McChurch

When Ray Kroc began McDonald's, in one sense it really was nothing new. We have been doing McChurch for almost two thousand years. It didn't take too long for Christianity to become formulaic, assembly line like with real-estate based franchise arrangements. McDonald's is praised for its cleanliness and efficiency or their business model, but rarely for the quality of its food. What about the spiritual food that our churches feed? Did Jesus teach assembly line Christianity — stand up, sit down, kneel or fall over backwards, raise your hands, bow your heads, sing to the music, you pay we pray, and fast-food Happy-Meal sermons with all the nutrition of a cardboard box. Are we uninterested in what Jesus taught? We seem to prefer spiritual junk food (2 Timothy 4:3). Whatever happened to the Christianity of Christ?

Truth about Agape

We all begin our journeys as novices. Even after years, our knowledge is going to be limited. One area is that of biblical Greek. Even most preachers only have a cursory understanding of it. So, when a preacher stands in the pulpit and claims that this or that Greek word means such and such, please forgive him and take it with a grain of salt. For instance, we often hear that agape refers to a special kind of Godly love. That is not necessarily the case. It depends on how the word is used in context. In some cases agape is used to describe some other kind of love. One example is 2 Timothy 4:10 which mentions that Demas left Paul because he loved this present, evil world. So, what ought we to do? Perhaps we need humility that we could be wrong and a willingness to change our opinions.