Romans 16:16-20
All the churches of Christ send greetings.
17 I urge you, brothers and sisters, to watch out for those who cause divisions and put obstacles in your way that are contrary to the teaching you have learned. Keep away from them. 18 For such people are not serving our Lord Christ, but their own appetites. By smooth talk and flattery they deceive the minds of naive people. 19 Everyone has heard about your obedience, so I rejoice because of you; but I want you to be wise about what is good, and innocent about what is evil.
20 The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet.The grace of our Lord Jesus be with you.
There is a 20 year old girl in our Bible Study that just got saved out of a really rough life. It is exciting to see because she actually is transformed as opposed to all the people on drugs in my office that I pray with and get "saved" then ask me for more "Roxys or Hydros". When I read Paul's letter to this church, I think of a church full of people like her. First of all, they have to be all new believers because the gospel is new. It recently happened. By definition everyone has to be new believers. There could be no one in the church like me - 60 years old and saved when I was 5. That can be a good thing. New believers like her are fired up. She took my wife and I upstairs to see her "war room" - a prayer closet with pictures of people and Bible verses. I don't have one of those. No wonder the early church was so vibrant and powerful. Unfortunately it can also be bad in that everyone is "naïve" (vs.18) . She doesn't know her Bible yet. I, as I teach Sunday School and cover like Gal. 4 where it talks about Sarah, Hagar, Isaac, Ishmael, and Abraham, I have to realize that she has probably never even heard of those people. She also would probably believe everything I say, too, which is a scary thought. And then I think of my human nature and I think, wouldn't it be awesome to have a following of about 30 people like her who think I know everything and are hanging on every word I say. What a feeling of power, importance, etc.(If you are a woman and reading this, you probably don't relate to that at all but the need for significance is deeply wired inside men. Thus, all the warnings to the early church are about men) I often wonder how these churches so quickly believed false doctrine and this is probably why - they were young innocent naïve believers who were seen as prey for men who needed to feel important.
What is Paul's warning to this church? What would be my warning to this young girl? Get wisdom - be wise. How? The people who aren't so new in the faith need to take the young believers under their wings and teach them. They need to learn the Bible in a hurry so that when they hear wrong teaching, something won't give them peace about it. The goal of growth being eventually, hopefully soon, God will enable them to just trample these teachings of Satan.
Lord, bring young believers into my path that I can disciple and also so their exuberance and zeal and passion can reignite my fire for You. Amen
No comments:
Post a Comment