"Most Christian leaders would have us believe that current state of the institutional church is of “divine design” – that God prefers today’s intellectual-social Christianity over the Holy Spirit-empowered and Spirit-guided church with miracles, signs, and wonders that existed in the First Century. By comparison, Christianity of the New Testament was passionate, grew through discipleship, and depended on the manifest presence of God and the Holy Spirit’s leadership, whereas today’s institutional Christianity is academic, bureaucratic, and intellectual. In First Century Christianity, Christian leaders were empowered by the Holy Spirit and thus tended to impart spiritual gifts upon those whom they mentored, while today’s Christian leaders are intellectuals and thus tend to impart intellect alone upon those whom they mentor.
In institutional Christianity, Christian leaders are measured not by their spiritual endowment (as was once seen throughout the New Testament) but by their education, their intellectual prowess, and their ability to articulate their knowledge.
Jesus and His apostles taught that miracles through faith and the power and gifts of the Holy Spirit were the approval of God (Hebrews 2:4) and that those who strive to know God through their intellectual prowess are fools. But today, just the opposite is true. It is a complete reversal of fortune. The wise and educated have once again stolen center stage, claiming that they who believe in miracles or practice spiritual gifts are fools. They claim that God has simply changed His mind. He now requires an education, and He is not in the least bit interested in the spiritual gifts – the kind for which Christ was known, the kind that He bestowed upon those who followed Him. Even so, every Christian who truly loves God knows in his heart that the cold and powerless form of Christianity practiced in our Western institutional churches is not what God intended. They just don’t understand, nor can they explain, why Christianity has changed. They rationalize that it is a change in culture, that the Western culture is intellectual and affluent, so Christianity has simply adapted to a new audience. But in the midst of all the rationalization and compromise, the voice of the Holy Spirit is whispering ever so softly to the church to return to true Christianity which places Jesus as the king.
Most Christians .. are comfortable with the institutional church and how little it requires of them. They value comfort and pleasure over the discipleship of the past. So instead of insisting that Christianity stay true to its heritage, they simply rationalize away their birthright of power for the bean soup of contemporary academia."
3 comments:
This is so poignant a post that I still have it up - I've been reading it and re-reading it... Oh for the days of Holy Spirit leadership rather than intellectualism! I love the part where every member of the church had to rely on the Holy Spirit to tell them about meetings coz it was too dangerous to announce them. Would persecution in our part of the world force the intellectualism out the window?
OH yeah ! thanks Robert;
Yeah, there is no life in intellectualism, at best, all that can be imparted is knowledge that puffs one up; but certainly not spiritual life.
WE desperately have need of His life flowing in us, it's our hope that He would live boldly in us amid our lack of understanding ... I mean really, so many times we just do not know what we think we know. Trials come and prove this to be true. It's a priviledge to share His life with others. We can really only impart to others to the degree that we ourselves have partaken of Him, His life, His hope, when it comes to spiritual life.
Yes I do think persecution will definitely cause the church to rely on the Holy Spirit rather than their own abilities, programs, doctrines, traditions all of that stuff.
God is good in all things!
I have to say that I think it is ungrateful to insist that one of God's greatest gifts is practically worthless. Nor do I agree that miracles are the most reliable sign of God's favor or a good indicator of a person's holiness...since miracles are easily faked, and also since we often have no idea why God does what He does. I also disagree that the greatest problem for the church is intellectualism; rather, I would argue that it is the opposite.
But...in certain circles I think you are correct. Words and theology have replaced a true experience of God, and that is the death of faith as it is hollowed out on the inside.
Stumbled across this on Google, by the way.
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