Shepherding souls has always been difficult. I should know. I was once a wayward sheep. Yet the shepherd didn’t give up on me. He used the grace of the local church – the flock – to keep me close to himself, the shepherd. And this is the picture of the entire Bible. Across both testaments, God has used his unique called-out people to provide protection and direction to individuals. A church, then, is not a collection of individuals, but instead represents a together kind of people. Peter says we are being built into a house (1 Pet 2:5). And there is protection in this group that covenants together (Prov. 11:14).
A Hard Sell
Yet this kind of together shepherding has fallen on hard times in the United States. We prefer our individuality over accountability. We don’t like the idea of authority. That sounds too oppressive. The notion that someone else should have – in love – the keys to say hard but necessary things to us for our spiritual good seems to transgress our sense of autonomy. And church membership? That’s just a bridge too far in an age wary of institutions. Somewhere between our own day and the time John Huss allowed himself – for the sake of God’s kingdom – to be burned at the stake while he sang Psalms, we lost the virtue of sacrifice. How did this come about? And how are we to reach our neighbors who, like us, are tempted to view church in a consumeristic way? The first step is to understand the times, and how we got here.
In his profound book A Secular Age, Charles Taylor put his finger on the feeling of our day when he pointed to “expressive individualism.” The expressivism that has come to mark the west, and particularly the United States, was fueled by a desire to project authenticity: to be one’s “true self.”[1] Think of any recent political cycle. On numerous occasions candidates were praised for “being real” or “being a ‘what you see is what you get’ person.” Taylor wrote, “But it is only in the era after the Second World War, that this ethic of authenticity begins to shape the outlook of society in general. Expressions like ‘do your own thing’ become current; a beer commercial of the early 70s enjoined us to ‘be yourselves in the world of today’. A simplified expressivism infiltrates everywhere. Therapies multiply which promise to help you find yourself, realize yourself, release your true self, and so on.” In short, the cardinal sin of our age is doing anything that might hinder a person’s process of “being their true selves.” Certainly, we all have heard the encouragement, “you do you!”
This logic has even seeped into Supreme Court opinions, undergirding the majority finding in Planned Parenthood v. Casey,[2] which made the following incredibly religious claim: “At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.” Did you catch that? As early as 1992, the Supreme Court opined that true liberty is being able to define your own existence. If this is not unbridled self-ism, made possible by a philosophy that has no room for a Lord, nothing is! Furthermore, our culture has come to call anything that makes us feel uncomfortable or non-affirming “trauma.” Sociologists Lukianoff and Haidt have observed of the rising generation that “it was not for anyone else to decide what counted as trauma, bullying, or abuse; if it felt like that to you, trust your feelings. If a person reported that an event was traumatic (or bullying or abusive), his or her subjective assessment was increasingly taken as sufficient evidence.”[3] This has prompted our culture to define “love” as something radically different from the biblical notion.[4] To love someone now means “affirming their every desire and action, full stop.” Anything less is unloving, judgmental, and even “harmful.”
Have you considered how this makes evangelism all the more difficult? Or what about our responsibility to protect one another from spiritual danger? Have you considered what eventually happens to the church when her people are slow-cooked in a culture like the one Charles Taylor describes? I have to ask myself: have I been influenced by this understanding of myself that is preached all around me? In the church, we constantly wrestle with the temptation to be formed and influenced by our age. But the Scriptures instruct us not to be “conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect” (Rom 12:2). In light of this, what role should the church play in shepherding me? Has God given the church a responsibility over me for my spiritual good? Did God intend the church to be merely an optional helper to my largely “personal relationship” with Jesus? Or has God given the church the keys (Matt 16:19) to my life? And should I submit to the sharpening influence of others for my own spiritual benefit? To answer these questions, let’s look to God’s dealings with his people over time.
God’s People and Protection in the Old Testament
In the Old Testament, God set up structures of authority that were meant for the protection of the people. While they may at first seem to limit the freedom of the people, these limitations were always instead for their flourishing, not their harm. Let’s give a brief survey of them.
- In the Garden, God gave a command not to eat the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Far from squelching Adam and Eve’s freedom, this restriction was intended to safeguard their flourishing as image-bearers of God who enjoyed relationship with Him. Adam and Eve were like trains: most free when “confined” to the tracks.
- For the Israelites, God gave the Law. While these rules may seem to us to be burdensome, they maintained relationship with God. By following the Law, the people could enjoy God’s blessing. So even the Law was for their flourishing!
- God gave the Israelite people a kingship. Though they sinfully clamored for a king “like the nations” (1 Sam 8:20), God accommodated their weakness by allowing them to have a king. These kings were a shadow of the true-and-better king who would come in Christ. Thus, the kingship, as a picture of God’s messiah, was for the people’s flourishing.
- The temple structure provided access to God. However, only the high priest could enter the Most Holy Place on the Day of Atonement to offer sacrifice for the people’s sins. While this temple and its rules are certainly a system of authority, it still provided a way for the people to be made right with God and to have their sins forgiven. Again, this authority structure was for the flourishing of God’s people.
The New Testament Church – What’s It For?
By the time we get to the New Testament, we should be primed and ready to expect God to give us another structure of authority that is intended for our good. The church serves in just this way.
1) By having a biblical church membership, we are made aware of which people we are responsible to care for and who God is raising up to lead us (Acts 6; 1 Cor 5-6). But much like a hand separated from the arm, separation from the church body causes believers to wither and die, spiritually.
2) By baptizing believers, the church makes a public statement of who is on Jesus’s team. The believer is baptized in the presence of the church (under its authority) so that the church can know who to encourage and nurture in the Lord.
3) By observing the Lord’s Supper rightly, the church reminds its members to reconcile with one another and to examine themselves before partaking (Matt 5:24; 1 Cor 11).
4) By gathering regularly, and covenanting not to be apart for long without joining another church family, the church encourages one another to press on through hardship and prosperity alike (Heb 10:24-25).
5) By lovingly addressing unrepentant sin with one another, the church seeks to pursue wayward sheep, inviting them to return to Jesus and protecting them from the eventual outcome of unrepentance: eternal, spiritual death in a literal place called Hell (Matt 18; Gal 5:19-21; Heb 10:26-27; Heb 12:14; Jas 5:19-20; 1 Jn 1:5-6; Jude 22-23).
The Catch
In order to enjoy the benefits of the protective community of believers that is the Church, we must be willing to submit ourselves to its loving authority. Yes, reading those words may chafe our modern sensibilities. Yes, simply speaking the word “membership” in a context other than that of gyms and country clubs may grate against our preferences. And yes, the church is messy. It is full of sinners, is led by sinners (of whom I am the chief), and its ministry will be carried out imperfectly. But in God’s wisdom and kindness, this is the structure he has seen fit to give to us for our spiritual flourishing.
In an age of unbridled individualism, joining a church and giving yourself to her people is an act of rebellion against the spirit of the age. To commit to a church is to reject individualism as a guiding principle in our lives.[5] But in view of the Bible, this seems right and good, since God has given us a group of people for our good: the local church. Can I invite you to search for deeper communion with God not simply in your personal Bible Study, Christian music, and podcasts? Those things are good and helpful. But can I invite you to explore what God has for your spiritual good through the grace of giving yourself more and more to a loving community of believers? The church is not a plan that God has for our spiritual good. It is the plan. And he will be faithful to it! So let’s ask God to give us an even higher view of the local church, to love it more deeply, and to invite our neighbors into it as well.
**This post was originally a Big Idea article written for the benefit of Trenton Baptist Church. It has been posted here for a broader readership.
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[1] Charles Taylor, A Secular Age, Cambridge, MA: Belknap, 2018, 475. [2] Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, 505 U.S. 883, 851 (1992), https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/505/833. [3] Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt, The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure (New York, NY: Penguin, 2019), 75. [4] See D. A. Carson, The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2000). [5] Jonathan Leeman, The Church and the Surprising Offense of God’s Love: Reintroducing the Doctrines of Church Membership and Discipline (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2010), 63. Leeman has defined individualism as a “hatred of authority.”