Click here to get this post in PDF

The Church’s Responsibility – Feeding the Sheep, even Public Officials

“So when they had dined, Jesus saith to Simon Peter, ‘Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me more than these?’ He saith unto him, ‘Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee.’ He saith unto him, ‘Feed my lambs.’ ” John 21:15, KJV.

“For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called: But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; and base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are: That no flesh should glory in his presence.”  I Corinthians 1:26-9, KJV.

“Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man. For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ.”  I Corinthians 2:13-6, KJV.

Knowledge is a gift, particularly the special knowledge by the Holy Spirit of Christ, e.g., His salvation, and the things of God. When one is not saved, it is difficult to distinguish between what is in your own fleshly mind and what is from God. After God graciously grants salvation and its accompanying enlightenment to a person, it is easier to distinguish what we invent in our mind from His knowledge.

We know that true knowledge of God is a gift from Him because people can actually look at the beauties and glories of the universe, every aspect of which screams out His being and personality, yet not see His handiwork.  See Psalm 19:1-5.  Without the Holy Spirit, man’s fleshly mind fights to escape the knowledge of God and the responsibility and guilt man associates with Him. Though it is natural for the sinful man, it still takes hard work to suppress the truth. But sinful man becomes accustomed to it over time. Even though God is good and merciful, man in his sinfulness and blindness sees none of that and suppresses the knowledge of the true God.  See Romans 1:18-23.  Sinful man has legitimate guilt and an illegitimate desire to rule apart from Him. He is self-condemned by both pieces of knowledge. Christ solves both problems.

People fight for knowledge of this world; it can result in greater wealth to have better knowledge than your competitor in business. On another plane of thought, people fight even for spiritual knowledge. A young Christian may envy the knowledge of older Christians. They want something good, but they don’t recognize yet that such knowledge is a gift. Christians may have lower self-esteem because they don’t have the same knowledge as someone else. Or perhaps they are fearful that if they don’t know something, it means they are not saved or they will not obtain a certain benefit such knowledge can bring. Or perhaps they still don’t understand that such knowledge from God is a gift and not something that can be fought for. They merely copy what others know and presume that it is truly knowledge of and from God. Knowledge is the commerce in which courts operate.

Just as salvation is not earned, merely received, so is true knowledge of God. “Let us labour therefore to enter into that rest, . . . .”  Hebrews 4:11a, KJV.  Our flesh is so contrary to the things of God and how they’re received that we have to fight it back to get to that place where we know we’re in a mode of reception and can claim no credit for what is received. Don’t strive for knowledge; read, study, but do not strive.

Striving for knowledge is wearying to the soul, like the preacher in Ecclesiastes recites. “And further, by these, my son, be admonished: of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh.”  Ecclesiastes 12:12, KJV.  People weary of doctrine, even though it is essential to their lives and spiritual safety. Perhaps there is something wrong with how it’s presented. Teaching catechism and creeds is a wonderful thing, but if it is merely fleshly knowledge stored up in the fleshly mind, it is death-dealing. To memorize only is to focus on the letter, which kills. “Who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.”  II Corinthians 3:6, KJV.

Before the Fall, it was no different for Adam and Eve, who were in the Spirit, receiving knowledge from God instead of fighting for it. Then they wanted more than God would give, took from the forbidden tree of the knowledge of good and evil, & life and knowledge became a constant struggle for them. They could have taken from the Tree of Life, a gift from God in the Garden of Eden.

What was the Tree of Life? Or would the question better be phrased “Who is the Tree of Life?” Jesus said, “I am the vine.”  John 15:15a, KJV.  “If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.”  John15:6, KJV.  Only death resides outside Christ. He said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.”  John 14:6a, KJV (emphasis added).  “In him was life; and the life was the light of men.”  John 1:4, KJV.  Christ gives of the Tree of Life.  Revelation 2:7.  Christ is the source of all life.

It would have been an expression of faith in Christ had Adam and Eve eaten from that Tree, a gift of God, instead of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, a source of strife and enmity between God & man & leading to death. The tree of Live would have allowed mankind to continue to receive the blessing of knowledge from God; men and women would have required a great deal of knowledge to fulfill the Dominion Covenant over the earth. It would have taken time and study of the earth and heavens, but the job would have been made more efficient, more productive, using the knowledge given to them by God. Instead, they struggled to bring forth fruit from the earth simply to survive because the ground was cursed. They had thought that they could become gods by defying God. They ended up fighting with the dirt for food. Quite a fall, wasn’t it?

However, that special knowledge of God’s word is apparently a gift for some, like Peter, to whom Jesus gave the charge to “Feed [Christ’s] sheep.” We modern Christians have been rightly taught that the state, as in the civil government, has certain attributes: political, an agency of force, law-enforcing, justice-exacting, public-policy-oriented, worldly, while the church as a separate agency originated & built by Christ is ecclesiastical, theological, teaching, pastoral, an agency of healing & forgiveness, spiritual, other-worldly. These distinctions are fine to a point. But sometimes these boundaries are pressed to the point of logical contradiction regarding the responsibility God has given to each. What does that mean?

Cont’d on next post.