The God-Life Blog: Silas Cherry's Response to "YOU MADE THEM UNCHURCHED"

Jesus always had interesting answers for the questions asked by the Scribes and Pharisees whose intentions were always to either corner or ridicule him and the gospel. Look what he said to them in the story of the adulterous woman:

"Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her."(John 8:7, ESV)

and they all turned around and left.

Can you imagine what would have happened to her if Jesus had said "Let him who is without adultery among you be the first to throw a stone at her."?

This is what makes Christ different from us, instead of saying the same thing as him we choose the latter just to demonstrate our own righteousness.

The Pharisees and Scribes were self-righteous people who thought that they had achieved the fulfilments of their religious lives and did not need Jesus to tell them more but here we see them turn around and leave in shame; an acknowledgement of their guilt and unrighteousness.

What makes them better than us? Instead of dropping the stones, turning around and walking away, we create categories of sins and try to squeeze ourselves into the categories of "smaller sin", "tolerable sin" "different sin" or "better sin" so that we can castigate and condemn the rest but isn't the consequence of every sin the same?

Where did we even get this idea about categorizing sin?

How can we ever forget Romans 3:23-24 - we have all sinned and fallen short of God's glory, are justified freely by grace through the redemption by Christ Jesus?

I think that Jesus continuously calls us to a renewal of our fellowship with him through the lives of these "unchurched" people; our encounters with them should challenge us to be faithful witnesses but it is very easy for us to become self-satisfied or self-righteous in the process that we miss out on this call of faithful witnessing.

As people on this Christian Pilgrimage, comparison denies us the benefits of looking at our own lives through the mirror of God's word, the absence of which makes us unchurch people.

Our tendencies to accept others as part of the body of Christ and saved by his grace (like we all are) can only come when we realize that the words of Jesus "I have come to call sinners" (Luke 5:32) is always directed at us and not the young guy who smokes or drinks, the lady who sleeps around or gossips, the man who steals or kills, the woman who lies or commits adultery, the student who cheats during an examination or the employer who does not pay salaries to his employees.

Weeding out the self-righteousness that lurks within us is so difficult but necessary in preaching this gospel of Christ we profess and believe. The way we can rechurch the unchurched isn't by preaching repentance to them at all times but telling them how God's grace and mercy lifted us from the dirt to a place of fellowship with him; how we also need Jesus everyday of our lives as we try to become holy like him; admit that in our days of rest and unwillingness Jesus gives us strength to yield to his "follow me".

Christianity isn't exactly about the one who is perfect or better than others, Christianity is about the one running the race and helping others who fall rise again or better still, holding their hands and bringing them along; Christianity is about imitating Jesus who although was without sin, forgave the adulterous woman and in his kindness gave her a chance to repent.

Christianity is the culture of Christ.

I‘m really happy that you read to the end and I’d love it more if we build a community of God’s people by sharing lessons we learn as we journey through life with Christ as our anchor. Kindly drop a comment and help build another.

God bless you.

This post was inspired by a blog post written by Tsalla Emmanuel titled “You Made Them Unchurched” . Click here to read: https://tsallaemmanuel.blogspot.com/2019/03/you-made-them-unchurched.html?m=1

To visit her blog post, click here