Oprah Wants to Kill White People with Alaskan Wolves (or something like that)

Every day, I check Facebook and Twitter, and on my newsfeed or among the trending topics are the controversies du jour.

One day, President Obama says "Michael and I" in a speech, thus "proving" (to some bloggers, at least) that he is, in fact, homosexual and Michelle is really a man named Michael (not that a very tired man misread a teleprompter at a minor state function.)

Another day, a Christian Mets player uses the outdated term "lifestyle" while trying to answer questions respectfully about how he feels about a homosexual activist visiting spring training, and thus revealing (to those who want to be angry) that he is really a hateful homophobe (not that these reporters already know his beliefs and are trying to entrap him).

This never-ending back-and-forth game we play is turning us into a country of what the Bible calls fools.

Two stories I saw in the last week are prime examples...

Judges 7 Moment in America?

I was reading the story of Gideon to my kids the other day, and it reminded me of the American church. 

The story is really amazing every time.  Gideon is about to face a coalition of the armies of several Midianite tribes.  His army of 32,000 men seems smallish already and woefully ill-equipped for this mission.

But God doesn't say they have too few; He says they have too many.  So Gideon invites everyone who is afraid to leave.  You can imagine how a couple of people left sort of sheepishly, until more and more decided to go, and then it hit a tipping point where it seemed everyone was going to leave.  When everyone had made their choice, 22,000 men had deserted, and only 10,000 remained. 

Now the army seemed really small, but God still said it was too many.  He had Gideon watch the men drink from the river, and everyone who got down on their knees and put their face in the water was sent away.  Well, that seemed to be the normal way to drink from a river in that time, because 9,700
men drank from their knees and were sent home.  Only 300 men remained.

What did these men have in common?  What does it have to do with the American church?

Treating the "Unpresentable" with Modesty

"...those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, 23 and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, 24 while our presentable parts need no special treatment..." -- 1 Corinthians 12:22-24

 

The phrase that jumped out to me when I read this section recently was "the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty."  What is Paul talking about here?  In our human bodies, he is obviously talking about those parts that are indecent to expose to the public.  But how does that relate to the Body of Christ? 

 

I think the "unpresentable" here are those situations and people that are not (or not yet) "presentable" to the world for one reason or another, yet are so important to the life of the church.  For example, we must confess our sins to one another and deal with sin, but these things must be carefully protected within the Body.  There are also immature Christians who are sinful and rough around the edges, but if a church has no immature Christians, then no one is being reached.  These are not "presentable" parts of the life of the Body, but they are "indispensable."  We cannot pretend these parts do not exist or try to force them out.  Instead, although we're not ashamed of them, we know it is not proper to expose these to anyone and everyone.  Instead, we lovingly shelter these treasured and indispensable parts so that they can serve their purpose in the Body.