Post details: Something crappy instead ...

04/05/08

Permalink 07:04:21 am, Categories: GraceHead teaching, By Trent
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Something crappy instead ...

by Trent - from November 2005

Gail had an AWESOME rant about how the churched masses are being duped by the religious form of Christianity that is the norm. I share her experience of being called out from that garbage.

I share in her urgency and passion. I cautioned her about where the real problem lies:

The pew and the pulpit. Who is to blame for the mess? From which will come the deliverance?

The clergy is basically doing exactly what is required of them by the membership. If they weren't then the clergy would be replaced. The problem is in the pew. The people WANT a mediator/priest.

In the day of Christ, people were supposed to raise up their own offering. They were lazy and found that they could hire a professional to do it for them. That way, rather then tend to their offering and bring it to the temple, then could just mind their own business and bring a bit of money. At the temple they could just buy a bird and be done with it.

The money-changers were a symptom of a deeper problem. They were the hired professionals to do what the people were supposed to do on their own. And of course, the quality suffered. These were not unblemished offerings. These were discounts and bargains ... purchased at the last minute.

John 2:16
To those who sold doves he said, "Get these out of here! How dare {{{{you}}}} turn my Father's house into a market!"

The "you" in that verse is commonly thought of as the people that sold doves. But, that is not the "you" that made it that way. The "you" is everyone that would go to the temple to buy a dove from a professional.

I say all of this to show a parallel. Christ in you, is having a hard time putting up with a institutionalized church where you pay a professional to do your worshiping for you, and we just sit there as spectators. That same passion He is speaking into your heart is not so different then what He said 2000 years ago.

Get these paid preachers out of the pulpit! You, the pew, have warped what the assembly is all about! You are supposed to have something to share with everyone on your own, not pay some professional to come up with something crappy instead!


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Comments:

Comment from: T [Visitor] · http://www.godburnstime.blogspot.com
Right on Trent. "Nature abhors a vacuum -- not a biblical text, but an interesting metaphor for the situation. We've abdicated communion and fellowship with our Lord and Life for accepting and receiving the bondage of a system that lords over, practices charlatanism, and is often a sterile lifeless institution of man's hand for glorifying man's mind. Perhaps the same spirit/attitude that has brought us the passivity has brought us this clergy/laity problem as well?
Permalink 11/17/05 @ 11:33
Comment from: dorsey [Visitor] · http://notmywill.blogspot.com
Call it codependency, call it a symbiotic relationship. Deciding whether the pew requires it or the pulpit fosters it can devolve into a chicken/egg argument. I think the truth is that everyone involved bears some responsibility—and we have to stop it.
I'm not convinced that taking everyone off the payroll is the best solution, but it certainly would separate the called from the hirelings. I think a biblical, more broad-based system of accountability (such as that found in Acts) would yield a far better result than the top-down authoritarian approach under which we now suffer.
Permalink 11/17/05 @ 12:05
Comment from: Trent [Member] · http://www.GraceHead.com
T,
"""Perhaps the same spirit/attitude that has brought us the passivity has brought us this clergy/laity problem as well?"""

Perhaps so.

The pulpit has its own problems, and those are probably the grossest, but lets face it. The pew is demanding more of the same, even paying them for the status quo.

2 Timothy 4:3b
""... Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.""

When there is a vacuum of teachers to fulfill that roll, "nature" will probably fill it somehow.

:-)
Ripening for the harvest,
-Trent
www.GraceHead.com
Permalink 11/17/05 @ 12:29
Comment from: Trent [Member] · http://www.GraceHead.com
Dorsey,
"""I'm not convinced that taking everyone off the payroll is the best solution, but it certainly would separate the called from the hirelings."""

Probably, people will keep developing to the point where they "fall out of the nest" so to speak.

Getting off the payroll won't be the clergy's choice, unless you call "last resort" a choice. (provided the problem is ever solved, of course.)
:-)

Still ripening,
Trent
www.GraceHead.com
Permalink 11/17/05 @ 12:39

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