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Previous Challenge Entry (Level 1 – Beginner)
Topic: Wolf in Sheep's Clothing (11/21/13)
In Matthew 7:15, Jesus warns us, “Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves.” (NIV) How are we to recognize the false prophet, the wolf among the flock? Surely, I’ve convinced myself, I’ll know this stranger by his outrageous claims and certainly I won’t be fooled; some hint in his appearance will give him away. Have you ever encountered a wolf in sheep’s clothing?
I don’t remember ever sitting in church with my mom and dad, save of course, for the occasional obligatory family wedding or funeral. I confirmed my own faith at the age of 14 and on that April morning I peddled my bicycle to the church and peddled myself home. There were no family gathered to mark the occasion, no mention of it at all at the family dinner table. My calling and response to faith has always been quite personal.
I had grown up knowing the explanation; it seems that as a young man my dad was very involved with his church, even seriously considered becoming a minister. He idolized the pastor of his youth and often spent time helping out around the church or the parsonage on weekends. On one such weekend, according to the justification, my dad discovered a rather large stash of alcohol under the parsonage basement steps covered with a blanket. That, apparently, was just too hypocritical for this pastor that preached so passionately about the evils of alcohol and condemned its users so fervently.
All through my high school years I attended the church into which I was confirmed. After my wife and I were married I joined the church she and her family had attended for generations. My children have never known a time that our family wasn’t involved in church. As he grew, my youngest son, Dane, spent a good deal of time with my then-retired dad. One afternoon, he couldn’t have been more than ten years old, my son told me he knew why his grandpa Schafer never went to church. “Ah”, I thought, “Dane must have asked and dad related the long-standing reason”. And it was so. I remember trying to explain to my son that people are bound to imperfection and that in my own faith I don’t worship the pastor or the building or the denomination, I worship the Christ who died for me on a cross. Those others may let me down, He never will.
The words of Brennan Manning strike especially close to home for me, “The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians who acknowledge Jesus with their lips and walk out the door and deny Him with their lifestyle. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable.”
If that’s true, it becomes paralyzing! Yet, I see so many examples of a church divided, even in my own community. This denomination will not pray with members of another; this pastor insists that unless you’ve jumped through this hoop you’re not really saved in the eyes of God. I fear that such doctrines of exclusion prevent the body of Christ from performing at anything near its peak. In our watching for wolves, have we built fences that keep out the sheep? But these problems are not new to God, in chapter one of 1 Corinthians, Paul admonishes the early church for boasting of by whom they were baptized. These modern day divisions are not the disease but a symptom of our human nature.
So what are we to do? How are we to lead that others may follow? How are we to bring light to darkness so full or glowing eyes and scary places? Our hope, our confidence, and our strength comes to us through Scripture and faith that we will be granted endurance. John writes in 1 John, “This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you; God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.” (NIV)

And as for the wolves, Jesus tell us, “By their fruits you will recognize them.” Matt 7:16 (NIV) Let us bear good fruit. Amen.
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Member Comments
Member
Date
C D Swanson 
11/30/13
Prolific and profound. Thank you for your deep and philosophical overview of the secular and non secular world as it exists today. Well done!

God bless~
Joanne Sher 
12/03/13
Very well-written and thought out. I absolutely loved this particular sentence: "In our watching for wolves, have we built fences that keep out the sheep?" So profound. Thank you!