Good teaching

 

Sitting in what I call my study, in reality a corner of the kitchen table, I heard a thump and realising there were no cries of anguish from other quarters, I assumed all was well. I then resumed my work and after a few minutes the lady of the house came into my “office” and engaged in conversation. As we were speaking there was another thump as if something had slipped over in a cupboard and again, realising nothing seemed to appear amiss, we carried on talking. We did, however, wonder what the mystery of the thumps was.  Next day, on leaving the home, we had the sad answer to our mysterious bumps; there are on
the ground was a dead gold finch and just a few feet away a dead sparrow. You see both birds had hit the windows in the kitchen. Looking at the windows from outside we could see really clear reflections of the sky, the trees and shrubs. I guess the birds were happily flying about and what seemed bright and attractive to them was not in fact as good as it appeared, resulting in their sad demise. Of course we have all heard the expression, “if it’s too good to be true, it probably is”. The birds unfortunately found that out the hard way.

Just the other day I was talking with a church minister and in the conversation we got to sharing about some churches that appear to be very ‘successful’ with it all happening on every front and his concern was the depth of teaching and discipling there was. This minister, of a smaller fellowship, based his church on bringing the breathed on Word of God to people, so building his church on the solid foundation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The Apostle Paul tells us that to some it is a stumbling block; maybe they want a more popular message.

It comes back to the birds, and I was thinking, it’s not always the razzamatazz, the bright lights and the attractiveness, but what is real and solid. Yes, we would all like to see more people coming and filling our churches, but not at the expense of sound doctrine and teaching. Read 1 Cor 1:23-24. “……… but we preach Christ crucified ……….”