Dear Maggie,
Thank you for your last letter. I read it on my walk back from the mailbox and my heart broke with yours. I am so sorry to hear about your friend, Lydia.
It’s a sad, strange thing when an individual who made the good confession of faith and walked with other believers in the church for years then turns away from listening to the truth and wanders off into myths, as Paul warned (2 Tim. 4:4).
It’s like a slow death.
Why do you think she left the church? your letter asked. Was it something I said—or did I not say enough?
I don’t know the specific reasons that compelled her—likely, it was a lot of small things that grated on her false beliefs like a thread that’s been strung through a needle too many times. The gospel. The law. The Word. The marriages. The families. The way people sang and tithed and reached deep into one another’s lives. To someone who longs to fly her own flag and ride under her own banner, the church of Jesus Christ is a troubling reality. It is where you go to lose yourself, Maggie.
The ravine Lydia is slipping into is one that’s been dug out by a godless culture—of feminism, individualism, and a deconstruction of her faith that never really intended to put it back together. She is being told by her classmates and therapists that she needs to ask more questions, validate her doubts, and that the only truth she really needs about God and this whole church business is just enough to understand who she is. How does the church fit into her reality? And if it doesn’t, why go back to a place that hurt her?
It’s a universe where she graces the center.
To someone who longs to fly her own flag and ride under her own banner, the church of Jesus Christ is a troubling reality.
This kind of young woman is looking for a Bible that’s all questions with no answers—like a version of Ecclesiastes that never settles on the truth to fear God and keep His commandments (Ecc. 12:13). To her, there seems to be more freedom swimming in an ocean of doubt than there is in landing safely on the shoreline of something immovable.
And that is precisely what the church is, Maggie. It is a buttress of truth that has weathered history, that stands today as unshaken as it’s ever been. When Paul wrote about the church, he used the image of an edifice—of stones laid, one upon the other, into a secure fortress (1 Pt. 2:5). Jesus told Peter that that the church was a rock all hell could not prevail against, and this is because He Himself is its Cornerstone (Matt. 16:18, Eph. 2:20).
Maggie, you must understand that apart from Christ’s grace, you and I would be Lydia ourselves. We would be fooled like other young people into thinking the church is somehow crumbling—dying along with our grandpas and grandmothers who attended it every Sunday in suits and pearls. Young people today would like to run far and fast from anything that smacks of religion. But often what they mean by “religion” is simply the firm soil our grandparents sank their roots into.
What they’re really running from is truth.
No, the church is not dead, Maggie. It is as alive as the eyes and brain waves you are using to read this letter. This is why Paul calls the materials of the church living stones (1 Pt. 2:5). It’s why he uses the image of a body with an active muscular and nervous system (1 Cor. 12:12). And it’s why Jesus calls the church His bride (Rev 19:7).
In Christ’s eyes, she is like a radiant girl coming toward Him in her wedding gown.
But for every bride, there is a husband. There must be a head, an authority. When we slash through all the weeds entangling dear Lydia, trying to wrench her from the church, we finally stumble upon a root that’s stuck fast:
She does not want to be under Christ’s authority. She may like the idea of being a bride, but she doesn’t want a Husband whom she must love, submit to, and lay down her life for.
It has never occurred to this kind of girl that being under the headship of Jesus Christ might be the safest place in the world. It’s like being at sea with a captain at the helm; like falling asleep as a child, knowing your dad is awake down the hallway. Feminism would like to steal souls out of the church, one by one, and expose them nakedly to all the elements of an evil world in the name of freedom. In Christ, and in His church, we find a bulwark and shelter. We find a Head.
As to your question that prompted my letter—Why did she leave? It’s easy to take her actions personally. But Maggie, she lies in the sovereign hand of the Good Shepherd. If she is a straying sheep, lost in the forest of her deception, know that He will not let her be lost to the wolves. In this case, Paul’s words to the Thessalonians apply: “Do not regard him as an enemy, but warn him as a brother” (2 Thess. 3:15).
Be open and willing to talk with her. When you do talk, speak the truth in love. She may shake the dust off her feet in regards to you, Maggie, but that doesn’t mean you have to be the first to sever the friendship. If she does distance herself, you can still pray—pray often for her soul to be drawn back to her first love, Jesus Christ, the way a freezing man is warmed by a fire.
If dear Lydia never was a sheep in Christ’s fold, only He can reach out His staff to save her. Shortly after Paul warned Timothy about those who would wander off into myths, he made things a little more personal by telling Timothy of his own friend who’d walked away: Demas—wooed by the world’s whispers far and away from Christ and His church (2 Tim. 4:9).
Paul felt alone in the fight, and maybe you do too, my sister. Yet he also knew that where there will be straying sheep, there will also be a steadfast Shepherd.
Where there will be straying sheep, there will also be a steadfast Shepherd.
Let our brother’s words from of old strengthen your heart as they do mine:
“But the Lord stood by me and strengthened me… The Lord will rescue me from every evil deed and bring me safely into His heavenly kingdom. To Him be glory forever and ever. Amen” (2 Tim. 4:18).
More next time,
Bethany J.
Note: Maggie is an entirely fictional character.
Scriptures for Further Study:
- 2 Timothy 4:1-18
- 2 Timothy 3:6-7
- 1 Peter 2:5
- 1 Corinthians 12:12-27
- 2 Thessalonians 3:15
- Jude 22-25
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