By Bobby Graham
Synopsis: Why would a church of Christ resort to carnal rewards?
Why would a church of Christ resort to carnal rewards?
We commonly observe religious groups using carnal rewards to entice people to participate. As the saying goes, they offer “food, fun, and frolic.” Some of the best entertainment, from drama to music to comedy, is offered in their advertisements. From seeing their packed parking lots when supper is being served, usually Wednesday nights, the chow must be pretty special! Recently, churches of Christ have increasingly followed the same line. In recent months, a Decatur congregation advertised, “Fun and Games for All.” Why?
We think of a few reasons, which are charitably offered:
What they offer is the “main thing” with them and with the world. How could this be, since the gospel of Christ, the Savior of the world, should be not just the main thing, but the only thing (Rom. 1:16; Mark 16:15-16; Acts 8:4; 1 Tim. 3:15)?
Since few respond to offers to hear the gospel, they feel they have to “lure” people there with something “bigger and better.” Do we not appeal to less than best motives in doing so? Do we not admit that we must attract the carnally minded, instead of those who truly desire to be “taught by God” (John 6:44)? Why not allow the gospel to filter out the insincere and admit the sincere, as God meant it to do?
Some few have appealed to “fellowship” as a justification for such food-games-entertainment functions. They actually have claimed that New Testament “fellowship” includes such endeavors of Christians. They have not successfully cited a single instance of the use of the word “fellowship” where the text unmistakably refers to the kinds of congregational activities they defend. There are no passages where “fellowship” is so used! New Testament fellowship always involved spiritual association, spiritual partnership, and spiritual sharing in spiritual actions and spiritual benefits.
A justification sometimes offered is Jesus’s providing loaves and fishes for the five thousand in John 6. We notice that Jesus’s offer of food to the four thousand came because he knew his audience was truly hungry (Matt. 15:32). He did not misuse the food to “whet their appetite” for the gospel, but to meet their genuine need after three days of not eating. Further we notice that Jesus ceased the offer of food when He saw the people following for the wrong motive (“the loaves and the fishes” in John 6:26-28), rebuked them for their carnality, and further instructed them to believe on Him.
The scenario normally present when religious people employ carnal means to draw a crowd and to soften people up for the gospel is precisely what Jesus condemned and avoided. To use it to justify what people do with food, fun, and frolic nowadays is to invite the same rebuke from the Lord Jesus Christ. What we need to do is tell people to believe in Jesus, as He did in John 6, and teach them the word so they can believe. He then gave Himself to them as the Bread of Life that had come down from heaven, according to John 6:30-40. What a difference in Jesus’s approach and that of the carnally minded crowds of earth!
Is it possible that they desire to cut themselves loose from Christ? Groups once using only the gospel have become “anything-goes” groups, offering what human denominations offer and using what others use to get them there. How does a congregation qualify to be a “church of Christ” when it offers what Christ never offered, refuses to submit to His headship, and uses lures He never used or authorized?
