of this world, but by the religious who ‘think’ that they know, but they do not know at all. Will we stand? Will we walk away from those who think that they know and still go about our Master’s service? Will we take up our cross and follow Him?
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