Toppling Sacred Cows

Do not [earnestly] remember the former things; neither consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs forth; do you not perceive and know it and will you not give heed to it? --Isa. 43:18-19, AMP

There are a couple of keys in this Scripture that must not be missed….

First—God is doing a new thing. This is highly significant because of the simple fact that God Himself does not change. “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.” (Heb. 13:8) So God’s nature, character, and the principles He deems important will never, ever change. However, He says here that He is doing a new thing. That means that while His principles won’t change, His methods will. After all, if His methods never changed, He wouldn’t have said, “I am doing a new thing;” He would have said, “I am doing the same thing.” Understanding the difference between principle and method is important for what we’re about to discuss.

Second—notice the phrase, “Do you not perceive it?” This, coupled with the admonition not to earnestly remember the former things, is highly significant because it means that perceiving the “new thing” God is doing is not automatic; the fact that this question is there tells us it’s possible for God to do a new thing, and we wouldn’t even realize it! How could we miss out on the new things of God? By earnestly remembering the former things. We simply cannot successfully interpret God’s new thing in the light of the old. It won’t look anything like what He did before. If we are so preoccupied with how God did it before, we are liable to allow what He is doing NOW to go unrecognized.

I once heard Jack Taylor say something I’ve never forgotten. He said, “Those who embrace the current move of God are the ones most likely to be the Pharisees of the next one.” The truth in that statement deeply impacted me as I pondered it. If you look at the different moves of God—different revivals, different revelations that have come forth throughout the history of the church—inevitably, the greatest resistance to such moves of God comes not from the world, but from the church itself. Azusa met with fierce resistance; the Latter-Rain movement, the charismatic renewal, the Jesus movement, the Word-of-Faith movement, even the renewal that began in the early ‘90’s—all of these moves of God that most people recognize today as valid, began with heavy criticism from church leaders. In addition, many people we consider to be trail-blazers or pioneers of the faith started out with huge resistance from the church. Oral Roberts, for example, in his day was highly criticized, ridiculed, even shot at. His “heretical” message? “God is a good God, and He wants to heal you.”

What’s wrong with this picture? Why is it that over and over, the church resists the very God it claims to worship? I believe the answer is simple: We are too busy earnestly remembering the former things. As a result, when God does a new thing, many of us aren’t prepared to embrace it, because we do not perceive it.

In pondering the verses above, which have become a foundation Scripture for our ministry, we have come to realize that most religion in the church—our “sacred cows”, if you will—come from a confusion between method and principle. As I shared earlier, God’s principles will never change, but His methods change often. Why is that? Why would a perfect God Who never changes adapt His methods? The answer: because man does change. God’s workings in the earth are to reach out to man, and for better or worse, man’s attitudes, thought processes, and responses to stimuli are all in a state of flux. Because God’s heart is to reach man, He will change His methods without compromising His principles. He will do a new thing.

Here’s the whole reason why religion and true Christianity do not mix: religion doesn’t like to change methods, but rather to institutionalize them. Religion is all about keeping the methods the same, thus making them sacred. We may start out following a Biblical principle, and develop a method to implement that principle; but when we find a method that works for awhile, we’ll stick to it long after its usefulness is gone, and then we’ll attack anyone who suggests that our method is no longer working. Thus, we have effectively exalted that method to the level of principle, thereby creating a sacred cow. Because of this pattern, we actually employ a lot of methods in our churches that actually have little to do with Scripture, but we keep them around because we cannot bear the thought of losing them. So when someone comes around with a new thing that flies in the face of what we’ve embraced in the past—even if the Person with the new thing is God Himself—we’ll resist religiously. “Earnestly remembering the former things” is the hallmark of religion, and that’s why religious people have such a hard time finding true intimacy with a God Who is consistently changing His tactics.

To illustrate the difference between principle and method, let me give an example that most of us will relate to.

Heb. 10:24-25 (KJV) says, “Let us consider how to provoke one another unto love and to good works; not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.” In this passage of Scripture, we find a Biblical principle: we are to assemble together regularly to encourage one another and provoke one another to do good. But notice that there is nothing in this passage that tells us how to assemble, when to assemble, where we should assemble, or what specifically to do when we assemble. Assembling together is a principle; how, when, where, and what we do when we assemble are all about methods, subject to change and reinterpretation as the need arises.

In fact, the Bible is very general on the how, when, where, and what with regard to the assembly of the church. The only Biblical clues we have as to how the early believers did it is that it mentions that they gathered (once) on the first day of the week to break bread, that they met daily in the Temple and from house to house, that they sang, that they shared the Word, and other general things like that. But out of those methods, over the centuries the church has developed an entire structure of meeting in specified buildings on Sunday mornings, following a specific liturgy or program. It isn’t un-Biblical to meet in church on Sunday; it is one way to fulfill the principle of assembling together. At the same time…so is meeting in someone’s home, or in a coffee shop, or in the public square. But let someone even suggest that we don’t necessarily have to meet in church on Sundays, and lots of people get really upset. (Some of you got upset just reading that last statement, although I did NOT suggest that you should stop going to church or not be committed to a body of believers!) Why would I meddle like that? Just to prove the point of how deeply embedded religion is within the church—to demonstrate how easily we confuse method for principle. Assembling together—often—is definitely a Biblical principle that we should obey. Believing that the only way to fulfill this principle is to go to a church building on Sundays—that’s a sacred cow, based on exalting method over principle. Sunday church is a method that fulfills the principle of assembling together, but it is ONLY a method. See my point?

If we truly wish to be effective as the Body of Christ in the 21st Century, we are going to have to tap into the new things of God, and I can tell you, that’s going to require that we lay certain “old things” aside. This does NOT mean we compromise our guiding principles. It simply means that, like God, we are willing to change our methods without compromising our principles. If something isn’t working, we don’t need to try harder to make it work; we need a fresh strategy from the Lord. If we’re having trouble getting people into our church buildings, maybe we need to look for creative ways to take the church out to the people. If we have gotten so busy with our programs that we wake up one day to find that there is no manifest presence of God anymore in our meetings, maybe we need to scrap the programs and head for our altars and prayer closets to find out what God is doing, and get on board with Him. Many will say “Amen” to that; but what if God asks you to lay something down that you are afraid to let go of? If you dare to seek God on this, don’t be surprised to find some sacred cows lurking around. But I believe if we are truly hungry for more of Him, and if we wish to be at the forefront of what God is doing, we’ll be willing to topple the sacred cows—those methods we’ve confused for principles—and embrace whatever new thing God is doing. Doing so will most certainly mess with our comfort zones, but the reward of stepping into the fullness of God far outweighs the loss of comfort and the giving up of control.

God’s doing a new thing. Will you not perceive it?

ARTICLE: Toppling Sacred Cows

Toppling Sacred Cows

Understanding the Difference between Principle and Method

By Jeff McQuilkin

The Adoration of the Golden Calf by Nicholas Poussin

(public domain)