Letters to the Church: Writer of Hebrews

(This post has been contributed by Arthur)

To the writer of the letter to the Hebrews,

Your name has been lost in antiquity but your letter was never about you. It was always about Christ, our Great High priest. In much the same way as the original recipients of your letter were overjoyed to read of the new replacing the old, the imperfect sacrificial system being fulfilled in Christ, the need for human priests and intercessors done away with, their role fulfilled infinitely better by Christ, countless Christians have also been filled with joy at the completed work of Christ.

Brother, I am writing to you with a heavy heart. I fear that those who have come after you have let the comforts of the world cloud our judgment and deflect our gaze from Christ. The church of Jesus Christ, birthed on a lonely cross and weaned on persecution has become a victim of our own affluence and acceptance.

Today the majority of those who have declared Christ as Lord have sought to replace the Jewish priesthood with a new, equally fallible priesthood of men. We exalt them. We give them vain titles to lift them up. We seek men who are talented and learned to rule over us instead of men who are humble to serve alongside us. For over one thousand years, virtually all of the church was under the dominion of a series of men who declared themselves the “Vicar of Christ”, a special representative of our Lord. These men lived, and still live, in opulence unknown to the world outside of the most privileged few. They arrogantly taught as doctrine the teachings of men. Even after by God’s grace their influence and dominion was largely broken, we have replaced one form of human priesthood with another, replacing “priests” with “clergy”.

We have replaced the ornate religious rituals of the temple with a new set of rituals, rituals devised to show piety and righteousness by those who have no righteousness outside of Christ. Our carefully crafted and elaborate ceremonies would make the sternest Pharisee proud and woe to the believer who strays from the script! We have made laws where none exist and ignored commands when the world frowned.

We have abandoned the simple and humble worship of Christ and sought to build new temples, gleaming edifices full of religious symbols, relics and talismans. We brag of multi-million dollar new building projects to replace existing multi-million dollar buildings. Monologue has replaced mutual edification, the simple shepherd replaced by the CEO, worship that exalts Christ has been replaced by worship that elicits applause.

Brother, I am confident that you have spent these many glorious years with our Savior and have set aside the concerns of this broken world. I long for that marriage feast of the Lamb when we will dine together and this sinful world will have passed away. How I wish the church today would heed the words you wrote so many centuries ago! The hearts of men have not changed much in 2000 years. Men still crave prestige and acclaim, the acclaim of the crowd. Men still desire something, someone tangible to worship and revere.

Letters to the Church: Dear Jude

(The author of this post can be reached by email here).

Dear Jude,

Thank you for your encouragement to earnestly contend for the Faith, from your following statements, it seems you we’re pointing to the fact that because of the ungodly men you spoke about getting in the way, it’s hard to see the forest through the crooked trees. I’ m sure glad that there are examples that we can look to, like you and your brother James. By the way you probably already know this but there is a compilation of scriptural books from before and after our Lord came now all put together they call the Bible. And even though your letter is only one Chapter of it; It‘s a great one Jude.

I hate to say it Jude, but as many victories and advancements that have been made in the Church, she is still very splintered which allows a lot of the corruption you spoke about to continue. Maybe it’s not like Sodom and Gomorrah but I know of sects/denominations that look the other way at known fornication, not even realizing their refusal to correct this is passing on a license to the next generation. And there’s more that is too grievous to even explain here, but many that go by the name of our Lord have given in to the pressure of the world and licensed detestable acts, further confusing true seekers.

I pray we would all awake from our slumber and realize that we will have to give an account for this.

Jude, I know you warned us, but it’s still surprising. The world here seems to be changing with each passing day; all I can say is come quickly Lord Jesus.

The mockers you mentioned often seem to be running things. ( They rule the media it seems)
One more thing Jude; what they call your epistle in verse 23. There is a problem here, maybe you can get a few of the saints up there praying. Not many here even acknowledge much a healthy fear of God, it seems gone from government (and the more liberal Churches) If the more conservative Church brings it up were called haters.

But we know we’ve a job to do even if it’s not popular, I’d rather be hated for telling the truth now and someone was being saved, then to have my Lord ask, ‘why didn’t you tell them?’ I just wish the Church all spoke the same thing. Persecution wouldn’t sting so bad if more of my brothers stood with me. But I thank God that He will build His Church. Again, come quickly Lord Jesus.

Letters to the Church: Century 1 The Beginning

Saints,

I am thinking about starting a series of posts that will appear here from time to time @ the Deliver Detroit Blog. I’m going to call it, "Letters to the Church: Century 1." Here’s what I’m thinking, select an author of one of the NT books, whether they are a Gospel or Epistle, and write them with concern for the current state of the Church, maybe a report or request for advisement, encouragement, or exhortation, or even reverse it, and encourage them, maybe even view it as a report back to those who’ve shed blood for the message we here in America are allowed to claim without facing death. Or use your own creative license and choose the content you would submit. Select from the following,

(Some have been spoken for already, here is a list of the remaining options!)

John-Mark the author of the Gospel of Mark

Luke the Historian

Matthew the Tax Collector

Paul the Apostle

James the Apostle

Peter the Apostle

If you decide to participate that’d be awesome! Please remember to be reverent and consider that this is not meant to be satire or low brow entertainment, but a means of drawing a comparison between then and now. Let me know which one you’ve chosen and a possible timeline for the submission. I hope to start this series soon! I’m encouraged that it will be fruitful and would like to see how others living and being the 21^st century church would write back to the 1^st century church. While there will be joy, I’m almost certain there too will be lament. I’m looking forward to your responses, be it yay or neigh. Contact me with your selection or ideas here as soon as possible, I hope to begin the posting as soon as possible!