Organized Religion

Many today are disappointed in "organized religion" for various reasons.  Often people feel that today's denominations are not meeting their needs.  Looking at the religious world today, it is easy to see why people feel that way.  There is such a splintering of beliefs, and often disagreement between religious groups.  The religious world, and Christianity in particular, looks more contentious than loving and supportive.  To see the best answer to the question of what is right, we should look at what the Bible, God's inspired Word, tells us about the need, or lack of, for organization of His followers.

When we look at the beginnings of the book of Genesis in the OT, we see a rather disorganized form of worship to God.  These early people knew that they were to worship God, and we see that they even knew what was expected of them; what was good worship, pleasing to God, and what was not.  An early example of this knowledge can be found in Gen. 4 where Abel gives a better sacrifice to God than Cain does. 

As time goes on, God gives His people a Law to follow, and it is a highly structured Law, complete with many do's and don'ts.  Their religion at this time is definitely well organized. 

When we come to the New Testament, we find that Jesus is with man to bring us a new Law.  Jesus lived during the time of the old Jewish Law; He was a Jew and kept the Jewish Law during His lifetime.  But He came to bring something better; a new law of faith.  He told His disciples in Matthew 16, "..On this rock (that He is 'the Christ, the Son of the living God') I will build My church."  During the life of Christ, He had not built His church yet.  As we read in the book of Acts, He would leave it to the apostles to build it, building it on their faith in Jesus.

As we follow the acts of the apostles, we see them going about setting up an actual organization of the church.  Each church is watched over by elders....and each church is autonomous, self governing.  There is no other organization in today's church.  And, in fact, there wasn't any other organization in the church of the NT except for the guidance given by apostles.  If we had apostles today, it would be appropriate for them to be watchful over the various churches, aiding and instructing the elders of the churches.  But with the death of all the apostles, the churches are now self governed, following simply the teaching of the New Testament.

The problem today then, is not "organized religion," but rather the way churches are organized.  It is important that we just follow the examples given in the NT.

Enough.  Thanks for reading again.  May God bless you.