The (True) Church Didn’t Leave You
Recently, I have seen posts on social media that are very similar in their wording. I am not sure if you would call it a true “trend,” but I have seen more than one (without really searching it out), so it at least has some traction.
The posts are from people who used to be part of the Lord’s Church, but have left. The few that I have seen are from those who have left over a couple of different issues, but the one that (from my limited perspective) seems to have the most traction are those who have left over issues pertaining to sexuality. Because the church does not accept either their or a friend’s homosexual or transgender identity, they step away from the Church.
Then, though, they will post something on social media that contains words to this effect: “the church left me.” In other words, because this person no longer has a “home” in the church due to affirming or living out these sexual behaviors, the claim is that the church has left them.
That, simply, is not true. It makes for a nice social media post. It draws a lot of eyes. It gets a lot of “hearts” and reassuring comments. It makes the person feel affirmed in their lifestyle choices.
But it is false. 100 percent false.
The reason it is false is simply this: if a congregation (I’m going to use that term instead of “church” to speak to the local assembly) is teaching New Testament Christianity, then that congregation hasn’t moved at all. Thus, it would be impossible for that congregation to “leave” someone when the congregation has not moved!
What moved? The person’s morality. The person’s ethics and beliefs. The person’s practices. That individual chose to begin to believe that certain things were not sinful. That person made the decision to unmoor from what they had been taught faithfully from the Word of God. That individual moved from the teaching of elders, preachers, and Bible class teachers (and, the vast majority of the time, their own parents).
There is more. The church is the body of Christ. So, if a person is saying that “the church” has left him or her, that individual is actually saying that Jesus has left him or her, too. Why? Because you cannot have a body that is functioning and whole without the Head, and Jesus is the Head of the body, the church (Ephesians 1:20-21).
Read the posts, though, and they will speak glowingly about the love of Jesus and how they are walking with Jesus. To state the matter bluntly, they are not faithfully walking with Jesus, no matter what they might say. If they have left the body, they have tried to sever the body from its Head, which is Jesus. They might be following some false or partial view of Jesus, but they are not following the One Who taught hard things and then left the Comforter, the Holy Spirit, to guide inspired writers into “all truth,” which we call the New Testament.
There might be congregations that leave individuals. In reality, though, those are congregations that, sadly, move on doctrine. They leave behind people who are striving to live a walk of faith true to the Word of God. Those congregations go to the right or to the left, and leave those who have been faithfully taking the path laid out by Jesus in the pages of the New Testament.
The true church does not leave people. People leave the true church. It is sad and it will be eternally tragic. But that is the choice people, blinded by the “god of this world” make to the detriment and peril of their everlasting soul.
May God help us to reach them and “move them back” to the truth of the Gospel.
AUTHOR: Adam Faughn
