Jesus Warned About The Dangers Of Traditions

In vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’ You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men.” And he said to them, “You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition! Thus making void the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. (Mark 7:7-9,13 ESV)

This passage is one of the more severe rebukes Jesus ever delivered. Notice his rebuke isn’t because they don’t worship; instead, he says they worship in vain. And it’s significant that this rebuke was triggered by the seemingly innocent tradition of washing hands. But Jesus said when we hold to the tradition of men, we leave the commandment of God. The word leave comes from the same root word as divorce. Which means, we are separating ourselves from God’s truth in order to embrace our traditions. And by separating ourselves from God’s truth, we are forfeiting His true purposes for us.

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Does The Bible Tell Us To “Go To Church”?

Faithful church attendance is extremely important to many professing Christians. So much so that regularly attending a Sunday church service is commonly viewed as the number one trait of a good Christian. But does the Bible actually tell us to “go to church”? And do the services we’re encouraged to attend actually look like what the Bible reveals about God’s people meeting together?

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Do Christians Have To Sin?

It’s important to understand that we’re not addressing the question, “Have you quit sinning?”. Keeping track of how long it’s been since you last sinned leads to self-focus and a preoccupation with your personal performance. It’s an unhealthy focus and it doesn’t accomplish God’s purposes in our life.

The question we need to answer, is “Have I been set free from the power of sin?”. This will lead us to focus on God Himself, to examine what His word declares about who we are in Christ and what God has accomplished for us through His great salvation.

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Jesus Has Expectations

It’s hard to comprehend the measure of love that motivated Jesus, the Son of God, to leave the glories of heaven, with the purpose of dying a criminal’s cruel death on a cross. Scripture says the love of Christ surpasses knowledge. But, by the power of the Holy Spirit, God wants us to know and even to comprehend this amazing love, and to be rooted and grounded in this love ¹. We cannot over-emphasize the love that Jesus has for us. However, we can, and often do, misinterpret what this love looks like in action.

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Finding God’s Plan

Over the years I’ve had lots of conversations with people who were concerned about figuring out God’s plan for their life. Often, they would be frustrated or even anxious because they weren’t getting answers to their questions. But usually, the things they were so intently focused on were things like, where they should live, what career they should pursue, who they should marry, you know… the natural, physical, temporary things of this life. Jesus said the pagans run after all these things, but believers should seek first the kingdom of God ¹.

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Jesus Commends Patient Endurance

In Revelation chapters 2-3, Jesus writes to seven churches. Several of these churches receive sharp rebukes and a command to repent or suffer serious consequences if they do not. The church at Philadelphia (3:7-13) is one of only two churches that Jesus doesn’t rebuke and call to repent.

In verse 8, Jesus tells these people, I know that you have but little power. This is not a rebuke. Jesus is simply acknowledging their condition. And even though they have little power he goes on to say, yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name.

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God’s Ways Accomplish God’s Goals

When reading through the New Testament it jumps out how passionately the early church engaged in prayer and teaching the word. In the book of Acts, it says they devoted themselves to teaching and to prayer. The word devoted means to persevere, to be constantly diligent and steadfastly attentive to. Prayer and teaching weren’t things they occasionally squeezed in among a variety of other activities. Prayer and teaching were front and center, and they constantly engaged in these spiritual activities.

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Jesus Outlined End Time Events

(A study of Matthew 24:1-14)

While visiting the temple in Jerusalem, Jesus’ disciples pointed out how grand the buildings of the temple were, and Jesus responded that there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down (vs 2). Later, the disciples asked him about the destruction of the temple and what would be the signs of the end (vs 3).

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What They’re Not Telling You About Tithing

While listening to sermons on tithing, I’ve heard preachers say that the way people spend their money is one of the best indicators of their true values, and I believe there’s a lot of truth in this statement. But let’s switch it around and apply this statement to the church instead of the individual. I don’t think anything reveals the true values of the institutional church quite like the way it spends money.

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Open Gatherings Are Now Closed

Every Sunday morning, lots of people head out their door to “go to church”, or as some people put it, to attend a “church service”. The vast majority of these services will have a remarkable similarity, no matter what brand, denomination, or non-denomination the church is. Everyone will sit shoulder-to-shoulder, facing a stage on which a select few people will be actively involved in “ministering” to everyone else. There will probably be a greeting, a time of singing, some form of announcements, a sermon, and possibly an altar call. The style may vary to some degree but the format will be pretty much the same in every church; so much so that you would think there must be some place in the Bible that clearly outlines this particular format that everyone is following. But the reality is that nowhere in the scriptures does the Bible give any kind of support for an order of service at all, much less the particular order of service that most churches follow so religiously.

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