He was born William Claude Dukenfield, but his stage name was W. C. Fields. In the 1930’s and 40’s he parlayed his Vaudeville experience into a film career. As a comedic actor he was renowned for his salacious levity. Though he was an inveterate drunk and adamant atheist, surprisingly, he enjoyed studying theology. Shocked, a friend once asked him if that was a Bible he was reading. Holding little sacred and always looking for a laugh Fields replied, “Yes, I was looking for loopholes.”
I fear there are many people who read their Bible in the same way; they are looking for loopholes. They claim to be Christians and want people to think they are the salt of the earth, but they say some of the most ridiculous things as if they know what they are talking about.
This is something I have heard ad nauseum over the years, “You do not need to go to church to be a Christian.” That statement is nonsense on so many different levels. If being a Christian means to live as Christ lived, then they need to read their Bibles, Jesus did. He read and knew the Scriptures so to be like Him would require one to do the same.
Back to going to church, we read, “And He came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up; and as was His custom, He entered the synagogue on the Sabbath, and stood up to read,” Luke 4:16. The Son of God was in His place of worship on His day of worship, and to be like Him we should be in our place of worship on our day of worship.
Christ did not “need” to go to the synagogue on the Sabbath but He did: it was His custom, his practice. He came to this earth to serve (Mark 10:45) so He went to the synagogue to do that very thing. Scattered throughout the Gospels one cannot deny Jesus was in the synagogues regularly and many of his miracles of healing occurred there.
I know there are people in church for the wrong reasons; Jesus called them hypocrites. You see He had them in His day, and he did not let them stand between Him and doing what was right.
Many say they hate organized religion, but I know something they would hate even worse, disorganized religion. Jesus had the same problem way back then, the Pharisees and Sadducees wanted to kill Him, and eventually succeeded, because He upset the status quo of their organized religion.
Jesus Christ instituted the Church so that we as believers could work together to make disciples of all nations. None of us can do it alone, we will always be “better together” than we would ever be as a “lone stone.” If you are a Christian your brothers and sisters need your help; quit looking for loopholes.
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