If you've grown up in the church, it seems you're likely to have one of two reactions to her current state: 1) You're disillusioned with her call and the reality of how that call is or isn't lived out or 2) you're excited about a new trend or vision you see developing and pulling away from the old.
I've long bemoaned that my Biblical Studies major did not allow me time to delve into church history. Besides what one is forced to hear in local and world history classes, I have been woefully ignorant of the narrative of the church. A friend recently recommended a sermon series taught by a pastor—Tommy Nelson of Denton Bible Church—on church history. They're engaging, a great overview, and allow one to decide where to begin exploring on a deeper level.
One thing becomes clear as one glances over the timeline of persecution, hypocrisy, and revivals—God rarely, if ever, works the same way twice. The people He saves, the methods He uses are often as unique as snowflakes. Once the church latches on to a custom or person—as did Israel in the book of Judges—she becomes imprisoned again to the world, the flesh, and the devil; she becomes a mockery for the outsiders (Romans 2:24). It's as if the method, the program, the idea becomes (or maybe just the pride at mastering it) an idol.
It still is true, is it not? Maybe the reason organizations, stores, programs, and churches fail, close, and die are because they have become the idol that blocks the face of God from the perishing.
History illustrates another point: what God uses to awaken the church, to save the lost—is often not without error. He may use the person, may use the program, but without bringing everything back to Scripture, that very tool of salvation, if you will, may become the stumbling block for generations to come.
This can mean 1) that you shouldn't throw out the good with the bad. I had a teacher who went so far as to state emphatically that Augustine was not saved. Yet he was one of the first to emphasize salvation by grace alone. We can learn truth, as it lines up with the Bible, even from one that we may strongly disagree with on minor issues.
2) This also means that you should never follow a person or a system with absolute loyalty. Just as your political party may betray your trust by applauding a position for which you oppose, a teacher, a writer, a denomination can ignorantly or craftily weave in distortions of the truth.
If Paul, one of the first great theologians, commended the Bereans for searching the Scriptures to make sure what he taught was the truth, we must all the more guard our hearts lest our favourite preachers, our pride in a theological label lead us down a divisive road that will distract, not only us from glorifying God, but others from finding Him.
...let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the Founder and Perfecter of our faith....Consider Him who endured from sinners such hostility against Himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. ~Hebrews 12:1-4You and I have been created and raised up "for such a time as this." Let us run well to the end.
(You can download the thirteen sessions on church history here.)
