After reading Ephesians 4:1-7 I want to rant on what a healthy church is...
1. A healthy church is one that is filled with men and women who at the end of the day see scripture as the final authority on all things.
Let me tell you why its healthy when we do that, and why its dysfunctional when we don’t.
Everyone, even the most secular pagan, operates under authority. Most of the time, it’s the “authority is what I think”. So what you think and you decide is authoritative?! Which means it governs your actions in your life. "I think I should do this, I’m ultimate."
Now, I believe that the scriptures are that authoritative piece.
Let me explain why if a church doesn’t have the scriptures as the final authoritative piece, your going to get dysfunction. Something has to sit there as ultimate, if its not the scriptures, all of the other options are easily flawed.
Here’s some examples; You, Me, as the ultimate authority? Hah!
You ever look back on when you were in your 20’s? I wish I could travel back 10 years and find myself and sayd, "Barry, don't do this", "Don't make this decision", "You are a moron"! Could it be that 5 years, 10 years from now, you’ll look back and see that your reasoning was flawed. So why would you ever think your opinion was ultimate?
Do we let culture set authority for us? Absolutely not, culture even looks back on itself with disdain. Watch how people talk about the 80’s now. The greed that was there. Somebody should have intervened on the fashion part of it for sure. Parachute pants, peg leg jeans, etc... All of that is now looked at with disdain. So you can’t let culture dictate authority.
So anytime you DO NOT set scripture as the ultimate authority on all things, you set yourself up in a trajectory that’s going to end badly. Because you’ve entrusted life and action to fools.
