Looking Around Him, David expressed his despair at what he saw: “Help LORD, for the godly are no more; the faithful have vanished from among men. Everyone lies to his neighbor; their flattering lips speak with deception” (Psa. 12:1-2 NIV). David was not living among the Caananites or Amalekites, he was living among God’s chosen people. What he saw is perhaps what we feel at times as we evaluate our own experiences with the brethren in Christ of this generation.
A chronic problem
There is nothing new about the community of the chosen having serious spiritual problems. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob’s families were at times dysfunctional. Look at the hatred of Esau to Jacob, the fornication of Dinah and the cruel revenge of Levi and Simeon. Joseph certainly was not helped by his family; in fact he was hated, and yet he lived to save them!
The time of the Judges was a disaster: idolatry, confusion, disorganization, rape, warfare, horrible decisions, internecine strife, etc. As history was unfolding, the community looked poor to say the least. But Hannah and Elkanah Went to the temple each year, despite the sins of Eli’s sons. Though it could be argued that the sanctuary had lost its godliness, they still made the journey and Hannah shared her greatest desire with the Lord there. We remember Eli assumed she must have been drunk, which tells us a little about how most visitors to the temple must have behaved. Despite it all, the believers were saved by faith.
Samuel, Kings and Chronicles portray the people of God as sinful and idolatrous. There were highlights and individuals of great faith, but after the time of Solomon, there were only four good kings in Judah and none in the northern kingdom of Israel. The nation comes through as stiffnecked and wicked, albeit the Lord God sent his holy prophets to plead with them until there was no remedy. Only a remnant did not bow the knee to Baal and they were saved by faith. Again God’s select community revealed their intrinsically sinful character.
Problems in the twelve
Skipping to the New Testament, we see the same pattern in the congregation. The disciples were wonderful men, otherwise the Lord would not have selected them, but they refused to listen to the teaching of Jesus concerning his death. They argued about who would sit on the right and left hand of Jesus at the very time he was teaching about his impending death. They wanted to call down fire upon the Samaritans, yet they were often dull of hearing themselves. And then Peter, James and John couldn’t even stay awake to help the Lord when he was going through his agony in the garden.
New start, old problems
In the Acts, one of the first ecclesial events was the death of Ananias and Sapphira, who were wrapped in their garments and carried off to be buried. Not an auspicious beginning. Nonetheless, Acts is full of great stories depicting the spread of the gospel and the development of the ecclesias in the Roman world. It was a time of happiness and joy for the preachers, but a dark shadow, a portent of worse things to come, was the vicious hatred of the Judaizers who pursued Paul and his coworkers with deadly intent.
The epistles reveal the development of these various ecclesias to us. Once again the community shows up with all its mortal and fallible warts. Think of the problems the believers faced in Corinth. There was incest in the ecclesia. Many members were formerly temple prostitutes and idolaters. Some brethren were turning the meal of fellowship, “the love feast,” into a drunken orgy and lapping up the food with such gluttony that some went home hungry. There were serious doubts as to the teaching regarding the resurrection, and they had to be encouraged to set aside a little for the poor in Jerusalem. They mishandled the spirit gifts until it became a shouting match resembling a riot rather than a time of worship, but Paul patiently exhorted them and sent visitors to assist in their out-of-control deportment.
We can be assured that anything Paul wrote to an ecclesia was directly related to either a teaching error or bad behavior in that ecclesia. For example, in Galatians he writes, “Now the works of the flesh are.. .these, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousies, wraths, factions, divisions, heresies, envyings, drunkenness, revellings…of the which I forewarn you, they which practice such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.” Not only that, in chapter 2, he had to rebuke Peter in public because he stood condemned.
James reveals that believers among the 12 tribes had dreadful problems. “Whence come wars and fighting among you? …Ye lust, ye kill, and covet…ye fight and war…. Ye adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? …Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded.” I don’t think this was metaphorical “killing,” they were going for each other’s throats, just as they did in the Old Testament.
We read the assessment of the seven ecclesias in the Revelation. Not only were they going astray doctrinally, immorality was flourishing.
No excuse for us Past failures do not justify our present weakness and faults, but we need to keep in perspective that it has never really been any different down the long history of the congregation from the garden of Eden when Cain killed Abel to the present day. There are bright spots, great victories of faith, many men and women of faith, but the community in every age has rarely reflected God’s goodness, and one big reason is that we are mortal, sinful creatures, struggling to work out our salvation while carrying the overwhelming burden of human nature. Apart from the wondrous grace of God, we would have no opportunity for eternal life.
Why stay?
We may ask ourselves, if the believers down through the ages were plagued with such behavior, why belong to the community of God’s chosen people? Why not go off on our own and work out our probation without belonging to the community?
There is a compelling and scriptural answer. It is the Lord’s design that we are part of a community, the body of Christ, the congregation of God’s chosen ones. Why did God choose this vehicle, this mechanism for us to work within? Because it develops us and provides us with the training ground in which to become rulers of the world to come. It is where we get the rough edges rubbed off, where we bear long with spiritually and physically suffering souls. It is where we have to face the consequences of our social or spiritual conduct and attempt to “overcome” the forces of the flesh within a diverse group of people.
The ecclesia is a melting pot, at times a crucible, an extended family, at vital times a safe harbor in the storm, the body of Christ, the divinely appointed organization of which the Lord, in His wisdom, has designed that we should be a part. It consists of Jew and Gentile, male and female, “master and servant;’ rich and poor, strong and weak, young and old, experienced and novice, troublemaker and peacemaker and on it goes. It is in this mix that the good Lord has designed that we train to become rulers and ministers of the world to come.
And even the Lord Jesus himself found his own small ecclesia to be a big help to him in his trials. Despite all the problems they caused him, the eleven faithful ones were a source of great strength to him so that he would say: “You are those who have stood by me in my trials; and I confer on you, just as my Father has conferred on me, a kingdom….” This was a generously spirited comment as he certainly was looking on the bright side of ecclesial life and not letting all the disappointments overwhelm him.
Perhaps when we despair and feel like leaving, we, too, should look on what our brothers and sisters have done and are doing for us. Just maybe, if we think carefully enough, we’ll realize the consummate wisdom of God in determining that in the days of this mortal struggle, His people should live as a community of called out ones.
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One