I hold a rather unpopular view of today’s church and in no way do I imply that all are in this bucket. In my opinion, today’s churches are not a construct from the Word of God, but a construct from the minds of men and what they believe should occur. It appears men cannot separate evangelism from gathering of the saints to worship, pray, sing etc., and the two are very different. I have asked this before and never get a biblically supported answer. Jesus, the disciples, or apostles, never mixed the two. Why do men?scottae316 wrote:Real Christians gather together worship, pray, sing songs of praise and worship. Where does Jesus, Peter, Paul, or any apostle tell us to go to “church”?
If the “church” you go to fits this definition, great. If not, if it’s more interested in building projects, numbers for the sake of numbers, reputation, best preacher, most interesting sermons, youth programs, or anything else that is the number one priority or emphasis then why go there?
One cannot “go” to Church as you put it. Church is not a place. It is a body of believers that can gather or assemble. If we follow the definition of Church as the body of Christ of which He is the head and we are the many members fitly framed we can understand this as we are His body and we gather together wherever that may be, whether in a large building or someone’s house like Aprilla and Priscilla had.
Men have mingled and mixed and completely banged up what the body of Christ is about. They put darkness and schisms in His body. Pastors week after week trying to save saints of God with alter calls of all things. When you look at it from a biblical viewpoint it is nothing short of discouraging and sad.
Evangelism is mixed with fellowship and everything else under the sun is allowed to “gather” with the saints of God like adultery, debauchery, drunkenness, sexual perversion and greed among all. Greed is probably the largest of all attributes of many of the churches of today. How can we look at it knowing what Jesus taught and not cringe?
If Jesus, Paul, Stephen or other men of God were to attempt to enter many of the churches of today, they would not be allowed to partake and would be quickly ushered out. I suppose we should not be surprised.