Here in Canada we are rapidly approaching a federal election. The aptly-named Liberal Party has been in power for the past three terms and has been the predominant party in Canada since the 1960’s. Tired of the terrible corruption and lack of morality in the party, many Canadians seem to be turning on the party in favor of the not-as-aptly-named Conservative Party (now known as the Conservative Alliance). The majority of Christians will be voting for the Conservative Party because of their more traditional stands on the issues of homosexual rights and abortion. This is not to say that they will make any great changes to Canada’s laws in these matters, but at least they will slow the slide into the moral morass.

Many Christians are being drawn by the Christian Heritage Party. This is a fringe party that seems to show up every election and draws a few hundred votes in the various constituencies where they have a respresentative. Christians are drawn to this party simply because of their name and the fact that many of the party members are professed Christians. The party does not have a solid platform. Frankly, the party does not need a solid platform as they have less chance of winning the election than the Green Party or the Marijuana Party. Christians seem to think that if only this party were to gain prominence and maybe even gain power, the country would turn back to God.

It occurs to me as I consider how to vote in the approaching election that God does not tell us that political parties are His means of promoting change in a nation. God has ordained that the nations change through the preaching of the gospel. If we want to see Canada change and return to her Christian roots, we, as the church, need to take our responsibility to preach the gospel more seriously. It is the church that is the hope of the world and not any political party!

Of course I see many Americans similarly equating the Republican Party with Christianity and the Democratic Party with anti-Christianity. I am sure you could find more Christians in the Republican Party than in the Democratic Party, and were I American, I’m sure I would vote Republican, but again, do remember that a political party will not make the change your country needs. The responsibility is yours!

You and I and other believers really are the hope of this world. It is up to us to take the gospel to our nation and to other nations. We are the respresentatives of Christ on earth, not as members of political parties, but as ambassadors of He who is Sovereign over this world.

My son bought a toy today that came with a tiny piece of paper with some miniscule drawings of how to assemble it. Below that were the following printed directions:

At assemble other that process inside,if feel difficult,please face home to look for the help.The sketch map possibility that this assemble the method is different from the actual product have a little bit.

Seems to me my four-year old could have written better directions than that! I have absolutely no idea what the instructions mean, nor what they are intended to show!

While the corporate world deals with the fact that hundreds of thousands of American jobs are being outsourced to companies overseas, now we find out that it is happening in churches too.

There is a bizarre and strangely hilarious article in the New York Times about the Catholic Church’s practice of outsourcing prayer and masses. With clergy in short supply in North America, some churches are sending requests for masses to places such as India where poor, less-busy priests can earn some extra money by performing the masses. In India “memorial and thanksgiving prayers conducted for local residents are said for a donation of 40 rupees (90 cents), whereas a prayer request from the United States typically comes with $5, the Indian priests say.” Some dioceses are receiving hundreds of requests every month.Here are a few quotes:

The requests are mostly routed to Kerala’s churches through the Vatican, the bishops or through religious bodies. Rarely, prayer requests come directly to individual priests.

While most requests are made via mail or personally through traveling clergymen, a significant number arrive via e-mail, a sign that technology is expediting this practice.

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However, congregations in Kerala say the practice of ordering prayers is several decades old. “The church is not a business enterprise, and it is sad and pathetic to connect this practice to outsourcing software work to cheaper labor destinations,” said the Rev. Vincent Kundukulam of St. Joseph Pontifical Seminary in Aluva, near Cochin. In Bangalore’s Dharmaram College, Rector James Narithookil said he often received requests for Mass intentions from abroad, which he distributed among the 50 priests in his seminary. Most of the requests from the United States were for requiems, with donations of $5 to $ 10, he said. Bishop Adayanthrath said sending Mass intentions overseas was a way for rich churches short on priests to share and support smaller churches in poorer parts of the world.

The Rev. Paul Thelakkat, a Cochin-based spokesman for the Synod of Bishops of the Syro-Malabar Church, said, “The prayer is heartfelt, and every prayer is treated as the same whether it is paid for in dollars, euros or in rupees.”

I happen to know that people in North America pay more than $10 to have a mass said for a deceased relative or friend and I’m sure they pay more than that to have prayers said as well. So I wonder what percentage the local church takes as a “finders fee.” It seems to me they are probably taking 60 or 80% of the amount and than passing on just a fraction of it to the priest who is actually doing the work.

You know, in the Catholic system it doesn’t much matter who does a mass on behalf of your relative or who says a prayer for you. If priests are telling their parishoners that they will not be performing the mass themselves, I guess there really is no problem with “outsourcing” them. However, if they are allowing people to believe that a local member of the clergy, someone the parishoner knows and respects, will be doing the mass but then quietly shipping it off to India where it will be done by someone who can’t even pronounce your name, then that is just wrong.

Regardless, it shows what a bizarre system of beliefs the Catholic Church holds to that this sort of thing goes on. You can read the whole article here but will have to register before you can see it.

Matthew 18:19 and 20 are oft-quoted verses that most of us know by heart. Verse nineteen is the favorite of the Word of Faith so-called Christians. It reads “Again I say to you that if two of you agree on earth concerning anything that they ask, it will be done for them by My Father in heaven.” Just about anytime you choose you can turn on your television and find people abusing this verse, offering to “join their faith with yours” or “agree with you in faith” so that you can have the selfish desires of your heart. They believe this verse gives Christians license to demand anything from God and that He is beholden to provide us what we want when two Christians believe in faith for the same thing.

The following verse is quoted just as often. “For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them.” This verse is often used to indicate to Christians that where two or more believers get together, Jesus is somehow more present in that situation than He is when a Christian is alone.

Students of the Bible know that when it comes to Bible study, context is king. I believe both these passages have far different meanings than we may think when they are examined in context.

To find the true context, we need only look a few verses above them. There we see Jesus discussing the method of properly dealing with a believer (or a supposed believer) who is sinning. He tells us first to address that person on our own. If he does not turn from his wicked ways we are to take two or three witnesses and try again. If he still does not listen we are to take it before the church and if he will not heed the warnings of the church he is to be cast out of the church and considered as an unbeliever.

Verse eighteen then says “Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” Clearly God gives the church extraordinary power here. When the church decides that someone is living a sinful lifestyle and excommunicates that person on Biblical grounds, that excommunication is binding in God’s eyes. God has given the “keys of the kingdom” to the church. You can read Matthew 16:19 for more information about this.

Verse nineteen follows this instruction saying that where two or three agree on earth concerning a matter of church discipline, God will do it for them. So why is it that many Christians choose to tear this verse from its logical context? Clearly it is a further application of verse eighteen. God is affirming that where the church makes a decision based on Biblical precepts, God will agree with it.

Verse twenty follows logically as an extension of verse nineteen. Where two or three are gathered in His name, He is there. What this means is that Jesus is present spiritually to validate the decision that has just been made. Jesus will help guide the church officials and give them peace that the decision they were forced to make was the right one. I see no reason to expand this verse to mean that whenever two Christians are in the same geographic location, Jesus is somehow more present there than when they are apart.

Now the improper interpretation of verse twenty is not dangerous and in a sense is not even unscriptural, for God is present where people are gathered in His name. However, I do not think that is the meaning of the verse in question. Evidently an improper interpretation of verse nineteen can lead to many false teachings.

I would be interested in hearing some further opinions on my interpretation of these verses.