Offending For Doctrine

While working on Sunday’s text from the Gospel of John, especially reading John 6:60-71, and after doing some research on the new fad of being missional as it is being labeled, some preliminary thoughts have come to mind. These are not necessarily to be included in Sunday’s sermon, nor are these in any particular order. Stay tuned for more on this topic in a later blog.

Interestingly enough, I would suggest that, again we see in Holy Scripture the importance of doctrine even over outreach (cf. The Children of Israel entering the promised land, wiping out the people, not being missional to them, and Elijah and the prophets of Baal, when Elijah mocked and killed the enemies of God, not being missional to them), or as some say today, confession over being missional. Of course, any good farmer will tell you that if you do not have good seed you will not have a good crop.

Jesus seems to be more interested in the truth of His teaching, even if others take offense (notice the difference between giving and taking offense) He is determined to not back down from the hard teachings, even if this means losing some, which seems to be happening. Perhaps a good lesson for us today, especially for those “Christian” churches that acquiesce to the culture for the sake of reaching out with the word of God, or those churches that seek to be relevant, or those who seek to meet the felt needs of the people (of course here we could go on a side track and be reminded how Jesus always dealt with real needs, forgiveness, before dealing with so called felt needs), for those churches who want to have “hip” and “with it” worship because that is what people want. Perhaps we would do well to follow Jesus’ example and continue with the hard teachings, not giving in to popular culture, teaching how our divine service is a reflection and flows out of what we believe, teach and confess.

Remember, God never said to be successful, whatever that means (actually it is only used in a military context and when God gives the victory) but we are to be faithful! Just some thoughts.