Spring 1994

PREFACE

By: Michael Tao

This time we are going to focus our discussion on church, unfortunately it is not a popular topic. I was baptized in a Baptist church which has a few thousand members, however I did not have a good understanding of the precept of church. This is also very common to many other Christians. It seems many church leaders overlook the teaching of the doctrine of church to their congregation, thus can greatly affect their spiritual growth. This may comes from the panic that once the duties of a church member were taught, many would turn away. However Christ had let many turn away from him (John 6:66). It is a form of compromise to avoid teaching the whole counsel in the Bible because of respect of men. It can also be an element of pride, because we want to see more people show up in our church. But with compromise in the doctrines, we can have church big in size, but the spiritual condition of it is as weak as water. If this is the case, we would rather to have small church that are strong in the spirit and obedient to the Bible teaching. It is ideal to have strong and big churches, however when we are not in the first century and the millennium is yet to come, the reality is that it is very unlikely to have both simultaneously.

"Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine" (2 Tim 4:2), the preacher is not responsible for the decisions his congregation make. The Old Testament prophets were also not responsible for the sinful way that the Jews chose to follow, after the messages of God were given.

Building big churches, build strong churches; but if we cannot have both - chose the latter.