Is Your Church Teaching God's Word?
Hosea 3:6
"My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge."
The priests have ignored the law. And the princes instead of punishing injustice, they practice injustice. The fathers should not be surprised if their daughters become prostitutes, since the fathers have prostituted themselves to idols. These people think they can have God alongside their many idols. Their worship of other interests will indict them, and their foreign gods shall bring about destruction upon them.
So there's no knowledge of God in the land; and there's no vision, or any purpose.
Proverbs 29:18
Without revelation people run wild, but one who follows divine instruction will be happy.
In Israel, during the time of the prophet Hosea, both the priests and the people have rejected knowledge; and justly therefore God rejects them. If I've learned anything from studying the prophets, I've learned that one consistent theme flows through them all. I've learned that not knowing God leads to destruction. And I've learned that "knowing" is more than just about head knowledge. It's knowing in intimacy. It's not visiting the library and cataloging the books, it's about finding God's presence, knowing his heart, and receiving his light. Getting into a relationship with him.
Jesus said they hated the light.
Think about that, try to get into the mind of the priests. Why would they hate God's light? It wasn't for lack of studying the word, or even for a lack of communicating it. But for some reason they shut their eyes to the light. The prophet says they had no heart for it. And so God disowns them. And the sons of the priests would not inherit their place in the priesthood. Not only did they destroy their own souls, but they dragged their children down with them. As God blessed the priests and increased their station, the priesthood abused the word and increased in sin. They enjoyed the sins of the people because they were then obliged to bring an offering to make atonement. The more sins the more sacrifices. And so in this way they abused God's instructions. They didn't teach about holiness and living righteous lives devoted to God, instead they preached about giving to them and maintaining a devotion to the priesthood, giving them what's their due. They focused upon the sacrifices and monopolized the marketplaces. They controlled the animal husbandry hustle. They managed the goods and services of the farming culture. They handled the commodities. Everything was touched by them, and all commerce was under their command. They were educated. They were lawyers, accountants, administrators, bureaucrats, and politicians. They spent more time keeping the books than teaching from God's word. The more they increased the more they sinned. You could say they were perfectly without God, ignorant and profane, addicted to idolatry regardless of God and their outward duty to Him. They were greedy for wealth, prestige, advancement, position and power. And the prophet says that God will bring judgments upon them, and that they will be the destruction of both the priests and the people. It's a heavy burden the church carries regarding their responsibilities to the people and the revelation of God's word.
That word of truth is the business of the church. It's not intended that they be about commerce.
Look at your church next time you go to worship and fellowship. Look for the business of the word. What prominence is there word given in the life of the church? How much of the church's resources are devoted to the word and its instruction? Take a close look at the nurture ministry, and the outreach ministry. Are they fully funded and is that teaching and sharing of the word given first place in the church? Has the leadership focused the attention of the people upon those teaching and evangelism ministries, or are the administrations of the church state taking precedence? Where is the main devotion directed towards?
Take a close discerning look around, and ask around about these things. Maybe they've been praying and waiting for you to come along and build up those ministries.
Maybe.
But if you're discerning you'll know if they take it seriously or not. If they aren't currently working to fulfill those ministry missions, try and figure out why. Where is the funding? Is there any funding? Where does the church direct most of its resources? Is the church focused mainly on the spiritual communities, or on the commercial commodities? What is the church business truly?
Not the mission statements. Those "words" aren't worth the paper they're written on if they are not truly backed up by the leadership, the people and the church funds.
Whatever you find out, the lesson of the prophet is this simple, if the word of truth is not the primary business of the church, in both the hearts of the people and the clergy, and if it's not reflected in the church ledgers, God isn't in it.
It's that simple.
It's just a business. A community center at best if God's word isn't first and foremost.