COME OUT

COME OUT

This is part of an exhortation from the apostle Paul found in his second letter to the church in Corinth. "Wherefore come out from among unbelievers, and separate yourselves says the Lord. Don't touch their filthy things, and I will welcome you." (2 Cor 6:17) Corinth was a very wicked city, and believers naturally had to come out of that wicked culture in order to become followers of Jesus. This is still true today, some 20 centuries later, because our culture is probably no better now than it was then. It seems that secular humanism, and a post-modernism philosophy, mixed with various Eastern Religions, and so-called New Age thought, give us a very dangerous religious mixture.

Besides all this, today we have "church structures", that are not scriptural, that Paul didn't have to warn people to avoid. Paul was just planting new churches among the Gentiles, and his main opposition came from the Pharisees, a very religious group of Jews, that he had been part of before he met Jesus. These were the same people who opposed Jesus, when He taught about the Kingdom of God. They were threatened by His teaching, because it was completely new and they feared it would put an end to their own religious "kingdom". I suppose we could compare these Pharisees to some of our church denominations today, who have become very Liberal in their theology, and deny many basic scriptural truths such as the "virgin birth". So besides having to "come out" of the world and its various "religions" mentioned above, today any serious seeker after truth must also "come out" of certain religious church structures! This is not an easy thing to face, because many people have been brought up in these church structures, and have never known anything different. They don't realize how far their particular denomination has changed from God's plan of what the true "Church" that Jesus said He would build looks like. The Greek word first used as church in (Matt 16:18)is [ecclesia] which means "called out", and was used in the Greek culture to identify a "governmental assembly". This is what the Church we see in the book of Acts was meant to be, a colony of the Kingdom of God, functioning on earth, to prepare followers of Jesus for their eternal role as the bride/wife of the Son of God. (Rev 21:9-10)

Thousands of people are now leaving churches because they have not found the love and acceptance they expected from reading (Acts 2:42-47), which is our first picture of a NT church. Thank God, He is raising up a new breed of followers of Jesus in this hour. Have you met any of them yet? They are forming networks such as "House 2 House", or "Organic Church", where like minded people can find fellowship with Jesus and each other in small house gatherings. Check them out,if you are interested, it could be the answer to your frustrations!
Sincerely submitted.
Dave Jamer