Increasing Faith

Last week, I laid the foundation for looking at how we act as a church and how these actions affect our impact on our world around us.  I call the three most important activities we should engage in, The Tripod of Success.

All of you are familiar with a tripod.  You put your video camera on it, and it is supposed to help compensate for your lack of video skills by keeping things steady.  Now, imagine if you cut off one of the legs, what will happen?  Imagine if you cut off two of the legs, what will happen?  Clearly, without three legs, the tripod is unstable at best.  The tripod is weak and impotent when it comes to its job as a camera stabilizer.

Looking back at last week, here is what we see:

If we look at Acts 2:42-47, we see that they church was engaging the three basic activities, and through that, God was adding to their numbers.  If you boil down these verses, you can see the following three activities:

1. They were devoting themselves to the Apostle’s teaching.
2. They were eating/fellowshipping together daily.
3. They were helping anyone in need.

This week we are going to look at the first leg.  Now I have trouble imagining a ‘Christian’ church in America that does not teach at least some of the Bible.  Some churches add to it, some subtract from it, but most would claim as their basis the Bible.

Most churches I am aware of pride themselves in getting the first leg correct.  Many churches have Sunday School, Sunday Worship, Sunday Night Service, and Wednesday Night Churches.  Throw in a week of revival services now and again, and the opportunity to be devoted to the Apostles teaching is constantly within reach.

And now, with youtube, church’s websites, and other internet services, we can fully immerse ourselves in the teaching of the Bible.  Bible, Bible everywhere.  In fact, thanks to the Bible, a luxury the early church did not have by the way, you can devote yourself to the Apostle’s teaching anytime and anywhere.

So what is the challenge?  What is the church growth challenge?  Honestly, this leg of the tripod is the most sound.  Yes, there are variances throughout different churches, but the opportunity for exposure is there.  So what is our challenge?

In college, and in select classes in some churches, I have taken classes on the technique of studying the Bible.  These classes should be constantly in front of the people of Christ for their consumption.  Why are they so important and what are they about? (no need to ask, I ask the questions for you.)  The purpose of these classes, also known as hermeneutics classes, is to study the Bible is such a way that we understand better what the author intended.  In other words, we let the text tell us what should happen in our lives rather than using our lives to decide what the text means.

For example, imagine 2,000 years from now, and the Borg have taken over our world.  They assimilate the internet, and find a on some remote server this blog.  In the blog, I write, “It is raining cats and dogs today.”  Now, 2000 years from now, in whatever Borgian language this translates to, a young Borg may actually start looking up each time it rains, waiting for the cats and dogs to start falling.  Context is everything.  Knowing and understanding the context of Biblical passages is key to understanding the teachings of the Bible.

So that is our challenge for this week, as a people and as the Church.  For the people, learn to study the Bible properly.  For the Church, go beyond teaching the Bible, and teach people to study the Bible properly.

That is all for this week, next week we will look at the second leg.  Until then, Love God, and Love your neighbor.