From the TeachingtheWord Bible Knowledgebase

Part 4 of a 13-part series. Read part 3.

Like Corinth two thousand years ago, today's church is putting up with those who bring in another Jesus, a different spirit, and another gospel.

A Good Start

The church at Corinth two thousand years ago was like much of the Evangelical church in America today. The similarities are really striking.

In the book of Acts chapter 18, we read that the Apostle Paul personally helped establish the church at Corinth. He spent eighteen months with them. And during that time, he instructed and established them in the Word. The Corinthian church had gotten off to a good start.

But not long after Paul left Corinth, other things began to take over. Other things supplanted the authority of the Bible in the church. And the Corinthian church quickly got off-message, and off-mission, and was in deep trouble spiritually.

Living for Christ in an Alien Culture is Not New

Corinth was a commercial crossroads city in the first century. It was a lot like most major cities and even many smaller towns in America today. Every nationality was represented among the people who lived and worked in Corinth. Every language was spoken in Corinth. Every culture was represented. You could find every kind of religion in Corinth. You could find every kind of philosophy in Corinth. And, you could find every kind of immorality in Corinth. The church at Corinth lived in the midst of an alien culture - both geographically and spiritually.

Losing What They Had Gained

But this church that had started out so well, made a terrible mistake with terrible consequences. The church at Corinth became disconnected from the Word of God. It created a spiritual vacuum, and elements of the alien culture rushed into the church to fill that vacuum. The church embraced elements of the worldly philosophies that abounded in Corinth at that time, and it mingled them with Christianity. The results were terrible. It became uncertain of what it believed. It became a church that lost the will and the power to confront evil with the truth.

Soon there was open immorality among the membership, and the church didn't see this as a particular problem. People did not take their marriage vows seriously. People were living in relationships that God's Word condemns.

The church brought worldly practices into its worship, and with those worldly practices came confusion and disorder. People partook of the Lord's Supper in a pagan manner. The church took a pridefully wrong approach to the matter of spiritual gifts. There was preacher worship, factionalism, internal strife, and materialism.

The Corinthian church actually forgot the content of the Gospel message, and they had to learn it all over again.

Sadly, it sounds like many Evangelical churches today.

A Singular Cause

All of these problems resulted from one thing - neglect of the study and preaching of the Scriptures. The words that Paul said to the church at Corinth could well be said to the Evangelical church today: "But I fear, lest somehow, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, so your minds may be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. For if he who comes preaches another Jesus whom we have not preached, or if you receive a different spirit which you have not received, or a different gospel which you have not accepted - you may well put up with it!"

And that is exactly what the church did. There was a takeover in the church at Corinth. The church mingled man's error with God's truth. Neglect of the Word of God created a spiritual vacuum, and the influences of the unbelieving world rushed in to fill that vacuum.

A Singular Solution

So what did Paul do? He did the only thing that can be done, the one thing that must be done: He pointed them back to Scripture. And one by one, the Apostle Paul dealt with their problems, from Scripture. He employed the fourfold use of Scripture that we find in 2nd Timothy 3:16. He called them back to sound doctrine. He reproved them from the Word of God. He corrected them. He instructed them, and pleaded with them and encouraged them to follow the righteous path once again.

And near the end of his first letter to the church at Corinth, Paul summed up his message by saying this in chapter 14 and verse 20: "Do not be children in understanding...but in understanding be mature." Preventing a takeover in the church, or recovering from a takeover once happens, requires spiritual maturity.

Like the Corinthian church, many Evangelical churches in our time have experienced a takeover, often without realizing it or understanding it. A takeover often begins with a change of thinking that forgets these four critical facts from God's Word:

• Fact number 1: Christ is Head of the church, not us.
• Fact number 2: Christ owns His church, not us.
• Fact number 3: Christ has defined His church's purpose. We do not.
• Fact number 4: Christ has defined success. We do not.

Neglecting these truths places the church on a slippery slope. When we think that we own the church, when we remove Christ and His Word from their rightful place, very soon we begin thinking that we must define the church's purpose and do things to make it successful.

And as that becomes our focus, we begin to neglect the Word. Very soon we are defining the terms of success. We begin looking at how the world achieves and measures success. And soon we begin to apply the world's principles and methods to the church. The world's philosophies take the place of the Bible. The world's philosophies become the church's authority. The consequences for the leadership, the church membership, and the lost in our communities are disastrous, just as they were at Corinth.

What Kind of Gold?

Such a church may have many outward appearances of success, but in the ways that really count with God, it will be like the Laodicean church of Revelation 3:14-22. That church "went for the gold" - but it was the perishing gold of this world and its thinking, not the pure gold of God's truth in Christ. The Laodicean church accommodated itself so well to the world that eventually it didn't really stand for anything, at least not anything that mattered to God. It measured its success in terms of its own self-defined purposes, not God's purpose as defined in His Word. Again, the similarities to much of today's Evangelical church are chilling.

What Must We Do?

How can we prevent other things from supplanting the Word of God? How can we recognize the signs that a spiritual takeover has already happened in a church? How can a church recover and remain true to its Christ-ordained purpose? The answer is that the church of Jesus Christ must become, once again, the Scripture-driven church.

The Bible points us to seven key characteristics, seven marks, of a Scripture-driven church. Seven things that characterize the people and leaders of a church that is true to the Word of God. And as we continue this series of questions and answers, we'll look at those seven marks in detail.

Next: What Are the Seven Marks of a Scripture-Driven Church?

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