Willing to Change?

2 Thessalonians 3:1-3 - Willing to Change?

Paul asked for prayer so that the gospel would go forward quickly and with power and that his team would be delivered from unreasonable and wicked men. I shared in my last post who the unreasonable and wicked men were for Paul, but are those same people still around today? Yes, they are, and they have a major influence on the church. First, we have to understand that in our 21^st century American culture, these are both men and women. In reality, it has always been this way, but in Paul’s culture, women were not as outspoken as they are today.

Like Paul, we face many of the same kinds of people: legalists, lawless, intellectuals, pseudo-intellectuals, etc. Most of these types of people are in our church, and we deal with them on a regular basis. Like the Judaizers in Paul’s day, the traditionalists fight against the gospel going forward. Most of these people would never admit it, but by their attitudes and actions, they do. This is the “we’ve never done it that way before” crowd on steroids. Ministry must stay just as it was 100 years ago. The facilities can never change because Aunt Bertha donated this piece of furniture and it must stay in exactly the same location until the building falls down around it.

The problem with this mindset is that the world outside the church building is changing. The people out there are looking for God. They want to discover what true worship is. They need to understand the concept of ministry. But too often, by our stubborn refusal to adapt our methods we make ourselves irrelevant. Know this: the message never changes – always keep that in mind. It is of the utmost importance. But remember what Paul said: “I have become all things to all people so that I might reach some” (1 Corinthians 9:22). At Mars Hill, he used one of the Athenian’s own idols to proclaim the gospel (Acts 17:23). My point is that we endanger the lost world by stubbornly refusing to change our methods and by refusing to adapt to the culture.

When people see us and think, “I will never fit in,” shouldn’t we be willing to change for the sake of the gospel? If they see our facilities and think the same thoughts? We can dress up our bodies and our buildings – and I think that we should always give God the best of the best – but if we don’t have enough love to make ourselves attractive to the community we want to reach, we are, like Paul said only “sounding brass and tinkling cymbals” (1 Corinthians 13). A lot of noise and no substance. God, help us to be willing to change!