27 October 2022
I tend to view the history of Old Testament Israel as a public demonstration. It's not that God had questions Himself, but that He tested people so that our fallen nature was more clearly revealed. He gave one nation the ideal situation, at least in terms of what human flesh can actually have, and the people could not maintain faith. It's a complex demonstration that is easily oversimplified, but I wanted to emphasize one part of that experience: It's impossible have a morally pure human organization.
You can adhere most strictly to the Covenant regarding issues I raise on this blog, and still be stuck with worldly souls in any community that grows from your faith. Some of them will be in transition, with all the growing pains implied by that, but there will always be a significant number who never get it. That's the meaning of the Parable of Tares. Our Enemy always sows his own crop no matter how hard we try to grow fruits of grace. The answer is not to uproot them all, but to tolerate their presence to some degree because that's simply how things work in this world.
Given my personality and gifts from the Lord, I prefer to operate in rather austere conditions. It's not popular. More than once, people have said or done things to send me the message that I'm not welcome in their church. I've been doing house-church for years, and the numbers have not once risen to double digits. The online community in which I participate is just barely double digits. The people who correspond with me on this blog can be counted on my fingers. I realize I have more readers than that, but you get my point: I know that what I do personally is not for everyone.
And yet, I know just as surely that, if someone knowing what I teach were to invite me to get involved in their existing church, it would be my divine duty to be more indulgent than I have been in my private faith. My job would include being able to assess the things they could handle and be fully aware of what would choke them. It's not that I would imagine they were less elite than me, but that my calling is not theirs. My strictness is not superiority; it's just different. I don't delight in lording it over others. Rather, I have no reason to live in this world if I can't help rescue and guard the sheep.
I am not blind to my own ongoing failures. There are character flaws I will never be able to change in this life. That doesn't keep me from trying, but I'm self-cynical enough to realize that this life is simply not conducive to moral purity. God doesn't measure performance, but looks for a desire to please Him.
One of the biggest failures of western culture is the tendency to think faith leaders are morally superior, or that they ought to be. It's too easy to push merit-based promotion outside the limits of what it can do. Elders are not superior; they are simply chosen by God for that mission, just as the others are chosen for their missions. Leadership is not some presumed natural progression; we are not the US military with career progression tracks and everyone is presumed a leader in training. Leadership is just one service. We desperately need people who are talented in other services.
Is it possible to promote the idea that genuine holiness and purity can mean different things for people with other kinds of talents? This is what Paul meant when he said that people with differing gifts of the Spirit will be driven to excellence in their own sphere:
For through the grace given to me I say to every man among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think; but to think so as to have sound judgment, as God has allotted to each a measure of faith. For just as we have many members in one body and all the members do not have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. And since we have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let each exercise them accordingly: if prophecy, according to the proportion of his faith; if service, in his serving; or he who teaches, in his teaching; or he who exhorts, in his exhortation; he who gives, with liberality; he who leads, with diligence; he who shows mercy, with cheerfulness. (Romans 12:3-8 NASB 1977)
I'd like to recommend this post from Roosh. Yes, it's quite long. He belongs to a branch of the Orthodox church, so it's dressed in that clothing, but shows a strength we could all use. While he writes about learning how to assess women for marriage, it is shot through with strong lessons of faith that can carry us a lot of other places, too.
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