One of the great things about seeking to manifest the reign of Christ is that there is always plenty to do. Firemen, ambulance drivers, soldiers and forest rangers, on a good day, find themselves with precious little to do. And then, when the work comes, it comes with all the intensity of a raging fire, a train wreck, or a war. We on the other hand work six days, and we rest one. There is always more to do, and, by His grace, not resting that one day is not an option.
Given the grand smorgasbord of work set before us, though, how are we to choose what we will put on our plates? There are dainties and delicacies, and rib-sticking starchies, all put there for His glory. You can see the cornucopia simply by thinking through all the parachurch ministries we are familiar with. Some believe that what we need to do is to protect the legal rights of Christians against incursions by the state. Thus the ACLJ fills its belly fighting for graduation prayers and town square crèches. Others believe that what we need is to change the world by witnessing, crusading on campuses across this land. Heck, my point could be made simply by looking at all the parachurch subsidiaries of that parachurch holding company Cru. They deal with students and professors. They have a division for helping families, and another for teenagers. They work with medical professionals, and business executives. If Madison Avenue has a demographic, Bill built a ministry.
Truth be told, some parachurch ministries are a royal waste of time. That is, they are royal in that they at least seek to honor the king, but are a waste of time in that their work does precious little to advance His cause. Making sure Christians don’t get fired for not working on the Sabbath, for instance, doesn’t protect the Lord’s Day for the Lord, but gives all authority to the state. Making sure Christians can “pray” at graduation just keeps more kingdom kids in the hands of Moloch’s priests. Keeping “Under God” in a blasphemous prayer won’t do us much good either. These are not merely spam balls on the buffet, but bovine substance.
The real conundrum comes, however, when choosing among the goods. There are few things more needful in our day, in my estimation, than that the people of God would learn what the Bible teaches. Except perhaps that more would learn that it is God’s Word in the first place, or that more would become the people of God. On the political side we yet live in a land where most states sanction, and mothers and doctors perform, hundreds of thousands of murders a year. Meanwhile, back on the importance of teaching theology, the man oft-described as “America’s pastor” is unable to distinguish the Lord God almighty from that lying pretender Allah in a police line-up.
We have twitter wars over 3000 year old sins and subtle nuances of the relationships within the trinity. Bickering over these things via the internet is as sensible as trying to bind with silly string. It’s just plain silly. When the silly string won’t work, our solution is seems to be to lobby others to come and use silly string on our enemy.
We don’t live on bread alone, but strife alone. If you are right, rejoice. If you are wrong repent. But seek always the wisdom of Solomon who told us, Go, eat your bread in joy, and drink your wine with a merry heart, for God has already approved what you do.”
