Thoughts from Pastor Toney

In today’s society there is a constant tension about whether you are traditional or contemporary. I guess the big question is really do we reach the people of today with Jesus or not.  We continue to use methods that are outdated but we aren’t willing to change how we reach people. Now before you begin to think that I have completely lost it, I still believe the Bible is the only way to see people saved. What I am talking about is the willingness to change your methods or the way you fish. Jesus calls us to be fisherman and gives us the resources to accomplish our task. I had a conversation the other day about different types of bait that are used or can be used. I mentioned that our churches use electricity and air conditioning, which are new resources. A discussion began with the other party not believing that those were bait. To us we might just think of those things as everyday needs, but the fact is they are new and not as widespread as we think. Another subject that is often covered is what is acceptable to wear to services. This goes from the preacher all the way down to the children. Again my thought is you should be dressed appropriate to your community and environment. See I believe God wants your best, but not just one hour a week. Be who you are because that is whom God made you. You wouldn’t wear a suit and tie in the middle of Africa would you? So to answer my earlier question am I traditional or contemporary? I would say that my theology is traditional in the sense that I believe what the Bible says. My methods are what I would call conditional. I am willing to do whatever it takes to see people come to the saving knowledge of Jesus and follow as one of His disciples. What about you?

As we read the passage in Acts 2: 42-47 we find the model for the churches behavior. We find that the early believers had certain things that they were consistent in doing. They studied the teaching of the apostles, enjoyed the fellowship of the saints, participated in corporate prayer and ate meals together including the Lord’s Supper. God established His welfare system through them as they were moved to sell their assets and divide it among all of those in need. In today’s church I often hear people say comments like we don’t like change or we want to do it the way it has always been done. Statements like that are made but the church doesn’t really believe them it seems. Most congregations might do part of what the early church did, such as study the apostles teachings. After that the change sets in because the rest of it makes us feel very uncomfortable. The modern believer only wants to fellowship with those people that they have something in common with. The modern day version of corporate prayer mostly consists of a prayer service over a prayer list. We don’t really pray expecting God to really do anything. When we eat together it is usually only on special occasions and our idea of taking the Lord’s Supper together is to just be in the same room together. We have no interaction while we are observing the sacrament. Then you come to what I call God’s Welfare System for the modern church. There is not much helping others and certainly no selling of our stuff to help others. We often think that others can take care of themselves and we will just talk about them. When all is done we like to say that we don’t want to change and yet we have gone so far from what the Bible says. Change is something that we can’t avoid; yet we should not change how the Bible described the earlier believers behavior. If we are to obey the Bible we must try to replicate everything the earlier believers did. I am not saying that we have to sell everything we own to be like them; but we must at the very least be willing to sell it all to take care of members of the church if needed. Changing in methods are ok as long as we don’t change what the methods were meant to do.

We find in Acts 5: 1-10 a very interesting story that Dr. Luke under inspiration chose to include in the story of the early church. The church as a whole is growing by leaps and bounds. Many people are showing signs of being moved by compassion as they sell their lands and possessions to take care of all. No doubt pride was setting in for some of our early fathers. Enter a couple by the name of Ananias and Sapphira. They too wanted to help out the cause or did they just want to be noticed. Here in this story we find a couple of different things happen. First, we find that sin crept in and husband and wife conceived a plan in their heart to get the recognition without the complete sacrifice. Often times pride will cause people to do things that ordinarily they may not otherwise do. Sin will more often than not take you further than you had intended on going. The plan was conceived, second the plan had to be carried out. We find this next exchange between Apostle Peter and Ananias to be quick yet a powerful one in testimony. Here I think that we find what Jesus talked about so often, a hypocrite. See they were saying one thing and yet their life was saying something completely different.   Third, like any other sin there are consequences.   Lying in and of itself is a sin, but they made the consequences that much greater when they decided to deceive the church and try to deceive God Himself. Our lives are not that much different than that of this couple. We will often do things or even say things that are completely contrary to what we have done. Our hope is that the people in front of us will never find out the real truth. We think that by closing the door on Sunday morning that God will stay put and what we do during the week will not affect Him. Yet one important concept we can take away from this story is the fact that our personal testimony has a great bearing upon the Church. If we weighed everything in light of this story and the fact that our consequences could be the same as this couple. It would make us think about the questions; who in the world do you think your lying to?