HOPE! - God Married a Prostitute

God married a prostitute.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves…

First, a couple of questions:

Are Christians known for their gentleness? Does the church accurately paint a picture of Christ’s gentleness to the world?

Many would say the answer is no.

I disagree.

While the church often appears distorted to the world because of the influence of evil upon her, which attempts to overtake her, God is still using the church to bring His gentle presence into the world. The church is the manifestation of God Himself in the present time.

This does not excuse the many evils associated with the church throughout history: From priests who sexually abuse children, to a church in Kansas that wishes death upon soldiers and homosexuals; from the crusades, to Hitler’s use of the church to support his creation of the Aryan race and the extermination of the Jews among other people groups.

Don’t forget… God married a prostitute.

However…

The church remains authentic in spite of her imperfections because the church was God’s idea. It is God who has established the authority of the church to be made into His image and to reflect His own nature to the world. The mission of the church remains the same: to reconcile humanity with God.

While many like to point out the hypocrisy of people within the church and while it is a shame that hypocrisy exists within the church, one way of looking at the church’s imperfections is to point out that it was the will of God to display His own nature within humankind. This would include the very raw and very earthy aspects of humanity. God chose to reveal Himself in the person of Jesus Christ, and the church is now considered to be the body of Christ.

So while people within the organization of the church do not always measure up to the standard of Christ, they still may maintain the image of Christ, who was the image of God in the flesh. I do not say this in order to excuse sin, but rather to show that it was God’s good will to make His dwelling within us, within people with physical bodies who have been tainted by sin. The best way to view “hypocrites” within the church is to realize how wonderful the grace of God is that He would desire to have people as bent and twisted as these to be a part of His church.

Remember…God married a prostitute.

However…

The church is the bride of Christ, and we ought to speak of the church as though she truly were the bride of Christ. We ought not to speak of someone’s bride in a negative and critical way. It is a nasty tendency and in poor taste for someone to go around uttering criticisms against someone else’s wife, and yet people speak many ill-words against the church, who is the bride of Christ! A groom ought to be angry if he overheard someone speaking poorly of his bride. In the same way, Christ, it would seem, would also be angry to hear someone slandering His bride.

To the groom, the bride is never ugly!

The church remains authentic regardless of her imperfections because it is God who makes her authentic through his gentle and transformative power at work within her.

Remember, God married a prostitute… and it is God alone who makes her beautiful!