'TENSIONS IN THE BODY' BY PASTOR GREG ELKAN.

“Churches that preach a _‘Holiness’_ message are legalistic and place women in bondage.”

 "Prosperity’_ Churches are shallow and are mostly carnal.”

 

“Pastors who emphasise _‘Grace’_ in their messages are just telling people to go out and sin as they like.”

“All _Mega Churches_ are business corporations, run primarily for profit and not for the interest of souls.”

You probably must have heard the above aspersions made on various churches (mostly made by members of each group with respect to the others), and you might be wondering which church is now the perfect church.

While the Bible accepts the reality of multiple churches (e.g. Rev 2,3), it still maintains that there’s actually only one CHURCH, which is the collective body of Believers worldwide.

There’s no such thing as an “Independent” church. We are all part of the same Body: the Body of Christ, which is explicitly defined as “THE church” in scripture (Eph 1:22-23; Col 1:24). (A church that forbids interaction with other Believers outside them has already become a CULT). 

We’ll define a church as “Any congregation of people who hold that salvation is attained by the Blood of Jesus AND NOTHING ELSE”. If you know such a group, the fact that they commune with each other differently from your church doesn’t automatically make them evil. 

Each sinner has a message that appeals to them, some are attracted by the message of prosperity while others are convicted by the spectre of Divine Judgment, etc. You cannot catch them all with your one style.

Like we learnt yesterday, there’ll always be satanically commissioned extremes of all the various church groups. There’re ‘Holiness’ churches who  teach sisters will go to hell for putting on trousers (“even if it’s under the skirt”), ‘Prosperity’ churches who milk the members dry for the Pastor’s lavish lifestyle  and ‘Grace’ churches that condone immorality. No matter the kind of church you attend now, there’s another one somewhere twisting the same message to keep people outside of Christ but still in “church”.

Therefore, as Believers and legitimate members of the Body of Christ, we must learn not to help the enemy in bringing down our sister churches. Of course, just as Paul confronted Peter in Gal 2:12-14, we still have the duty to correct each other in love when we see certain excesses, but we mustn’t forget that _“though we are many, we are one Body in Christ”._

AMEN

GREG ELKAN.

More Blessings await you today; you’ll not miss them in Jesus’ Name.