Love vs. Compromise: Letters from Revelation 2

So while I was on vacation this past week I was reading a really good book called "Why We're Not Emergent (By Two Guys that Should Be)" by Kevin DeYoung and Ted Kluck. I'm not trying to promote the book (even though it's really good) and we can save the emergent discussion for another day (if you're REALLY interested in knowing you can message me on Facebook or email me); I'm just setting the backdrop here. In the very last chapter of the book, Kevin talks about two of the letters written to churches in Revelation (For those of you who didn't know, Revelation isn't all prophesy and all that jazz. The first 3 chapters are letters to seven churches; commending some and scolding others.).

In Rev. 2 there are to churches I'd like to talk about, The Loveless Church (this is what my version of the Bible calls it, it might be different in yours) and The Compromising Church (their real names are Ephesus and Pergamos respectively).

I think the youth of today's generation have a stereotypical viewing of the church as it is in today's America: stifling, dogmatic, anti-fun, and judgemental. These are the things the church in Ephesus (the loveless church) was being condemned for. While they were teaching the correct doctrine, they weren't being loving to their fellow brother or sister in Christ or to the sinners in their area.

Timeout: there was a group of people in the area of Ephesus called the Nicolaitans, who can basically be described as "do-as-you-please" people. They had no moral law or conscience it seemed. Okay...Time-in.

John (the author of Revelation) thanks the Ephesians for not following the ways of the Nicolaitans, which he "also hates" (v. 6 NKJV). But he tells them that they have forgotten their "first love". At first glance this might not strike a chord because it doesn't say out right what their "first love" was. I believe this refers to love in general. In Ephesians 1 (a previous letter written to the church in Ephesus by the Apostle Paul) Paul thanks the church of Ephesus for being loving. But it seems in the years between the letters of Ephesians and John's letter in Revelation that the people have become cold hearted and apathetic to the feelings of others.

I think this is how the youth of my generation sees the church: the doctrine itself is fine, but the way it's delivered is the problem. That it's not a loving message of repentence, but one of judgment and fire and brimstone. I'm not going to say that there isn't a church like that, but I am going to tell you that there are churches that are not like that. The church I attend, Mt Vernon Church, does a good job overall of being loving towards others.

But there is a flipside. When do we become so loving, that we compromise our own beliefs to keep from offending anyone? This is the problem the church in Pergamos.

John's letter tells us that he commends the Pergamos church for being faithful through times of trial (one of their own was martyred, a man by the name of Antipas), but he's got a beef with them also. He says that they have people in their "congregation" who believed in the doctrine of Balaam (in the Old Testament is the story of Balaam and his talking donkey. However if you look more in the OT, you will find Balaam is one of the advisors to the Pharaoh of Egypt and he suggested that the Pharaoh enslave the Jewish people, God's People. A no-no.). Again the Nicolaitans come into play in this letter; this time John is saying that they have followed the way of the Nicolaitans and they need to repent.

Clearly the church at Pergamos took the "love" too far and compromised what they already had been taught by God and His followers.

I hope you got through all this and got something out of it, haha. But if you get one thing out of this post get this: Don't compromise what the Bible tells you to do in order to not offend someone. God would rather them be offended than you disobey Him. God bless you guys, until next time.


~Zach

Entry from a Journal of a Semi-Stressed Christian Teen

The title is basically the intro to this post...basically.

So I was thinking today how hard it is to be a teenager and to still be "on fire" for the Lord. The answer I came up with is "it's really tough". I mean think of all the stuff we have to put up with. All the "popular" kids going out and drinking, getting high, and lounging around smoking cigars; parents trying to steer your life where they want it to go, without really asking prior approval; pressure from church to "do what's right"; if you'll be old enough, who to vote for come November. Craziness out the wazoo (yeah, it's a real word. Google it.) It being summer makes it a lot harder. Now you have 8 more hours to do stuff rather than be in school. You could get a job (as if life isn't stressful enough), you can chill out at home (Xbox and Facebook...can life get better?), you chill with friends (especially if it's Wacky Wednesday and Hungry Howies). Craziness out the wazoo (again). So whats a Christian brother supposed to do?

I've found that because it's summer, I have much more time to do stuff I know I shouldn't do. But I also found that I now have no excuse to not be doing stuff I should do.

God has called all of us to try to live the life He displayed for us in the 30 odd years He was on this earth. He called us to "be Holy, as I am Holy". That's a really tough goal. How do you do it? In Matthew 4, you see Jesus in the desert being tempted by Satan. Satan tempts Jesus with even ruling the world, and Jesus said no. How was He able to do that? If you look in the passage, Jesus always quotes Scripture! "For it is written..." WOOBAM!!! Mental note to self: "Know the Word and what it says about stuff I deal with." Now that I don't have to be waking up at 6 in the morning to go to school, I can spend a whole lot more time in the Word! If you look through out the gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John), Jesus does a lot of going off by Himself and praying. Sure, we can pray wheneve, wherever, however, but there's something about being by yourself and pouring out your worries to God, thanking Him for what He's done in your life. It's awesome.

So...thats the end of this first little entry. I don't even know if anyone's gonna be reading this, but hopefully someone will get something out of it. Hahaha. God bless, peace out.




~Zach

What is it gonna take?

The end of a school year. It's a bittersweet end. Actually its more 90/10 on the sweet side. But whose counting.

The purpose of this post (if anyone actually reads these anymore) is to ask a vital question: WHAT IS GONNA TAKE?

What is gonna take to make a change in Watauga High School? What will make a difference in peoples lives to bring them to Christ?

The answer is God. Duh. But sometimes we need to remind ourselves of that. It's not going to be an individual doing all of the work. Heck, it's not going to be the Crash. As much as we love what we do, we as a group are not going to get people saved. It's God that does that.

So why are we not seeing buttloads of people getting saved? I think it's because we aren't letting God do it. Sure we say we want it. But what is gonna take to make God move in