As a Christian and as a minister, I have found a common struggle with the functionality of the church regarding how to handle biblical truth, i.e. should the church handle God and his work as obligatory truth irrespective of how it makes us look to an onlooking world or merely as practical motivation for moral living? Questions like this arise, in my mind, from the disparate approaches we see in local churches. Where some churches seemingly treat God’s work and his word as merely motivational, others take his word quite literally and approach his work as active and effective. The most common way this plays out in local churches is by writing off those who have perhaps committed seemingly atrocious acts at some point in their life no matter how far in the past they may be. As unbiblical as it is, we tend to make excuses in feeble attempts to find their unworthiness or disqualification from service in any way. Surely, there are legitimate reasons for concern in some cases; yet, the church leans toward not allowing people to serve rather than grace. If we teach that service is one of the primary marks of a believer, how can we justify such a stance? There are also those who fall in the middle. Many of any of these approaches, however, seem to be unintentional.

Upon years of observation, personal experience, and pontificating, I submit that, if we are to be a people of genuine faith, God’s and his work should doubtlessly be obligatory truth rather than mere practical motivation. Said another way, the church must cease viewing grace and faith through the same grid as the world but rather should function in a vastly disparate manner. Our faith in God should cause us to live completely contrary lives to the world. Often, however, the opposite is true: the church seemingly takes a faithless approach and views God’s word and work merely as practical motivation rather than obligatory truth. While this approach is likely subconscious, I suggest four primary ways the church presently takes such an approach.