Religious Quid Pro Quo

Religious Quid Pro Quo I. Biblical ministry goes contrary to the theory, “You will catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.” 2TI 4:2; TIT 1:13; 2:15. A. exhort: To admonish earnestly; to urge by stimulating words to conduct regarded as laudable. B. admonish: To put (a person) in mind of duties; to counsel against wrong practices; to give authoritative or warning advice; to exhort, to warn. C. rebuke: To beat down or force back; to repress or check (a person); to repulse; to reprove, reprimand, chide severely. D. reprove: To reject; to express disapproval of (conduct, actions, beliefs, etc.); to censure, condemn; to reprehend, rebuke, blame, chide, or find fault with (a person). E. chide: To give loud or impassioned utterance to anger, displeasure, disapprobation, reproof. (SeeISA58:1). F. sharply: Of speech, rebuke, command: sternly, severely, harshly; in cutting terms; in stern or angry tones. (See HOS 6:5-6). G. The seal of a godly ministry is to not only preach grace but also repentance. 2TI 2:19. H. Christ’s minister must sometimes decide whether He will be a friend to men or Christ. JOH 15:14; GAL 1:10. I. Christ’s minister must not shun to preach the portions of God’s word which irritate men. ACT 20:20-21, 27. 1. The minister dare not withhold biblical information that condemns sin and sinners to save them from wrath. ACT 20:26 c/w EZE 3:17-21. 2. The minister is duty bound to promote the increase of the knowledge of God and of right and wrong to the Lord’s people. EPH 4:11-14; COL 1:9-10. 3. With increased knowledge comes increased responsibility. LUK 12:48; HEB 10:26-27. J. Christ’s minister must avoid the control of filthy lucre over his ministry. 1PE 5:2. 1. It is wrong to teach what should not be taught for filthy lucre’s sake. TIT 1:11. 2. It is wrong to not teach what should be taught for filthy lucre’s sake. JDG 18:18-20 c/w EXO 20:4. 3. Human reasoning would say that it is in a minister’s personal best interest to keep the Lord’s people in darkness lest they be offended at the truth and turn against the minister. 4. Human reasoning would say that is best to feed the Lord’s people only soft words and assurances of their goodness in spite of their sins, lest they be offended. 5. But Christ thinks otherwise. MAT 15:12-13; 1CO 9:14-18. II. The circumstances of Hosea’s day highlight the above observations. Both the teachers and the people were culpable in an impending judgment from God. HOS 4:6-9. A. At issue was not a lack of secular training but of the knowledge of God. HOS 4:1. B. Self-destruction is the lot of the unlearned in the knowledge of God. 2PE 3:16-18. C. The appointed teachers of the Law to Israel were the Levites, particularly the priests. DEU 33:8-11; MAL 2:7. 1. The people were supposed to be themselves familiar with the scriptures (DEU 11:18-21 c/w ACT 17:11) but obviously were ignorant of them. 2. The priests had obviously been delinquent in their warnings and reproofs from the scriptures and so were in jeopardy of losing their office. HOS 4:6. D. The priests’ error seems to have been at least partially owing to the universal hardness of Religious Quid Pro Quo 12-1-19 Page 1 of 2 the people against reproof. HOS 4:4. 1. The priests were part of the high court of Israel (DEU 21:5) and to defy their judgment was a capital offense. DEU 17:8-13. 2. The people were so hardened that they would snuff at a potential death sentence. 3. God’s man must meet that kind of hardness without fear. EZE 3:9. 4. Though oppressed, Jeremiah’s passion would not let him keep silent. JER 20:8-9. 5. Muzzling oneself out of the fear of man is a snare (PRO 29:25) which sets a man of God up for future manipulation and confounding by God. JER 1:17. E. The priests, though, had figured out a way of materially profiting from the sins of the people. HOS 4:8. 1. The Law said that the priests were to eat of the sin offerings of the people. NUM 18:8-10. 2. This system therefore had the potential for corruption and exploitation. As long as the people were only compelled to make sin offerings but not compelled by teaching to repent and live righteously, the natural outcome was a people left comfortable in their sins and the priesthood comfortably fed by their sin offerings. 3. In Jeremiah’s day, the clergy and the people had come to a mutual understanding that made everyone happy except God and those who were righteous. JER 5:31 c/w EZE 13:22. 4. After the judgment of the seventy-year Babylonian captivity (JER 29:10), the priesthood again corrupted itself by not turning the people from iniquity. MAL 2:1-2, 6-8. 5. This system was turned on its head by John the Baptist (born in the priestly line) who refused material comforts and commanded repentance (MAT 3:1-4), which remains to this day the primary command of the gospel. LUK 24:47; ACT 17:30. F. That corrupt relationship between the people and the priests is not unlike the “play, then pay” system of Catholicism which capitalizes on a poorly informed people and has even sold indulgences for sin (a “pay, then play” arrangement). G. The same could also be said for too much of modern evangelical Christianity which soft- pedals sin to its adherents by a sentimental dumbed-down gospel and pseudo-bibles that cannot even properly identify sodomy. But the system works because everyone is in agreement: a quid pro quo arrangement! c/w ISA 30:8-10. 1. God opposes both lies and lightness in leaders. JER 23:32. 2. Mutual agreement in folly does NOT make it acceptable. PRO 11:21. III. God being my helper, I will rebuke, reprove, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine (2TI 4:2) to force the issue of repentance where needed and not leave you in darkness for my personal advantage. A. It is your duty to read your Bibles and pray for wisdom. ACT 17:11; JAM 1:5. B. I love you in the Lord and that means that I dare not evade needed rebuke. LEV 19:17. C. I do not want your blood on my hands. ACT 20:26-27. Religious Quid Pro Quo 12-1-19 Page 2 of 2