You can’t be a body without members. For a body to function properly, you need arms and legs, hands and feet, fingers and toes, a nose, ears, lips, a mouth, eyes, a tongue, and everything else combined to make a body complete. No single member is more important than the integrity of the whole body. If a finger becomes necrotic, you remove the finger. If a toe, you remove the toe. Whatever poses a danger to the well-being of the entire body must be removed if it cannot be healed, rehabilitated, and brought back into full functionality. Given enough time to spread, an infected member is an existential danger to the whole body.
That said, you can’t go around hacking off fingers because
you didn’t like the hair on the knuckles. The finger was perfectly healthy and
functional, doing its assigned duties; you just didn’t like the aesthetic of
it.
In order to determine whether a member is necrotic and in
need of removal or just a tad different than what you would prefer in a member,
you must diagnose it and use the Bible to determine the truth of it. It’s not
up to personal opinion; it’s not up to a denomination whether something should
be deemed a sin; it’s up to the Bible, and the Bible has the final say.
My brother Sergiu has a goofy third toe. By goofy, I mean
it’s about half an inch longer than all his other toes, and it’s different
enough that it stands out. Even though his foot looks different because of the
uncommon length of the toe, never once has it crossed his mind to hack off his
toe or his foot. Why? Because the toe isn’t bad, it’s not diseased, it’s not
necrotic, it’s just different. The toe does not threaten the viability of the
body, nor does it hinder the functionality thereof. It’s just a big toe. Sure,
people notice, but it is what it is.
The Word of God must determine whether a member is just
different, marching to the beat of his own drum but overall harmless and absent
malice or ill intent, or if they are in rebellion and need to be set aside for
the wellbeing of the body.
We’re too quick with the cleaver and too slow with the balm,
and we’ve managed to create ever smaller niches within Christendom akin to
warring factions. Just as a house divided against itself cannot stand, neither
can a body. Imagine your feet wanting to go one way and your torso the other.
Imagine you trying to scratch an itch on your upper lip, and your finger pokes
you in the eye instead. Eventually, because you’re afraid of what your body
might do, you just end up sitting on your hands and doing nothing. And voila,
there you have the modern-day church.
What’s the cause of all this? Glad you asked. The answer is
staring us in the face, but to admit to the reality of what it implies is too
earth-shattering to contemplate. The body is off-kilter, divided, and wholly
unfocused because it is no longer subservient to the head.
If the body is functioning properly, it takes all its orders
from the head and does nothing outside what it is instructed to do. When the
head determines that the body should move forward, the body moves forward. When
it determines that it should turn right, it will turn right.
Even those of you who slept through Bible study class should
know who the head of the church is. Well done: the head of the church is
Christ. Now, if a church is chasing every wind of doctrine, running to and fro
without focus or direction, you know that somewhere along the way, it’s lost
its head, and just like a chicken after a run-in with the chopping block, it’s
running around bleeding all over the place, but is already dead.
Although it’s not my intent to sound mean-spirited, the
reality of the situation is too evident to ignore. Whole churches, even whole
denominations, are already dead; they just haven’t gotten the message yet. The
body is still performing macabre acrobatics, but it’s just an illusion, sort of
like when a cadaver releases gasses, and everyone thinks uncle Tom came back
from the dead. Jesus hasn’t been their head for a long time, and without His
guidance and direction, they pursued all manner of things that lead to
ruination, justifying their actions by their not having been struck deaf, dumb
and blind. That would have been light punishment. Far worse is to be left to your
heart's desire because once it comes to its final iteration and the
metamorphosis is complete, most would have wished for deafness, dumbness, and
blindness.
We can lie to ourselves, and we can even find others to lie
to us and reassure us that the church is doing great, the devil’s on the run,
and all that awaits is the victory lap, but at this juncture, it would mean not
believing your own eyes, senses, and the reality of all that surrounds you and
taking place within Christendom. Yes, I know; you’re waging war in the
heavenlies and doing it from a barstool and half in the bag, no less.
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