One of the blogs I follow is Larry Osborne Live. Osborne is a pastor in Florida who wrote “A Contrarian’s Guide to Spiritual Growth.” That book takes a new look at some of the assumptions we Christians have about God and the Christian life. It stretched me.

He recently wrote a post called, “Why I’m Pumped about the Future of the American Church.” He begins, “It’s fashionable to decry the current state of Christianity in America. But frankly, I don’t buy it. Some of the most popular conference speakers on the circuit today excel at drive-by guiltings. They paint a picture of a church that lacks guts, cowers from dying to self, and lives out a self-satisfied, what’s-in-it-for-me Christianity….But I just don’t agree on this issue.”

Yes, it’s easy to be negative, to lambaste Christians and the contemporary church for being weak, ineffective, blah blah blah. Why do we so enjoy self-flagellation? Does it really serve a purpose? Does it rally the troops in some way? Not that we need to always feel good about ourselves and reinforce our fragile self-esteem. But come on, we’re not always a bunch of losers.

Anyway, Osborne then talks about the early church of Acts, which we tend to idolize and treat as a model for today. But his observations are not so Utopian. Some excellent observations.

I’ve felt the same way, basically. I don’t view what happened in Acts as a model for all of us to follow, but mostly as a record of what happened. Just because the early Christians did things a certain, that doesn’t mean we’re supposed to. They were making it up as they went, trying to figure out this whole New Covenant thing and what it meant in terms of church life and behavior. In Acts, Luke tells what they did. It’s not supposed to be a blueprint for everyone to follow until Christ returns.

That’s my view, anyway. I in no way want to lessen the authority of God’s Word. But sometimes we give authority where it doesn’t belong, where the purpose was more history than teaching. Call me a heretic.