GIFTS TO THE LOCAL CHURCH

Locusts and Honey

1 Cor. 2:13

2023-Edition 12

The title to this edition of Locusts and Honey might suggest that the topic is about the ministries and the gifts.  However, I am not discussing that important topic.  Instead, I am addressing a much simpler question which is simply “How can I contribute to my local church?”  Because of theology, circumstances or simply age, your local church may have small interest in the abilities that God has given to you as giftings to the Body of Christ.  Circumstances, such as health, age or other conditions, may practically limit your ability to walk effectively in your gifts and ministries.  In some cases, God in his great generosity allows you transcend your physical limitations.  For instance, Moses began his most productive period of life between the years 80 and 120. 

 

For those of us dealing with health and age issues we may even find it difficult to regularly attend church after a serious health event or disability.  Now that I am nearing 80, I encounter some of the limitations which were not present when I was younger or in better health.  Many years ago I remember President Kennedy’s famous statement that we should, “Not ask what our country can do for us but what we can do for our country.”  That statement was a great statement that captured the very best concepts of our country at the time.  From it was born the Peace Corps and other efforts made by citizens to make our country and the world a better place.  It engendered an optimism that is sadly lacking in our country today.  The counter-part to Kennedy’s question is what can we give to the church today especially if we are battling issues of health and age.

 

First, there seems to me a big difference between what Christ gives to me and what He demands of me than what the church gives to me and demands from me.  Perhaps there should be no difference.  I am not sure.  However, let me first address the question as a Christian.  Christ gives to me all and demands all.  I will not deal with this theologically.  However Christ gives me salvation, eternal life and joy.  Christ grants to me His Spirit.  At the same time, he demands all including my life, my goals, my desires, my loves and my all.

 

The local church, however, is a different proposition.  It gives me a place to go on Sunday morning, a place to teach and to be taught, an opportunity for worship with those of like minds, a place to be ministered to by the gifts of the Spirit (for those who might be so fortunate) and a regular place for Christian religious services which can take a variety of forms.  There is also an opportunity to come into contact with others for like-minded prayer.  These blessings are not inconsiderable.  Unfortunately, for many of us (including myself on many occasions) we can be satisfied with a place to go on most Sundays with corporate worship for 30 or 40 minutes and the occasional fellowship dinner along with other aged outcasts of the modern church.  We experience a few public prayers and move on with life.  Also, unfortunately we seem to get out of this local experience about what we put into it which is very little.   Church, instead of being satisfying fresh and hot bread, becomes stale bread which barely keeps us alive, but even if stale, is better than no bread at all.

 

However, in this edition, we will gloss over what our local church does for us and consider what it is that we can do for our local church.  Again, some of your ministries or gifts may not be wanted by your local church.    For instance, if your gift involves tongues or interpretation of tongues, it may not be particularly welcome if, for instance,  you are attending a Baptist or Church of Christ Church.  Likewise, if it is in the music area and you are aging and your voice is cracking, your gift of praise may not be particularly welcome either by your choir director or your church.  So the practical issue is what can I give my church in the event that my spiritual gifts are neither appreciated or wanted and I have disabilities due to age or health.  There are still some VERY VALUABLE contributions which you can make:

 

·        Loyalty.  I can speak positively about where I go locally and about other churches and Christianity in general.  This is a characteristic which we can learn to emulate from our Jewish friends.  Generally, Jewish people make it a custom, so far as possible, not to speak poorly of others of their own faith.    They do this for a number of practical reasons including from their experiences of being a persecuted people.  Persecution helps us to resolve our differences and stand against those who persecute us.  This is also a situation we find in war where people with differences put them aside and depend upon one another to defend against a common enemy.  Differences between races or religion are put aide when you are in a fox hole fighting an enemy.  So speak positively about your local body of Christ.  Faithfulness and loyalty is welcomed by local churches.

·        Money.  I am not getting into whether or how much to give.  However, whatever you are led to give to the church, you are welcome to give.  I have been in a number of situations where my spiritual gifts or teachings or opinions have not been welcome, but never once in my life did any local church which I attended ever tell me to stop giving.  Your money is always welcome and is one of the things that you can give despite age or health.

·        Words of Encouragement.  Just like being positive, words of encouragement are always welcome.

·        Praise.  Within certain parameters, praise and worship is normally welcome and I can praise God at my church.  That being said, in certain churches I may need to leave my tambourine at home.  Alternatively, I can look around and find a church where they like tambourines.

·        Helping the needy.  Jesus said we are to take care of the widow and the orphan.  He also said we are to feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty and clothe those without clothing.  I am happy to report that most churches do agree with these admonitions and are happy for me to participate in local or international ministries which take these actions.

·        Praying for others.  Most churches are happy for me to pray for the leadership of the church and to pray for others within the church as long as such is done in a good spirit.  This is even more true if my prayers are quiet ones.

 

In all these ways, I can give back to the church even though I have the disadvantages of age or disability.  As I have thought about the ability to contribute to my local church, I have recently come across a surprising way that I can contribute.

 

As a teacher in Christ’s church, I am very aware of the value and power of words.  This is even more true for those of us who come from a background of positively confessing the word of God in our prayers and over our problems.  We know the value of “speaking the word of faith.”  However, we are less enchanted about the virtues of keeping silent.  From our generally Protestant backgrounds we look askance at Catholic orders where they take a vow of silence.  Unfortunately, we ignore the virtues of silence today.  Solomon would suggest that there is a time to speak and a time to be silent.

 

Recently, I was reading a church covenant from the first non-Catholic church in the Mississippi Territory.  My ancestors were part of  this particular church.  The church in the Mississippi Territory was  called Salem Church (not to be confused with the Salem Church in New England known for their focus upon the witch trials).  This early Christian church which met in the early 1790’s just outside of Nachez Ms. had the following in their church covenant:

 

“Not to expose the infirmities of each other by any means where it can be carefully avoided.”

 

A “church covenant” is like an agreement regarding beliefs or actions among the members of the congregation.  The covenant to keep things among church members confidential is almost similar to our more carnal statement:  “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.”

 

The admonition to “keep secrets” is understandable.  In the Salem Church, if it got out you were not Catholic, the Spanish Commandant sent soldiers to arrest you.  This actually happened to the pastor or that young church.  From a Christian point of view keeping your mouth shut and being silent is also important especially since we are commanded to “confess our sins one to another.”  Confession of sin is a part of our Christian beliefs.  To our Catholic friends this is done to a priest.  In the church today, confession is generally a forgotten command .  Who wants to confess their sins to other Christian believers and have those sins rebroadcast to a world with itchy ears.  This has become even more true in recent years with the ascent of social media. Something which might be confessed in church might quickly find itself in the social media including Twitter, Facebook and the like.

 

The value of silence regarding sins confessed in church is attested to by the willingness of priests to go to jail rather than to break the secrets of the confessional.  We often find similar vows of silence within the Legal and Medical professions.  Attorneys are generally forbidden to reveal the secrets of their clients.  However, there are generally some exceptions, such as to prevent the commission of a crime.  The point is that silence can be a great virtue.  All of that being said, we cannot use silence as an excuse to hide sin including the sins of sexual predation.  Thus we are always walking a tightrope between keeping secrets and at the same time preventing those who do evil from continuing their evil practices.

 

Some of us in our old age, do not see or hear too well.  Although, this appears to be a disability, in the church it does not necessarily need to be a disability.  We need to have dim eyesight so we do not see the flaws of those around us.  We do not need to see every action or hear every word.  Solomon said:  “Don’t pay attention to every word people say, or you may hear your servant cursing you.”  (Eccl. 7:21).  We need to have both selective hearing and selective speaking in the church.  We should not hear the complaints of everyone, join in criticism of everyone, or speak every word which comes into our mind.  Today, in social media, people are bold to “call out” every short-coming of others.  Their boldness comes because they can do so while hiding behind the cowardliness of anonymity.  We as Christians should not say everything that comes to our minds.  We do not become the anonymous judges anointed by our reader count on social media.

 

At any rate, even those of us who have our limitations, can contribute to the “stew of the Church.”  We have the right to contribute to the church our silence, our forgiveness and our love which hopefully will cause the food of the church to be welcome and nourishing to those involved.  As it says in 1 Peter 4:8, OUR LOVE CAN COVER A MULTITUDE OF SINS.  Our silence can do the same thing.  After all without wood, a fire will soon go out.

 

 

LIES AND DECEIT IN THE MEDIA

 

LIES, DECEIT AND THE DEMISE OF TRUTH IN THE UNITED STATES

We are far along in the process of devolving into that of what we used to call a “third world country.”  As our country has rejected God and spiraled downward into sheer materialism and self-centeredness, we have rejected the concepts of absolutes such as God, truth, the Ten Commandments and other concepts which have distinguished us from the animal world.  In fact, our science has concluded that we are just highly advanced animals and without a soul.  As we have rejected God, it is hardly surprising that He has rejected us, our government and our culture.  Truth has gone out the window.  There are no absolutes.  Diogenes, the Greek philosopher, who sought truth would need to go elsewhere.  Not only have we abandoned truth, absolutes and man as higher than the beasts, we have also abandoned basic concepts of sexuality.  At first it began with the abandonment of the concept of marriage of a man and woman but then it even extended to the very concepts of what is a man and what is a woman.  Now we have men claiming to be women participating in women’s sports.  We have women who want to be men and men who want to be women.  I submit that the basis of our society and our country is fragmenting because we have rejected God and we have rejected his Word and even the basic concepts of truth.  (See further Romans 1:8-32).

 

Nowhere is the rejection of truth more apparent than in our news media be it on the television or internet.  People no longer trust the news and why should they?  My comments about the corruption of the News Media are not limited to one political party.  It is not just one political party which lies.  It is both.  Liberals do not have a monopoly on lying.  Like all infections, lies corrupt everything they touch.  I have been following the litigation brought by Dominion against Fox News.  It is incredible to me that Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson have admitted such things that they knew that the claims of the election being stolen and the fraudulent claims of defective voting machines by Dominion were “incorrect” and “total bs” but Fox was concerned that its viewer ratings were dropping precipitously due to Fox’s early call of the Arizona election.

 

Amazingly, Carlson’s attorneys as well as Judges in New York and Delaware have openly admitted that even though these commentators knew that what was being said was not true, the nature of their telecasts were entertainment and that reasonable people would not conclude that they were factual.  Au contraire, I know numerous “reasonable people” who believed that these conservative commentators and their guests were telling the “truth.”

 

Dominion’s suit for 1.6 billion against Fox will continue in Superior Court of the State of Delaware.  I can summarize the conclusions from these factual scenarios succinctly.  You can’t believe what is said by a political commentator and they generally will not be held liable for making incorrect statements.  In short, you cannot trust the media.

 

Besides that, the media often reflects the views of its owners.  And some owners own a whole lot of the media.  For instance, Rupert Murdoch and his family control such media as :

 

The Wall Street Journal

Fox News

Fox Sports

HarperCollins publishing (Including the Christian publisher Zondervan)

New York Post

Barron’s

Dow Jones

National Geographic Chanel

20th Century Fox

The Sun (British)

The Times (British)

And many more.

 

In improving the bottom lines of Murdoch’s media he increased the emphasis of his media on crime, scandal, sex and sports.  It was a formula which worked and made him very rich.

 

Lack of trust in the media is not a new phenomenon.  Deceit is as old as the Serpent in the Garden of Eden who deceived Eve and Adam.

 

Deceit in the media is as old as man himself.  Julius Caesar is thought to have used his accounts of the Gallic Wars to influence the people of Rome.  Nero used deceit to blame the Christians for the fire in Rome which some suspect to have been set by himself and his henchmen.  In the Second World War, Goebbels used false information to deceive the German people into following Hitler and supporting the war movement.   As the master of propaganda, Goebbels said:  “If you repeat a lie often enough it becomes accepted as the truth. “   He also said, “Think of the press as a great keyboard on which the government can play.” Russia used false information and news to deceive the Russian people. It is beyond ironic that the name of the official organ of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was “Pravda” which is the Russian word for “truth.”  All countries claim to have a monopoly on truth even while disputing as to whether the truth really exists.  For instance in the U.S., the motto of the Defense Information School is “Strength through Truth.”  Do we still believe in an absolute truth in the U.S. ?

 

The use of propaganda is not an exclusive domain of the Nazi’s and the Soviets.  The use of inaccurate journalism has been utilized by our country as well.  One of the more strange incidents is that in 1782 Benjamin Franklin produced a fake issue of a Boston newspaper.  The primary story in it was a fictitious story that American soldiers had found bags of money and scalps along with a letter to the King of England asking that he accept the scalps as a token of friendship.  This “fake news” enhanced hostility against both English and Indians.

 

By the end of the nineteenth century the growth of “Yellow Journalism” was in full flower with the competition between Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World and the New York Journal owned by William Randolph Hearst.  Te term “yellow journalism” generally referred to news articles with little factual research and catchy headlines.  The movie Citizen Kane released in 1941 was based on a character Charles Foster Kane who was a combination of William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer.  The “yellow journalism” of Pulitzer and Hearst are often thought to have been a major cause of the Spanish American War.  The result of “yellow journalism” apparently is not education—but vast wealth.  It is no accident that the fictional Kane lived in a mansion called “Xanadu” which was based upon a line from Samuel Coleridge’s famous poem “Kubla Khan” which went “In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure- dome decree.”

 

My point is that “fake news” is not a recent phenomenon.  It is an old phenomenon but now has gone viral thanks to social media and the computer where it can be spread instantaneously and often anonymously or through fake identities.  “Fake news” has always been here but the difference is the speed by which it can be spread.  From the accounts of the Kennedy Assassination to the coverage of COVID-19, we no longer trust the media to tell us the truth.  Political commentaries are political theater which our courts have treated as reliable as articles in The National Inquirer.

 

But what does all of this have to Jesus Christ?  Jesus said:  “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6).  Do we as a nation believe this?

 

Some other verses Jesus said about the truth:

 

John 8:32—And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

 

John 8:44—“You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires.  He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him.  When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.”

 

Unfortunately our country has thrown out the concept of an absolute truth because that truth ultimately is Jesus Christ.  Like Pilate, our leaders ask “What is truth?”  Absolutes such as the 10 Commandments have been abolished from the public forum.  Meanwhile, lies prosper in our society because we have rejected Truth.

 

In our rejection of Christ and the truth, we put our society upon sinking sand.  In lieu of the truth of the Good News of the Gospel we have embraced the false news of the media.  Where there is no absolute truth how can there ever be a defense to what is libel because without truth there can be no libel in the first place and further truth is not available to be a defense against libel.

 

Also, we no longer expect our leaders and political authorities to tell us the truth.  Their defense, for better or worse, is the protection of freedom of speech in the First Amendment.  So in the important things, such as news and government, there is little penalty for telling lies.  Likewise police authorities are permitted to lie in order to get someone to confess to a crime.  They can make claims of evidence which they do not have.  In short, our police authorities are exempt from telling the truth and often do not do so with impunity.  If those in authority are exempt from the truth, it is no wonder that truth is ultimately becoming a rare commodity in our marketplace and in our country.  Economically, the line between advertising and false advertising is quickly disappearing.  Again, if there is no truth, how can anything be false.

 

If there is no truth, how is it possible not to bear false witness against our neighbor as prohibited by the Ninth of the Ten Commandments.  If there is no truth then there is no false witness and no lying, but Jesus, to the contrary, makes clear that Satan is the “father of lies”.  Lies are the language of this fallen world.

 

In another context, we look to truth in our oaths.  We take oaths of government and oaths before we testify.  If there is no truth how can one expect there to be a penalty for taking a false oath.  Our country depends upon oaths and pledges and underlying all of this is the basic concept of truth.  Even our Presidents take an oath of office as do members of our military.

 

If we throw out absolutes, including truth, we will reap a whirlwind of our own making, 

 

As for me and my household, we choose to believe that there are absolutes.  And we absolutely believe that Jesus is the truth.  Like you, we want to be the salt in this tasteless world.  I encourage you to speak the truth in love.  As Christians, we must speak truth, I am trying to do so in these editions of Locusts and Honey.  As Jesus said in so many instances in his ministry, “I tell you truly….”