Cleansing The Church

Well for me its a big task to accomplish but i think as many beleivers out there who are still hungry for gods word and not getting it in there churches i think those people will be fed. I will give you a breif outline on my thoughts on how we can cleanse the church:

1. stop teaching mans false traditions rapture, easter, halloween, christmas etc...

2. Avoid empty chatter that spews out of the mouth of man

3. Get the people actually involved, instead of hearing the preacher talk to the preacher while the sermon is going on. Have open discussions while the preacher is preaching

4. Study the bible evry single day and trust in the holy spirit to guide in all things

5. Get rid of the divisions, theres well over 1000 divisions in christianity and yet were supposed to be united as the body of christ

Overall though christ loves a good church that teaches truth but there are so many that are teaching with a false spirit and empty traditions.

Stumpmaster said:

25 Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave Himself for it; 26 That He might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, 27 That He might present it to Himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.
Eph 5:25-27 (KJV)

As the Bride of Christ the Church needs to be clean.

3 Now you are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you.
John 15:3 (KJV)

As members of the church we need to bathe in God's Word. When we know what it is to be cleansed by the Word the filth of the world becomes an unappealing alternative.

What thoughts and insights do you have about the cleansing of the church?

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2 Chronicles 29:5 And said unto them, Hear me, ye Levites, sanctify now yourselves, and sanctify the house of the LORD God of your fathers, and carry forth the filthiness out of the holy place.

Ezra 9:11 Which thou hast commanded by Thy servants the prophets, saying, The land, unto which ye go to possess it, is an unclean land with the filthiness of the people of the lands, with their abominations, which have filled it from one end to another with their uncleanness.



1 Corinthians 14:39 Wherefore, brethren, covet to prophesy, and forbid not to speak with tongues.


2 Corinthians 12:19-21 Again, think ye that we excuse ourselves unto you? we speak before God in Christ: but we do all things, dearly beloved, for your edifying. For I fear, lest, when I come, I shall not find you such as I would, and that I shall be found unto you such as ye would not: lest there be debates, envyings, wraths, strifes, backbitings, whisperings, swellings, tumults: And lest, when I come again, my God will humble me among you, and that I shall bewail many which have sinned already, and have not repented of the uncleanness and fornication and lasciviousness which they have committed.

What thoughts and insights do you have about the cleansing of the church?
Ephesians 5:25-27

Husbands love your wives even as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her. That He might sanctify her, cleansing her by the washing of the water in the word. That He might present the church to Himself glorious, not having spot of wrinkle or any such things, but that she would be holy and without blemish.

The opposite of being subject is to rule; however, the apostle did not exhort husbands to rule over their wives but to love them. In married life, the wife’s obligation is to be subject and the husband’s is to love.
The wife’s subjection, plus the husband’s love constitutes a proper married life and typifies the normal church life, in which the church is subject to Christ and Christ loves the church. Love is the very element, the inner substance, of God (1 John 4:8, 16). The goal of this book is to bring us into God’s inner substance that we may enjoy God as love and enjoy His presence in the sweetness of the divine love, and thereby love others as Christ did.

A husband’s love for his wife must be like Christ’s love for the church; he must be willing to pay a price, even to die for his wife.

Christ’s purpose in giving Himself up for the church is to sanctify her, not only separating her to Himself from everything common but also saturating her with His element that she may be His counterpart. He accomplishes this by cleansing her by the washing of water in the word.

In verse 26, the definite article is used before the word “washing” in the Greek. This causes it to refer to the laver, the laver that was known to all the Jews. In the OT the priests used the laver to wash away their earthly defilement (Exo. 30:18-21). Now the laver, the washing of the water, washes us from defilement.
According to the divine concept, water here refers to the flowing life of God, which is typified by flowing water (Exo. 17:6, 1 Cor. 10:4: John 7:38-39: Rev. 21:6; 22:1; 17). The washing of the water here is different from the washing of the redeeming blood of Christ. The redeeming blood washes away our sins (1 John 1:7; Rev. 7:14), whereas the water of life washes away the blemishes of the natural life of our old man, such as the “spot or wrinkle or any such things mentioned in v. 27. In separating and sanctifying the church, the Lord first washes away our sins with His blood (Heb. 13:12) and then washes away our natural blemishes with His life. We are now in such a washing process, that the church may be holy and without blemish.

I think we should e-mail Gumby's strategy to the pope, what's his e-mail?

fullpana said:

I think we should e-mail Gumby's strategy to the pope, what's his e-mail?

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Have a link to the popes website maybe i can e-mail him there, i can promise you this much though by the time i got through with the pope and the entire catholic faith there would be mass droves of people living by gods word and getting saved. I have many good ideas that christ can work through these dead churches and breath life back into them spiritually speaking.

To answer this question and fully get the jest of it...we must go
to Matthew 15.

The message of Matthew 14 was primarily about feeding the people
with the true Word of God, which, in the hands of the Living Word, the
bread takes on a life of its own and multiplies to fill the need.

Chapter 15 builds upon this foundational idea, showing the difference
between clean food and unclean food (dung). The question comes up
when the scribes and Pharisees confront Jesus with the supposed sin
of His disciples who were eating without the accepted ceremonial
pouring of water to "cleanse" their hands.

In those days, washing one's hands before eating had nothing to do
with sanitation. It was a ritualistic pouring of water, based upon the
laws of cleansing. It was assumed that in daily life, one's hands might
touch something unclean, and that unclean hands would render the
food ceremonially unclean.

There was no such law given by Moses, of course. It was a tradition of
men. Jesus came back at them, showing that they had put away the law
of God by their traditions. If you know anything about the Jewish Talmud,
you will understand how the rabbis tortured the Scriptures to make them
say what they desired. Jesus quoted from Isaiah 29, saying,

(7) You hypocrites, rightly did Isaiah prophesy of you, saying, (8) This
people honors Me with their lips, but their heart is far away from Me.
(9) But in vain do they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the precepts
of men.

Then He proceeded to give a dissertation about the heart of the matter.

(11) Not what enters into the mouth defiles the man, but what proceeds
out of the mouth, this defiles the man.

The disciples were uneasy about this, not wanting to offend the Pharisees.
Further, they were not sure they even agreed with Jesus. So Jesus said
to them,

(16) Are you still lacking in understanding also? (17) Do you not understand
that everything that goes into the mouth passes into the stomach and is
eliminated? (18) But the things that proceed out of the mouth come from
the heart, and those defile the man.

Jesus was speaking about ceremonial defilement vs. heart defilement. He
was not talking about nutrition here. The real underlying issue was about
the traditions of men vs. the law of God. When a teacher of the law does not
really know the mind of God, he will inevitably misinterpret the law in order to
make it conform to his own understanding.

This is "dung." It is not clean food. When dung comes out of the mouth of the
teacher, it defiles him and all those who "eat" (accept as truth) what he has
prepared. Ezekiel's favorite word for "idol" is gillul, which means "a log."
(as in Ezekiel 14:3, 4). They used pillars (logs) as idols in those days, and
the word galal, "dung," was so named for its round, log-like shape. Hence,
the prophets considered idols to be dung.

What a person eats passes through the stomach, and the body knows what
to do with that which it cannot digest. It passes through the "dung gate." But
defilement comes when the "dung" comes through the wrong gate (the mouth),
when the scribes and Pharisees taught the traditions of men.

(21) And Jesus went away from there and withdrew into the district of Tyre
and Sidon.

This is a change of scenery, but not a change of subject. Jesus took His
disciples on a field trip to deal with a hidden problem of heart idolatry in
their own hearts. The disciples were yet full of dung, having eaten much
from the Pharisees, and Jesus intended to give them the antidote.

(22) And behold, a Canaanite woman came out from that region and began
to cry out, saying, "Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David; my daughter is
cruelly demon-possessed."

Not only was she a despised (and "unclean") foreigner, but a Canaanite
at that. They were the worst of the worst in the eyes of the Jews, for it
appeared from the law that God had instructed them to kill every Canaanite.

Jesus gave the appearance of being just like the others of His day, and He
totally ignored her plea. The disciples wanted her to be sent away. Jesus
then stated in verse 24, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of
Israel," to which the disciples would have been in full agreement

.(25) But she came and began to bow down before Him, saying, "Lord,
help me." (26) But He answered and said, "It is not good to take the
children's bread and throw it to the dogs."

Once again, it sounds like Jesus was agreeing with the common belief
widely taught by the scribes and Pharisees.

(27) But she said, "Yes, Lord, but even the dogs feed on the crumbs
which fall from their masters' table."

What persistence! What faith! She obviously knew that Jesus was different
from all other Judeans that she had met. In fact, she knew Him better than
His own disciples did (at least in this regard). Though Jesus quoted the
same old sayings that had been taught for centuries among the Judeans,
justifying their hatred for non-Jews--especially Canaanites--Jesus did not
really believe this at all. In fact, He said these things only to uncover the
"dung" in the hearts of His own disciples. They certainly fell for it.

(28) Then Jesus answered and said to her, "O woman, your faith is
great; be it done for you as you wish." And her daughter was healed
at once. (29) And departing from there, Jesus went along by the Sea
of Galilee.

Jesus went to the district of Tyre and Sidon for just one purpose. It was
to meet this Canaanite woman and to heal her daughter. There was no
other purpose for this trip. So we must ask ourselves the underlying
purpose of this trip. In the context of the chapter, it was to deal with the
"dung" in the hearts of His own disciples. That "dung" was the tradition
that God hated Canaanites and would have nothing to do with them. It
was the tradition that Canaanites were genetically incapable of having
faith in the true God.

Furthermore, she was a woman. In the temple in Jerusalem, non-Jews
and all women were kept at a distance by the dividing wall in the outer
court. This dividing wall cemented the tradition that women and non-Jews
were less beloved of God and incapable of attaining the same close
relationship with God as Jews enjoyed.

That was one of the biggest piles of dung ever taught. God never
instructed anyone to build such a wall in the temple. That is why Jesus
came to destroy that dividing wall (Eph. 2:14), giving all men equal
citizenship and equal access to God. Only then could God's temple
truly be a house of prayer for ALL PEOPLE.

After Jesus' encounter with the Canaanite woman, He returned to
the sea of Galilee. Galilee means "circuit" (round), and it is from
the same root word as galal and gillul. It is also shaped like the heart.
So it is an integral part of the story in Matthew 15 that Jesus first spoke
of dung in the heart, then went on a field trip to expose the dung in the
disciples' hearts, and finally then returned to the sea of heart-dung.

The chapter closes with Him feeding a crowd of 4,000. Four is the
number of the earth, or creation. Multiplying it by 1000 indicates His
"glory" covering the earth. This is a fitting end of the chapter, for it
shows God's interest in His entire creation, extending far beyond
the smaller group of "chosen" people. There are certainly those
who are "chosen" or "elected," but it is through them that God's
blessings are dispensed to all families of the earth.

Today God uses our experiences to change our hearts and cleanse
our temples so we can correctly interpret "His Word" and come into
agreement with Him. We must allow God to cleanse our temples on
a daily basis...and that comes by understanding the revelation of His
Word.

Logabe

1. stop teaching mans false traditions rapture, easter, halloween, christmas etc...

2. Avoid empty chatter that spews out of the mouth of man

3. Get the people actually involved, instead of hearing the preacher talk to the preacher while the sermon is going on. Have open discussions while the preacher is preaching

4. Study the bible evry single day and trust in the holy spirit to guide in all things

5. Get rid of the divisions, theres well over 1000 divisions in christianity and yet were supposed to be united as the body of christ

Christ established and does the scripture establish 'local chruches' not universal churches with central government.

The real Church does not need cleansing if it is indeed a scriptural church. Catholic is not one of God's established churches, nor is Mormon, nor is the Church of Christ organization as such as in USA. These false teachings of the Eucharist is the actual body and blood of Christ and forgives sin is false, baptism infants is a false doctrine, baptism for regeneration and salvation is false.

As to your point #5: Local Churches are scriptural and we must conform to scripture. I don't see a 1000 divisions of christianty but many divisions of religious persons that are without Christ.

Nice post Samuel, so very true

Christina said:

Nice post Samuel, so very true

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Thank you. I am reading around on this forum and find many interesting topics. I came across this: I don't see the clause about whosoever belieth in him and attendeth church? But, the Bible says forsake not the assembling of yourselves together and more as you see the day appraoching.

And this: The church is the bride of Christ, meant to be universal, I find this odd as I believe the 'local church' is established by Christ, the Apostles and Christians and meant to be local and not universal or central like the catholics. The pastor being the undersheppard with Christ as the Sheppard but local as in not responsible to a central or universal governing body.

Samuel Pickens said:

baptism for regeneration and salvation is false.

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I believe you're incorrect here Sam.

Samuel Pickens said:

1. stop teaching mans false traditions rapture, easter, halloween, christmas etc...

2. Avoid empty chatter that spews out of the mouth of man

3. Get the people actually involved, instead of hearing the preacher talk to the preacher while the sermon is going on. Have open discussions while the preacher is preaching

4. Study the bible evry single day and trust in the holy spirit to guide in all things

5. Get rid of the divisions, theres well over 1000 divisions in christianity and yet were supposed to be united as the body of christ

Christ established and does the scripture establish 'local chruches' not universal churches with central government.

The real Church does not need cleansing if it is indeed a scriptural church. Catholic is not one of God's established churches, nor is Mormon, nor is the Church of Christ organization as such as in USA. These false teachings of the Eucharist is the actual body and blood of Christ and forgives sin is false, baptism infants is a false doctrine, baptism for regeneration and salvation is false.

As to your point #5: Local Churches are scriptural and we must conform to scripture. I don't see a 1000 divisions of christianty but many divisions of religious persons that are without Christ.

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I do agree with you on that the real church that teaches the bible and follows it does not need cleansing. However the bible makes it very clean to avoid division 1st Corinthians 1:10.

gumby said:

I do agree with you on that the real church that teaches the bible and follows it does not need cleansing. However the bible makes it very clean to avoid division 1st Corinthians 1:10.

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Gumby; you have that out of context. It is very clear that Paul is referring to: this division is a contention (v.11) among the brethern or division amongst the brethern at that church.

Paul starts to espistle and identifies himself and in verse 2 he says he is speaking to the 'local church' at Corinth.

People who see nothing but dirt in others are the ones who need cleansing. (my opinion)
People who spew endless scriptures for others to obey have lost their focus.(my opinion)
People who have lost their focus never examine themselves, only others. (my opinion)
Men who teach doctrine and then tell others not to heed men's doctrines have a confused mind. (my opinion)
A confused mind is the working of evil spirit , not Holy Spirit. (my opinion)
A thousand Christians will always equal a thousand divisions. No two people are exactly the same.(my opinion)
When a thousand Christians examine only themselves , much is accomplished. Personal cleansing comes by no other method (my opinion)
The type of cleansing I require is completely different from the cleansing you require (my opinion)
If the cleansing I require is not your expertise why are you trying to give me cleaning instructions?(my opinion)
Anyone who thinks the church down here will be spotless and without blemish is wrong.(my opinion)
Only Christ , and by his function as saviour , are sins washed away, it is he who presents a blemish free church. Not you or I.(my opinion)
Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church. Your wife is not perfect but you are to love her anyway.(apostle's opinion)
Just like you and I are not perfect but Christ loves us anyway. We are the church. The church is not someone else out there somewhere.(my opinion)
Some misguided people think they are perfect. For self righteous ammunition they point out the faults of others.(my opinion)
Including the imperfections of the Pope. It makes them feel religious.(my opinion)
If you cannot love the church with it's imperfections you are occupying the completely opposite position taken by the Savior.(my opinion)
Please accept me and my imperfections and I will reciprocate the love.
But I will not accept that you alone do not require cleansing and only I require cleansing.
My personal cleansing through the word is a full time project for me. I do not have the resources to cleanse you as well.
If you have attained perfection down here , only then I will accept your advice.
A billion Christians with a billion divisions is still better than zero church and zero hope. (my opinion)
Join me as an imperfect christian and only then do we have unity.(my opinion)
Best regards.
Martin.

Samuel Pickens said:

Gumby; you have that out of context. It is very clear that Paul is referring to: this division is a contention (v.11) among the brethern or division amongst the brethern at that church.

Paul starts to espistle and identifies himself and in verse 2 he says he is speaking to the 'local church' at Corinth.

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No i dont beleive im taking it out of context whatsoever. The fact is that in the world of religion we have denominations such as: catholic, church of christ, baptist, methodist, jehovas witness, mormons, epispical, lutheran etc....

All these divisions have there own false doctrine thats not found in the word of god, they all preach false traditions and most likley false hope. Have you ever wondered why most churches these days wont recognize a baptism unless its in there church. Well i have news for the church gods true church exists in actions, deeds, kindness, ability to change lives, spreading the gospel throught the world and giving jesus to hungry people. Amos 8:11, not in a divided church.

gumby said:

No i dont beleive im taking it out of context whatsoever. The fact is that in the world of religion we have denominations such as: catholic, church of christ, baptist, methodist, jehovas witness, mormons, epispical, lutheran etc....

All these divisions have there own false doctrine thats not found in the word of god, they all preach false traditions and most likley false hope. Have you ever wondered why most churches these days wont recognize a baptism unless its in there church. Well i have news for the church gods true church exists in actions, deeds, kindness, ability to change lives, spreading the gospel throught the world and giving jesus to hungry people. Amos 8:11, not in a divided church.

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You named one NT 'local church'; Baptist. It is traceable to Jesus Christ. Baptish have the Bible for doctrine. Baptist believe that they are not the only ones going to Heaven. Baptist believe that there are Christians in the catholic church and methodist, and so on. And, you do not have to be a Baptist to go to Heaven.

The mark of a cult is: you have to belong to our organization in order to go to Heaven or be saved.

Catholic is a cult started ~325AD. Not a local church and practice regenerative baptism, infant baptism, if you're not catholic you go to hell but if you later have a loved one they can buy you out of hell. Catholism is not Christianity. They have killed ~50,000,000 Christians.

Church of Christ or Campbellites is a universal church and believe you come in contact with Christ's blood in the baptismal waters and that saves you and you are recorded in their church roster which is the Lamb's book of Life. You have to be a member of their church to go to Heaven.

Pleae read the Martyr's Mirror, Foxe's book of Martyrs and the Trail of Blood. Learn what Christians have endured down through the centuries and where they have come from.