Dear Student of the Word,
The Church should be the most powerful entity on earth, for she functions in cooperation with heaven itself! Yet this is not always the case. We seem to know how to do Sunday church services, but we struggle when we try to do or be anything else, especially in today's liberal milieu. It seems that Jesus held a different picture of the Church and how it should function. With that in mind, this week I wrote:
v. 18 – There is that “I tell you the truth” phrase again. What else could Jesus say, yet what He was about to say was so strange to the subnormal spiritual climate in Israel that it would be considered abnormal instead of just normal. Does that makes sense? Things were so bad that Jesus tried to raise the level to normal and that made Him sound at times like He was mad!
This statement is similar to the one we read in Matthew 16:19 but in this chapter it is spoken in the context of reconciliation. It seems that Jesus was saying that if the Church decided that the offending brother who refused to be reconciled should be out of the church, then that decision is binding in heaven as well. This is contingent of course upon the people coming together around the Lordship of Jesus and not just to advance their own agenda. Many have been “condemned” by the Church who were simply political enemies or prophetic voices. The Church agenda was not truly a spiritual one, but one of power and control.
I believe in this principle. I believe in the church gathering and Jesus being in her midst. When that happens I believe God can direct the decisions and there be unity between heaven and earth. I also believe this principle has been and can be abused Once example of this dynamic functioning properly in Acts 15:
With them they sent the following letter: The apostles and elders, your brothers, To the Gentile believers in Antioch, Syria and Cilicia: Greetings. We have heard that some went out from us without our authorization and disturbed you, troubling your minds by what they said. So we all agreed to choose some men and send them to you with our dear friends Barnabas and Paul— men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore we are sending Judas and Silas to confirm by word of mouth what we are writing. It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us not to burden you with anything beyond the following requirements (Acts 15:23-28 emphasis added).
v. 19 – It is interesting that this principle of two-or-three-gathering has been applied to prayer, but in this context it applies to reconciliation, with dealing and resolving conflicts. We want this principle to be true about prayer and I have quoted this many times when referencing prayer, but this promise doesn’t seem to have anything to do with prayer! It has everything to do with the ability of the Church members and leaders to have wisdom form heaven to deal with problems, as Paul expected:
I say this to shame you. Is it possible that there is nobody among you wise enough to judge a dispute between believers (1 Corinthians 6:5).
v. 20 – Jesus is in the midst of those who come together in His Name – for the purposes of doing and resolving His business. The Church today is anemic and usually only convenes for Sunday service and meaningless annual meetings, so there is no concept of problems or issues between believers actually being resolved by the Church. After all, that is why we have the court systems! Yet Jesus seemed to promise that He would be present with believers who convened with the purpose of carrying out the business of heaven. Do you agree with my assessment of the present state of the Church? Do you agree or disagree that the Church should be involved in disputes among believers? Can we ever recapture this dynamic in the modern church? What would it take to do so?
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