My Attempt At Being A Paul

A few months ago, I was in a bible study class through a church from which we have since parted ways. Over the course of the studies, I began to see insurmountable differences between what our family believed and what was being taught. At the same time, my husband began to see the sermons containing personal beliefs being passed off as biblical truths. We felt deceived that the church that we had wholeheartedly supported had misrepresented their doctrine and beliefs to us. We made a decision to leave out of fear, fear that continued association would lead our family, especially our children, down the wrong path and jeopardize our own salvation.

I do not know if this church really misrepresented itself at the beginning. Maybe something had changed since we first arrived. Maybe our eyes and ears were not open to the truth ourselves at the beginning, and we accepted what they had to offer as truth. Whatever the case, we did see things differently now, and as painful as it was to leave we felt it was the right thing to do.

I struggled with our decision, wondering if we should have stayed and tried to be God’s voice in the church. However, when I was involved in the bible classes that shed light on the untruths, not a single other member would acknowledge the issues. Their stance was that God does not want us to argue about such things, that it did not matter. God wants us to just all get along and love each other. I was told debate and disagreement had no place in the church because their stance was your truth may be different from my truth, but that is ok. In fact, when we told the Pastor we were leaving the response to us was “it sounds like you found a group of people who share your truth.”

I wept, because a whole group of people who proclaim to be Christians had bought into Satan’s lies that we can all create our own truth. God’s voice, His reality, was being drowned out by the culture and by humanistic views. The bible was no longer the authority, the last word; it was being distorted to fit the beliefs of the people. The “whatever feels good to you” attitude had sprung up and taken root, and I am confident Satan is quite pleased with himself and God is quite grieved.

I had told my brother-in-law that although we were relieved to have removed ourselves from the situation, we were still so grieved for the friends we left behind that did not know, were willing to put up with, or had wholeheartedly bought into the deception. His advice to us was that we then needed to be a Paul and go speak the truth to them. Influence little by little, person by person, bit by bit in the hope God would use us to open their eyes.

Some of what I write in this blog has to do with countering the culture and disproving lies. Some of the content is directly from conversations I have had with church leaders who do not speak the truth and has served as my attempt to influence. I have not been made popular through my words, but no other purpose would serve me now then to be a voice of God’s truth.

Last night our small group from our new church began the study from Focus on the Family called The Truth Project. We discussed the difference between God’s reality (truth) and Satan’s lies (illusion). It was incredibly timely material, considering what we are facing right now. I became aware of this series last spring and had asked our old church to become involved which they ignored (go figure) but I had remained very interested in somehow going through the series. Now, months later sitting through the first session, I was amazed at how God provides. God knew in the spring what our family was going to experience in the summer, and he put an interest in this tool (The Truth Project) into my heart long before I even knew how important and affirming this would be for us at this particular time. He reinforced me. He reenergized me. He is teaching me how to be a Paul.

Lord, I am so thankful for your provision and for opening my eyes to your truth. May you use me and my voice to speak to your people. Bless me and others with courage, boldness, and perseverance. May your name be glorified! Amen