To Church or not to Church?

Warning

Now before I start on my rant, I want to give a fair warning.

#1 I am not a pastor, and I am not an elder

#2 I don’t think I am better than anyone.

                              #3 while I am disappointed with certain pastor’s decisions, I still respect them.

Not being a Pastor/Elder I know my position, I am just a partaker, a peon, a churchgoer…

And I realize their decision to “ church or not church” is a difficult choice.

However, the opinion I am about to give will not come softly,

It will not come sugar-coated or in a way that attempts to play both sides of the argument.

I will give it vehemently and unapologetically.

Again, while I am disheartened by pastors that I adore, with them either playing both sides or standing for the side I’m about to rant against, I do not disown them or think that they are heretics, I just disagree on this issue.

As for “Pastors” like Beth Moore, TD Jakes, Paula White, Kenneth Copeland, Benny Hinn and any other dumb blind goat of your ilk. I do not respect you, and you are heretics….may the LORD silence your voices. 

Warning

Hello again readers, now that my warning is out of the way its time to release the bull on the proverbial china shop of topics.. “To Church or not to Church”! Yes, I am going there! By this topic, I am not necessarily talking about; “should I go to church if I’m sick?” “Should I go if I have such and such going on?” 

NOPE, what I am referring to is the decision of some Pastors/Elders deciding to close the church in their area because of the “coronavirus” that is going around. I totally disagree with doing so! Yessir, let's make that clear off the bat, I don’t think closing church because of a virus is a good reaction, and I am certainly going to explain why right after I attack the horrendous use of scripture that some pastors are choosing to sight as their reason for closing the church doors. As I stated in my warning, some pastors I adore and love are choosing to cherry-pick this verse and I honestly believe its gross negligence, in my opinion, its like a blind deaf dumb pig trampling a horde of truffles, in this case, the truffle being sacred scripture. 

What verse are they bringing up you ask? Good old Romans 13… the “submission to Authorities” text. Because the Government is declaring no groups of 10 or more should be gathered together, again because of a “flu”…Pastors/Elders all over the country have gotten together and decided to close the church doors and certain pastors have decided to quote Romans 13 as their reason. What does Romans 13 say you ask? Well, let's take a look…

Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.² Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. ³ For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, ⁴ for he is God's servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer.⁵ Therefore one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God's wrath but also for the sake of conscience. ⁶ For because of this you also pay taxes, for the authorities are ministers of God, attending to this very thing. ⁷ Pay to all what is owed to them: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed.”- Romans 13:1-7

Certainly a wonderful text on the Sovereignty of our God. Without a doubt it is about submitting to authority, specifically governing authorities, it is pretty straight forward and specific. But as with all scripture, we have to take it within context, and I don’t think scripture ever contradicts itself. For example, I could say; 

“ Well…what Paul means is we should submit to all authority if it’s Christian” 

but that would be ME taking the scripture out of context! because who is Paul writing to? Romans… in the disciple's time and the time of the writing, there was no “Governmental authority” that was Christian. actually, it was the total opposite…the disciples were actually told to stop preaching by the governmental authority of the time. Do you see where I am going with this yet? Do realize if Romans 13 means what these pastors are using it to mean I.E we shutdown our churches because the government tells us to…that makes the disciple hypocrites. I mean I don’t ever remember any of the disciples ever deciding 

“Hey, guys…the governmental authorities said we should stop preaching/gathering, we should listen to them” or is that flying over your head? Let's try this then…

Remember the Roman Emporer Nero, ring any bells? Thousands of Christians slain under his reign, he wanted them silenced…did they forsake meeting together? Stop preaching because the authority at the time threatened them with death? It seems Christians of Nero’s time didn’t “submit to authority” if Romans 13 means what these pastors of today think it means. Still not good enough for you?

How about William Tyndale…Remember him? Martyred for doing what the authority of the time told him not to do… translating the bible into English. You wouldn’t even have the bible in English if reformers like him didn’t go against the authorities of their era. You could cherry-pick other Reformers who were martyred for the faith going against the authorities of the time, not recent enough for you?

Did you know there are countries that persecute Christians today? Places like North Korea parts of China and other Asian countries/Middle eastern where their governmental authorities will put them in prison for meeting together and worshipping…. if not kill them? You have people literally risking their lives to meet together and worship God, and here in America, we close our churches because of the flu? 

The examples I’ve given can only mean one thing. Either A. The Disciples themselves, the martyr’s from Nero’s time, Tyndale and the Reformers, Asian/middle eastern followers of Christ today are all foolish and hypocrites of Romans 13or B. the pastors today quoting Romans 13 are out of touch and Romans 13 doesn’t mean what they think it means. I don’t know about you…but I am going to have to strongly suggest that it is B…the answer is freaking B! 

I would assume this would just be common sense, but again this is lacking even in our Christian circles…APPARENTLY. Romans 13 is not a good verse to use as an excuse to close your church doors. If you want to close your church doors, suit yourself, I’m sure it’s not an easy decision….however, don’t misquote scripture in doing so. Because surely the verse is not making the case that if the government tells you to shut down your church and not to worship Christ that it is ok to listen to such authority, GOD FORBID! We should never forsake meeting together because the government said so, and for heaven sakes certainly not because of a flu… come on PEOPLE! You are giving the government too much power over you. I can just imagine Christ getting ready to go minister to a crowd and stop himself and ask his disciples “Wait…hey guys…you think anyone in the crowd has the flu? We shouldn’t gather too many…” I guess that is what was meant in Matthew 5 where it says “seeing the crowds, he went to the mountains” he must have known somebody had the flu in the crowd.

What happened to us church? We are supposed to be a support system, a family, a place of refuge from the world…the idiotic culture itself! And we are going to close our doors? At the very least if you are worried about the elderly, can we not get those of us who are younger and not sick to gather together to….I don’t know….help the elderly shop so they don’t have to go out? Go and, I don’t know…have small groups spend time with them? Instead, we are going to just close the doors…do a stream on Sunday so people can watch at home? I thought it was important for us to be together? Don’t you highly encourage church attendance and not stream watching? But yet now things have changed because of a flu? Because the GOVERNEMENT says so? Shame on you.. specifically the pastors trying to use Romans 13 as their reason…SHAME  ON YOU!

Don’t take what I am saying out of context either, this doesn’t mean that if you are sick or have some health condition that I am saying you can’t miss church, I am specifically talking about choosing to shut down the whole church to everyone because either the government says so or because your afraid someone MIGHT be sick. I also can imagine there are some churches staying open for the wrong reason too…it’s not like the church doesn’t have bills to pay, so I am sure there are churches who are choosing to not close their doors and it only has to do with needing to make money…definitely a wrong motive to stay open. On the same token, I understand the church does have bills to pay and so choosing to close can be a very difficult decision to make financially, again not a reason to stay open…I am just saying I get that churches are going to face hardship. My prayer even though I disagree with the decision, is for God to continue to work through the Pastor/Elders who have decided to close their doors, through their sermons and time of reopening. For I have been blessed by some of those who have decided to close, and I know you are genuine believers good and faithful to our LORD Jesus, however in this specific situation…I believe your flesh is showing.[1]

“And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, 

25 not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another,(unless of course, you have the flu).”- Hebrews 10:24-25

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