SHE LEFT HER WATER JAR BEHIND

As I read the history of Christianity is appears to be all about people trying to relate to God and then telling others how to relate to God.  All of these people are sincere but all are simply human beings with thoughts and opinions like all other human beings.  Then these people share their thoughts and opinions, other people agree with them and they form groups around them and churches are created, following their particular rules and doctrines, all of them claiming to be the true one, and end up claiming all the others are wrong.

God was very clear when he gave Moses the commandments the people were to live by.  He was also very clear when he gave Moses directions for the Tabernacle and how people would worship him.  This was a part of the old covenant.  Jesus brought forth a new covenant.  I don’t find clear directions about building a church anywhere in the Scriptures.  Reading John’s revelation about the fulfillment of the kingdom of God, there is no tabernacle, temple, or church.  “And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb” (Revelations 21:22).  What Jesus does share is, “But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him.  God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth” (John 4:23, 24).

So what am I, who claims God as my Father and Jesus as my Lord to do as far as the idea of church is concerned?  What I see going on seems to be what Paul, who is looked to as an expert on building churches, warned people NOT to do.

“I appeal to you by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree, and that there be no divisions among you, that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment.  For it has been reported to me by Chloe’s people that there is quarreling among you.  Each on of you says, ‘I follow Paul’ or ‘I follow Apollos’, or ‘I follow Cephas’, or ‘I follow Christ’.  Is Christ divided?  Was Paul crucified for you?  Or were you baptized in the name of Paul” (I Corinthians 1:10-13)?

I hear the echoes of this in ‘I follow Luther’, ‘I follow Wesley’, ‘I follow Fox’, and ‘I follow the Pope’.

Einstein said that the definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over again and expect different results.  From the beginning of time up until now, people are guilty of doing the two evils that God spoke to Jeremiah, and expect different results.

“For my people have committed two evils;

they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters,

and have hewed out cisterns for themselves,

broken cisterns that hold no water.”

Jeremiah 2:13

When Jesus spoke about true worshippers that God was seeking, he was speaking to a woman who had come to draw water from a well.  He provided her with living water, directly from himself, the fountain of living water; and when she went home she left her water jar behind.