Freddie Prinze, Sr. was a rising young comedian in the 1970's. He had a hit TV show, Chico and the Man, and his catch-phrase that swept the country was, "Eez not my job, man." It's a phrase that could stand a revival among church leaders.
Years ago there was a news story that came across the radio that I'll never forget. A husband and wife team pastored a church in Chicago. One day they got into a heated debate that escalated to a shooting that left one of them dead. The argument? Who had saved more souls in their ministry! I wish I'd been there to answer the debate. Neither one of them had saved any souls. In fact, there is no church leader in the history of the Christian faith who has ever saved a soul. The salvation of every soul is the exclusive domain of Jesus Christ. And the question, who is saved and who isn't can only be answered by God, himself.
Throughout my years of ministry in Christian congregations there were regular occasions when parents implied that my ministry was not saving their children. The not so subtle pressure was being applied to get me to do something to attract their children into church. It was as if they expected my work to overcome years of poor parental role-modeling and centuries of ineffectual church services. They had the idea that church attendance equalled salvation and if I wasn't going to find some way to manipulate their children into the church building then I was as much as damning them to hell. For the most part, I dodged this popular guilt trip.
I'm not so sure everyone in church leadership has been as successful. Far too often we take it upon ourselves to save people. We carry the burden of seeing to it, by every standard we can measure, that the people in our care make it into heaven. There is so much wrong with that thought process that I can't even begin to dissect it. We stand in fear of the millstone passage in scripture. You know the one, it would be better for the person who misleads one of God's children to have a millstone hung around their neck and be thrown into the water. I agree. Those who mislead, on purpose due to lack of integrity or by ignorance due to lack of listening to God, will face consequences. But this verse is not putting the burden of salvation on our shoulders. Our job is to speak the truth as best we understand it. To speak this truth with great compassion, love, grace and humility. To speak this truth in actions far more often than words. We have an obligation not to manipulate those who are weaker in the faith or struggling with the difficulties of this life.
It is my sincere hope that the church stop trying to save people. That's a work that's already been done. Wouldn't it be great if we simply served people, opening the door for us to tell them about what's already been done for them? In my fondest dreams I see a world where every time someone, implicitly or explicitly, asks a follower of Christ to save them they get this simple reply, "Eez not my job, man."
2 comments:
Hey - aren't you the guy that says wrestle with the Bible and see what it says? This one sounds like the party line to me. Doesn't Paul say:
1Tim. 4:16 Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers.
Sounds like Paul expects Timothy to do some saving to me!!
Good point! But now we must get into semantics. Christ has already done the saving. By following him we are inviting people into their own wrestling match. I've never believed we should get into shouting matches over who has saved whom. And I'm pretty sure that you don't intend to imply with the quote from 1 Timothy that we contribute to our own salvation, though it could be read that way by some. Just as it's not up to us to bear fruit (it happens by the gift of the Spirit), it's not up to us to save people. Be surrendered into a relationship with Jesus Christ, don't hinder the Spirit's work within you and people will get saved...often in spite of you!
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