Sheep-stealing: “Hey, those were our sheep!”

Since all the sheep belong to Jesus, what’s the real problem?

Sheep-stealing /'ʃip stil.ɪŋ/ vt. Getting a Christian to leave their church and join yours.

[Sheep-stealer /'ʃip stil.ər/ n.]

My sister and I live in the same town. I’m a member of a small church. She’s a member of another, larger church.

When people hear this, sometimes they respond, “Aww. Why don’t you go to the same church? You should be worshiping together.”

Well, sometimes we do. Sometimes I visit her church. Once, she and her family visited mine. Our churches aren’t in competition, y’know. Mine may be in a denomination and hers isn’t, but both churches belong to Jesus: They’re both outposts of God’s kingdom.

Why don’t we go to the same church? Various reasons. Initially it was because I was giving the churches in my denomination a try before settling on one… and this one fit. (Once it wasn’t, so I hung with the Baptists a few years.) If I had to switch churches, I don’t think it’d be too big a stretch to switch to hers, but I fit better here.

And my church lets me minister. Whereas her church already has plenty of ministers. They don’t need me. Don’t need her either. She and her husband used to help in their area of expertise, music. They were eventually told their help wasn’t wanted.

If I were told that, I’d go find someplace I was wanted; but that’s me. I told ’em my church was looking for musicians. Of course my church, being small, would definitely try to rope ’em into ministering every week, and they’d prefer once a month. (That’s what they’re currently doing: They help out at a friend’s church.)

Now, some Christians would definitely take offense at my inviting them to help at my church. They’d see it as “sheep-stealing.” Because my sister and brother-in-law already have a church, already have a shepherd, and how dare I try to swipe them out from underneath their shepherd?

Um… ’cause we all have the one shepherd.

John 10.14-16 KWL

14 “I’m the good shepherd. I know my own, and my own know me,

15 just as my Father knows me, and I know the Father. I prioritize my life for the sheep.

16 I have other sheep who aren’t from this pen. I have to bring them here too.

They’ll hear my voice and become one flock, with one shepherd.”

Churches have shepherds, or pastors; lots of ’em. But all these pastors work for the head of every church, Christ Jesus. And when they’re jealous of one another, or compete with one another, or try to hoard resources which are meant for the whole kingdom and world, it’s wholly inappropriate. So this idea of “sheep-stealing”? Doesn’t come from the bible.

Still, some pastors get downright territorial.

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Is our faith living, or dead?

James 2.14-17.

So now we’re at one of the more controversial passages in Christendom: The notorious “faith without works is dead” bit.

Properly faith is a synonym for trust, and when Christianity talks about faith we mean trusting in God. We figure there’s something of substance holding up our beliefs: God himself. He’s real and reliable, and will do as he said he’d do. It’s not just “faith in faith”—that we imagine what we want, believe really hard, and stuff will happen. That’s how magic is supposed to work, and we all know magic isn’t real. But you’d be surprised how often people think faith works that way. (Or that magic is real.)

Now if faith is based on something solid, it means we should be able to stand on that faith, right? Should be able to act on it. Should be able to do stuff based on our trust in God. If I trust in a stepladder I should have no trouble standing on it; seems kinda stupid if I never use it because I really don’t care to test it. What’s the point of owning a stepladder then?

Same argument James made here: What’s the point of “having faith” if it never comes to anything? If we never use it? Is that even faith?

James 2.14-17 KWL

14 What’s the point, my fellow Christians, when someone says they “have faith,”

yet doesn’t take action? Can “faith” save them?

15 When a Christian brother or sister starts to become needy and go without daily food,

16 and one of you tells them, “Go in peace: I declare you to be warm and full!”

yet doesn’t give them anything useful for their body, what’s the point?

17 This “faith,” when it’s all by itself and takes no action, is dead.

Obviously he answered that question: Nope. Not faith. If it’s fruitless, it’s nekrá kath’ eaftín/“dead by itself.” (I moved the “by itself” to earlier in the sentence.) It’s not just faith without works that’s dead. Faith without anything is dead.

Note this situation James described in his example, where “one of you” tells a needy Christian, “Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled.” Jm 2.16 KJV It’s not a hypothetical situation. It still happens all the time. This is when Christians wish blessings upon one another. “Oh it’s so sad you don’t have a job, but y’know what? I’m gonna declare for you that you will get a job. That my God will supply all your needs according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus. Pp 4.19 KJV You just trust in God now; he will take care of you.” And then, just like every sucky intercessor, that well-wisher does nothing to help God take care of them.

So, this kind of so-called “faith”? Dead.

Yep. Every compassionate-sounding Christian who says, “Aww,” at all the sob stories, yet lifts not a finger to do anything, and all they have are best wishes and warm prayers: Hypocrites with dead faith. Pretending it’s faith—pretending they believe God’ll take care of people—but y’know, we Christians are meant to be how God takes care of his needy. Remember when the first Christians had needy people in Acts? No you don’t, ’cause they didn’t:

Acts 4.32-35 KWL

32 The number of believers were one in thinking and lifestyle.

Not one of their possessions was said to be their own.

Instead, everything of theirs was commonly used.

33 The apostles gave their witness of Master Jesus’s resurrection in great power.

Great grace was upon them all, 34 for they had no needy:

Whoever among them owned land or houses were selling whatever was sellable

35 and placed them at the apostles’ feet. This was passed along to everyone—whoever had need.

When’s the last time someone in your church sold a house and gave the proceeds to the church to help out the needy? When’s the last time you ever heard of a church doing that on a regular basis? Face it: We suck.

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“Who’s in charge of these bloggers?”

Last year was probably the first time someone ever asked me, “Who told you you’re allowed to do that?” It was about me translating the bible, and it was based on a mistaken belief that people can’t do that unless they’ve been authorized by their denomination or something.

And yeah, that might be true in a country which had no freedom of religion. Where the laws require we get clergy permission before we preach, teach, or otherwise minister. And sometimes not even the permission of our clergy, but the state clergy. Doesn’t matter if you’re Shia in Saudi Arabia; the nation is officially Salafi, so don’t upset their clergy ’cause blasphemy still gets you capital punishment. England had the same problem for centuries: In 1660, Bedford Free Church preacher John Bunyan got tossed in jail for 12 years because it was against the law for any church to meet off Church of England grounds. On the upside, he had the time to write The Pilgrim’s Progress; on the downside, Christian schools keep making kids read that book before they’re literate enough to really appreciate it. But I digress.

Hence in the United States, Congress is forbidden from hindering religion. Anybody can proclaim any gospel they want. Unfortunately this means we have a lot of cults—and so long that they don’t break the law (for all we know) they can stay in business. But the good far outweighs the bad: The U.S. has a lot of Christians. Way more than you’d expect. If religion is voluntary, wouldn’t you expect people to ditch it? Yet it’s just the opposite. A third of us go to church weekly; another third not so much, but they do believe in Jesus. The rest are all over the place.

So I share Jesus with people. Because I get to. Not because I’m required or obligated to. Nor is it my job, nor do I get paid for it (although it used to be, and I did). Jesus is awesome; why wouldn’t I want to share him?

Sure, if I have to get permission from some church governing body before I can teach or evangelize, I jump through all the appropriate hoops. Can’t teach at my church unless the pastor’s cool with it. Couldn’t do youth evangelism unless I went through basic training and background checks—which makes perfect sense, and I have no problem with it. But as far as writing stuff for the internet is concerned, I don’t have to clear anything with anyone. Few do.

So… who am I then accountable to?

Well Jesus obviously. And yes, my church. I learned a long time ago that if I misbehave online, it gets back to them. I wrote a rant years ago, addressed to the local Christian college’s students, about why our church really didn’t consider them the blessings they imagined themselves to be. Word quickly got back to my pastor of what I’d written. I suspect he appreciated the fact I could say all the things he kinda wanted to, but couldn’t. Still, some statements went too far for him, so he asked me to tone it down, so I did.

Now, let’s say I started to write full-on heresy. That’d definitely get back to my church’s leadership. Too many people in my church and denomination stay abreast of what I’m up to on TXAB, and no doubt they’d alert my church if I go off the rails. And they should. ’Cause I’m in leadership too, and you don’t want to keep a leader who’s publicly gone wrong. I’d have to recant, or step down.

True, sometimes churches try to clamp down on people when their outside-the-church activities displease them. Not ’cause they’ve done anything wrong; it’s ’cause the church leaders are on some power trip. I don’t go to one of those churches. Really, most writers don’t. Some because they’re in healthy churches; some because they quit their church the second they got any pushback. Of course, some of that pushback was warranted, but the writers don’t wanna be accountable—and they’re in the wrong, as you can detect by how they’re getting more and more bonkers. As are their fans and commenters.

I’m also accountable to my readers. Whenever I write something which might be misinterpreted as wrong or heresy, I definitely hear about it. And I go back and correct or clarify it. I appreciate the feedback. I’ve no doubt that if I ever go seriously wrong, I’ll get a flurry of pushback.

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God’s mercy trumps his judgment.

James 2.8-13.

Primarily James wrote his letter to Jews. Jm 1.1 Secondarily to the rest of the church; now that gentiles have been adopted as God’s kids, it applies to all Christians. But regardless of whether Christians are Jewish or gentile, there’s a tendency to lapse into Pharisee thinking: To figure God chooses to save us because we act Christian: We stick to how popular Christian culture tells us we oughta live, or we follow Jesus’s teachings, or the Law. And in gratitude, or as a reward, or because we’ve racked up all that good karma, God grants us salvation. We’re saved because we worked for it.

Nope, not even close. The rest of the New Testament makes it mighty clear: Humans are saved by God’s grace. Ep 2.5 We don’t merit it. We can’t.

James brought up the Law in the previous passage, where he corrected his readers for sucking up to the wealthy. The Law instructs otherwise: Everybody’s equal under the Law.

James 2.8-9 KWL

8 But if you fulfill the kingdom’s Law, you do right.

(“You’ll love your neighbor as yourself,” Lv 19.18 according to scripture.)

9 If you show favoritism, your disgraceful, backslider-like behavior produces sin,

according to the Law.

Contrary to dispensationalist belief, the Law didn’t become void once Jesus paid for our sins. (If it did, there’d be no more sins! You could violate the Ten Commandments with impunity. As some Christians, y’notice, already do.)

But even though James reminded his readers to follow the Law, he also needed to remind ’em we’re not saved by the Law. Never were. We don’t work our way to salvation. It’s all by grace.

Christians need to be reminded of this because we’re creatures of extremes. Either we figure the Law is vital, needs to be central to Christian life, and we turn into full-on legalists; or we figure the Law doesn’t matter, cheap grace is the name of the game, and we turn into full-on libertines. James’s readers had the same problem: Either Christians who wanted to strain out gnats, or Christians who wanted to swallow camels. Mt 23.24

The Law’s proper place is after salvation. The LORD saved the Hebrews from Egypt; and once saved, he gave them his Law so they’d thereafter follow him properly. Likewise Jesus saves the world from sin; and once saved, he assigns us good works to do. Ep 2.10 Grace saves. Good works are our response to God’s grace. They’re the cart. Not the horse.

And the Law is good works, so we should follow the Law. Apart from the bits Jesus fulfilled so we don’t have to, it’s still the Law of God’s kingdom. Jm 2.8 (Although various translations like to blunt this idea by translating nómon basilikón/“kingdom’s Law” like the KJV’s “royal law.”) Now that Jesus emphasizes grace and mercy, we can see the Law as God always intended it: His ideal. Something we’re to attempt and strive for. The path to sanctification. Not the path to salvation, ’cause we got that before we were ever given rules and missions. And when we stumble—as we do, as we will—we have Jesus. 1Jn 2.1-2

Legalists rarely grasp this idea. To them, the rules are the whole point. When we stumble, they don’t point us towards forgiveness and mercy; they punish. They demand we earn back God’s good graces. (Really their good graces.) More legalism.

Hence they apply the Law without grace and mercy—exactly like Christians ought never do. So here, James corrects them.

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The age of accountability?

How old do we have to be for God to hold us responsible for our sins?

Wait, doesn’t he always hold us responsible? Well, not according to certain Christians.

See, from time to time a child dies. Which sucks, but this is life, and sometimes life sucks. It’s always sad, and grieving parents frequently look to their religious friends for some kind of comfort. ’Cause we know something about heaven, so they wanna confirm with us that heaven is precisely where their kid went. Mommy and Daddy’s little angel, happy and pain-free, will forevermore be looking down upon them.

Yeah, it’s never fun breaking the news to them that we don’t become angels when we die. ’Cause it’s such a deeply-held pagan belief. Some of us never have the guts to tell ’em otherwise. Hey, we figure, they’re grieving; let ’em believe their kid’s an angel. What’s it hurt? (Well, them. The belief will just become even more deeply-held, and then it’ll be a real pain trying to later explain how heaven really works.)

And it’s never fun breaking the news to them that, unless we trust Jesus to take care of our sins for us, we still own our sins. Therefore we don’t inherit the kingdom of heaven. And since they never raised their kids to trust Jesus any…

…Well you see where I’m going with this. Few Christians have the nerve to tell any grieving parents any such thing. We chicken out.

Lots of us instead embrace this idea of an age of accountability: There’s an age where God deals with us as a responsible human being. Before that cutoff point, we don’t know any better; we’re innocent; we’re spiritual minors; God couldn’t possibly hold our sins against us. For everybody before the cutoff, God practices universalism: Everybody goes to heaven. No exceptions.

Your pagan friends’ dead kid? Just squeezed in at the cutoff. Definitely in heaven. God would never send a five-year-old to hell. Six-year-olds definitely; hell’s chock full of ’em, screaming their bratty heads off. But never five-year-olds. Yes, little Tafadzwa is definitely in heaven. Yes, Tafadzwa now has baby wings like a little cherub.

Oh, it’s an utter copout. ’Cause the age of accountability isn’t in the bible anywhere. Seriously, not anywhere. It’s pure fabrication, invented to soothe grieving parents, and calm worried ones. When their pagan kid just died, parents wanna cling to hope, and Christians really don’t wanna be the ones to puncture it. (Well, most of us. There are certain a--holes who take a perverse glee in telling people, “Hey, it’s unlikely your kid was one of the elect, so they’re not in heaven.” I’ll get to them.)

Quite often it’s the Christians themselves clinging to hope: Their kids aren’t following Jesus, and they’re super worried the kids are gonna be pagan or apostate or even antichrist. So they wanna know there’s still a chance. The age of accountability is 30, right?

Now since this article is tagged #Grace, you can likely guess there actually is hope somewhere before the end of it. But you’ll have to bear with me as I dash several of the false hopes.

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