If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat.(2 Thessalonians 3:10)
People become disenchanted with the local church, but they should have never become “enchanted” in the first place. We are supposed to dig in and plant seeds, not simply pick flowers. When the pleasing aroma wears out, and the novel gives way to the familiar, then the arduous task of willing work must be taken up. If you are not planting then you are only picking, and the flowers will run out, and then so will you.
We are supposed to grow with other gardeners. The exhortations to “one another” in the NT do not make sense without active, ongoing participation in the same local church; certainly they must include more than that, but certainly not less. When we become intoxicated with what we can smell as we casually walk through, while never also allowing our own efforts to be coupled in that place of planting with others, then we are guilty of stealing from someone else’s garden.
Visiting and enjoying churches is fine; never committing to a local church through thick and thin is not. We are always looking for some new intoxicating place, and we are always surrounding ourselves with sweet scents, and never mind the manure required in growing things, we avoid any sense of that scent. In doing so we think we are part of something pleasant, but we are part of something pernicious. Careful there; you may be wearing a false fragrance.
We are supposed to grow with other gardeners. The exhortations to “one another” in the NT do not make sense without active, ongoing participation in the same local church; certainly they must include more than that, but certainly not less. When we become intoxicated with what we can smell as we casually walk through, while never also allowing our own efforts to be coupled in that place of planting with others, then we are guilty of stealing from someone else’s garden.
Visiting and enjoying churches is fine; never committing to a local church through thick and thin is not. We are always looking for some new intoxicating place, and we are always surrounding ourselves with sweet scents, and never mind the manure required in growing things, we avoid any sense of that scent. In doing so we think we are part of something pleasant, but we are part of something pernicious. Careful there; you may be wearing a false fragrance.
1 comment:
What's that smell?
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