“And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not loose heart.” – Galatians 6:9 (NKJV).

Someone has said, “The American prayer is: ‘Lord, give me patience and give it to me right now’”. We want results right now, rather than in due season. We want our problems solved immediately, if not before.

The electrical system blows a fuse. Why spend valuable time and gas going for a new fuse? There is that penny in your pocket. Place it behind the old fuse and everything is fine – for now. So what, if the real problem is ignored? So what, if there is risk of burning your house down? It works! The lights are burning, the refrig is cooling, and the stove is cooking – what better evidence can you have than that!

God promised Abraham and Sarah a son. But God surely was taking his own good time to make good his promise. So, Sarah went for the quick fix. She persuaded Abraham to father a son by their handmaid. It worked! Ishmael was born! But he was not the son of promise. God still carried out his plan in due time. But, Sarah’s quick fix to the problem brought sorrow upon sorrow to her and her descendants.

The Lord’s church has had crisis after crisis beginning with the first congregation at Jerusalem. God gave the perfect plan for the church, but those who work that plan are not perfect. They make mistakes, some with little adverse consequences, others with major consequences. There are attendance problems, problems with getting folks to be baptized, with divisions, with fellowship, with internal sin, etc.. We would all like to see these problems resolved – right now! How I would like to go to the next assembly and find every Christian along with every outsider in this community present! How I would like to baptize every sinner that I know! How I would like to announce to the congregation that all divisions have been healed, all controversies among brethren settled, all problems with internal sin solved! Would that not be wonderful? But that is not likely to happen and I need to be careful of “quidk fixes” in an effort to make things happen.

Differences arise between brethren. Some are contained without open division. Others are not. Every Christian, who loves the Cause of Christ is concerned about any division. This tempts one to go for the “quick fix” – more love. Now that does sound good! It would solve all the problems – if the root cause of all division was a lack of love for brethren. But, the problem is seldom that simple and the love-togetherness approach is not always adequate. It may ignore the real cause of the division in the first place. The cause may be conflicting “minds” – carnal vs. spiritual (Cf. 1 Cor. 3:1-5). It may be conflicting attitudes toward Scriptural authority, by brethren who dearly love each other. It may be conflicting concepts of the mission of the church. It may be over matters of conscience that carry people in different directions and cannot be resolved without basic change in convictions. The quick fix is to encourage someone to squelch his conscience for the sake of peace. It takes longer to educate consciences. But until that happens one cannot afford to override his conscientious misgivings even for the sake of peace. (cf. Rom. 14:23). Of course, if it is a matter in which one can yield his preference, without overriding conscientious doubts, then he should give in for the sake of peace now! Even where there are other basic causes for conflict, hatred sometimes raises its ugly head, then love must be restored.

I know of no congregation that would not like an overflow crowd at every service. Most would like to find some way to motivate folks to attend. It is a big problem. But, beware of the “quick fix”. Most of these folks are carnally minded, so appeal to the carnal mind with the gimmicks of social activities, recreational opportunities, making it “fun” for them. Give material rewards and pride-appealing recognition to motivate them. Such may get than to “church”, but not to the Lord. Only those taught, having heard and learned, are drawn to the Lord . (John 6:44,45). This method is usually slower, and less appealing to many, but it is the Lord’s way of getting people “to church” and keeping them there!

There are problems with applying the New Testament teaching on “fellowship”. In today’s atmosphere, one is bound to be charged with inconsistency in his application of the matter. If one is not careful he will try to find a “quick fix” to the consistency problem. On the one hand he may decide that he should not fellowship anyone who is mistaken on any Bible subject. He reasons that since he does not fellowship some who hold different views on other subjects then he will not fellowship this brother – to be consistent. It saves the time of finding out the nature of the man’s “error” and it effect upon the church, etc. Another knowing that he “fellowships” some brethren with whom he differs on what the Bible teaches on some matters, decides that to be consistent then we must fellowship all brethren with whom he has differences. Again, this saves the time of investigation and consideration for each matter. The truth of the matter is that several factors must be taken into consideration before deciding whom to fellowship. Attitudes, maturity, opportunity, ability, the effect upon the gospel and the church, etc. But, it is much easier to go for the “quick fix”; for the fellowship - all - with - whom - we - differ or the fellowship - none - with - whom - we - differ approach. But, Jude 22, tells us that some distinctions have to be made.

1 Thess. 5:14 shows that different ones need different approaches. “Warn the unruly, comfort the fainthearted, and support (uphold) the weak.” It is quite possible for each class to be doing the same thing, overtly:

1. Sister Worldly seldom shows up for services. She is approached and gives you to understand that what she does is her business and no business of the church. She and her husband like to go boating on week-ends and she intends to do it as long as the weather is pretty. She will be at services when and if she gets ready. She knows what the Bible says about assembling as well as you do and when she gets ready to start attending she will let you know.

2. Sister Battered seldom shows up for any services. She is approached and you find out about her husband. He hates the church with passion. He makes sure that she pays dearly for every service she attends. The ones she does attend are attended over his protest and sometimes physical abuse. When she gets home 5 minutes later than usual because of a long-winded preacher, she catches the full blast of his fury. She is near the point of “throwing in the towel” and saying it is not worth it to attend.

3. Sister Novice seldom shows up for services. She is approached and you see that she just does not understand the importance of attending. She has not been a Christian very long. She was a member of a religious order that did not stress attendance to all services. While she learned and understands what she needed to do to become a Christian in the New Testament sense of the word – she still has a bit of the old concept of attendance as a hold over from her former religious life. Once convinced of the necessity and importance, she would likely attend every service.

Now, all three sisters are doing the same thing outwardly. But the approaches taken to the problem are quite different. Sister Worldly is unruly (disorderly), so you warn her and if she doesn’t heed the warning you withdraw from her (2 Thess. 3:6). Sister Battered is about to give up. She is fainthearted. You comfort and encourage her at this stage. Sister Novice is a weak babe, who needs teaching, so you set about to teach her, with patience, her responsibilities as a Christian.

Now the “quick fix” approach to the problem would be that since all are not attending as they should – that we will just treat them all alike. If we comfort one – comfort all. If we withdraw from one, then withdraw from all – regardless to any extenuating circumstances. That might simplify matters for those who have to make the day to day judgments about church discipline – but would it be right?

Brethren let’s be careful with “quick fixes”.

The Reflector January 1984