Do I Need to Go to Church?

[@jolynnsawyer]

I left my church after over a decade. In a small town, maritime province of Canada it became a model mega church following massive churches from the US .. Elevation with Steven Furtick, the ARC model and so on. I couldn't stomach any of it and now am without a church base. But during this time I have discovered Michael Heiser, Tim Mackie and the Bible Project, various incredible podcasts as well as NT Wright. For the first time in my almost 50 years I feel like my eyes have been opened and the Bible has become more real as truth upon truth is revealed. Things I never heard or learned from any pulpit. Praise God for biblical teachers and scholars who have dedicated their lives to this mission!!!!

[@Sunwolfe]

I hear you, Sister! Same! Same! Though it is risky and presents its own dangers and concerns, time in “strategic withdrawal,” (not from Yeshua but from the collective) can be, if handled carefully, seriously, and introspectively, extremely cathartic and healing. Still, after a time (years) I felt the absence of communal and community worship keenly and went on “walk-about” visiting area churches, meeting people, looking for a crew to share the amazing things I’d learned from many of the teachers you mentioned and others I’d discovered through them. I’ll not claim to have found the perfect place-as long as humans are involved 🤷‍♂️-but honestly, I stopped looking as it seemed to me Yeshua can work with any place I land as long as I let him handle it and remember to keep the Greatest Commandment to the fore. Carry on, Sister. Keep looking; He will be faithful 🙂

[@janeyranlett6567]

I still belong to the small congregation I grew up in but rarely attend, as the denomination has become progressive and the latest pastor, 62 years old, but 2nd career / only 7 years out of seminary, does not know or teach the Word well at all. I am replying here because in the past 2.5 years I too "discovered" the same Bible scholars you mentioned and daily give praise and thanks to God for their minds and hearts and for the technology that brings them right into my hands, literally as I type this on my phone. Praying we all are led to new church families.

[@jolynnsawyer]

@@janeyranlett6567 Thank you so much!! 🙏

[@lyudmilayakovenko9237]

Wow, me the same….. discovered same scholars and enjoy their teachings- would never hear this stuff at church. Keep praising God for these revelations

[@davekpghpa]

So, why don't you take the advise given here (and in scripture), join with a good Gospel teaching Church and share with them what you learned. I posed a question to one of the Pastors at my Church regarding the supernatural-level deceptions that are prophesied in the last days and how we should be prepared as the Body of Christ are to handle that. So, my Church will be addressing that subject to the congregation the Sunday after next.

[@terrycox2063]

Many thanks bishop Wright, unity throught diversity is the key, how boring would life be if wr were all the same, to be like minded is what church is all about, setting aside ethnic differences and setting our hearts on building for the kingdom, blessing to all

[@christianfrommuslim]

Excellent! We will never find a church that we totally agree with, or sometimes even feel comfortable with. But I love what you say, that our joining together makes a testimony to the powers of darkness.

[@TheosLogosHill]

I look forward to the release of each video! N.T Wright, what a blessing you are to us! Thank you for taking the time.

[@NTWrightOnline]

Thank you so much for your encouragement. We are grateful for our supporters who keep our channel going! --NTW Online Team

[@sharonlouise9759]

Such a good segment! I do hope that Christians have recognized the effect that the pandemic had upon the church and themselves. There is nothing to compare with actually gathering with the body of believers. Nothing! I remember reading something from Bonhoeffer about his appreciation of fellowship with other believers while in prison because he had none. Fellowship with other Christians "at" church is a gift from God. This is such a timely word for where we find ourselves today in our world. The world today is without wisdom and when they discover the futility within their lives because of the roads they have walked, they will seek out wisdom and they need the church to be there for them. I loved this dearly.

[@PinkTigger33]

Our church does have online live broadcasts and on the days I can't make it over there, I am appreciative that they do share it online so I can still be there at least on the livestream, but I do miss physically being there and seeing the people and just taking part in the communion. It's nice that it's available, but it just isn't the same at home. I love going to church and being a part of it all. All five senses are involved and it makes me feel whole and restored to carry on the hard work of being in the world and sharing the message with others when I am there in person. I really miss church when I am not able to attend.

[@samsianturijkt]

This was a wonderful message! I love going to church and worshipping the Lord Jesus with other fellow believers. Thank you so much for sharing Professor NT Wright. I love your KZbin videos. God bless you always❤🙏✝

[@NTWrightOnline]

Thank you for your encouragement! --NTW Online Team

[@samsianturijkt]

@@NTWrightOnline your very welcome!

[@edmoremunyaradzi4809]

Hi brothers and sisters in Christ out there, as for me i don’t go to church to attend a church service but to be part of it.let us all serve in our church in different ways because we are people with different gifts 😁🙏🏾

[@nb4mt]

I used to be a Christian who attended the Christian church for many years. Over the years, my point of view has shifted and changed and I am now Messianic believer where our doctrines and theology is not quite the same. There are not many messianic congregations far up north that I can find and so I watch online sermons and teachings.

[@Lynn-r8h]

Baruch Haba B’Shem Adonai. When I saw that churchanity didn’t match with scrioture, I also left.

[@elmienthom9825]

Amen! I am in the US visiting my daughter. We attended their Presbyterian Church yesterday. What a privilege, although it differed greatly from our tradition in South Africa. As you say, prof. Wright, which differences make a difference is what we have to think about. I keep praying for you and your ministry.

[@NTWrightOnline]

Thank you for your wise words and prayers! --NTW Online Team

[@germantuner720]

I vow to someday go to church. I was confirmed in one long ago and would like to return. Thank you for another wonderful and informative video Professor Wright

[@simontemplar3359]

I hope you do, friend! I'll pray for you!

[@germantuner720]

@simontemplar3359 THANK YOU SIMON. When I pray to God later I'll ask him to protect you and to guide you always

[@danielnatzke6733]

Jesus is your Lord, I assume?

[@bobstaurovsky3506]

Church should be interactive, not a one way street, if someone doesn’t understand what is being preached, why shouldn’t one be able to ask for clarification on what is being said ?

[@paulpaulsen7245]

In Christ´s name - amen from Germany!

[@NTWrightOnline]

Thank you, Paul. Blessings to you in Germany! --NTW Online Team

[@mickcooper8739]

In the UK...it's hard to find a church that actually believes the Bible let alone preach from it. Hell isn't even a belief in most of the ones I've visited.

[@gavilanthegringo]

Spain was the same way when I was there.

[@kimjensen8207]

You love Jeshua - unconditionally! - to the Glory of His Father! Reading what Jesus Christ said and did in the New Testament - again and again - transforms you into a chap ready to lay down dough for the poor, and ultimately: lay down your life for someone you can love, well - unconditionally! Kind regards Kim (from Denmark where you rarely meet a christian these days...

[@NTWrightOnline]

Thank you Kim from Denmark! Blessings to you as you continue to be transformed by the love and power of God. You are a blessing to others as you love unconditionally! --NTW Online Team

[@lesleyrichards1088]

I love Bible study groups. We learn form one another. The text comes alive. Also community prayer makes me feel I am part of something larger than myself.

[@davidmorrison2739]

Yes.

[@jasonloke2219]

Thank you so much for the clarification!!

[@NTWrightOnline]

We're glad you are encouraged, Jason. Blessings to you! --NTW Online Team

[@jwayne4556]

Thanks for this I went to a messy church for 30 years. I remember one minister commenting on the many different reactions she would get to her sermons and my own finding of diverse theologies of members. I contrast that church to the woke church I am now part of where you would be shunned if for divergence. The Holy Spirit was present at the 30 year church but not so much at the woke church.

[@Bibliotechno]

We are sanctified when we bump into each other practicing all the "one anothers", knocking off rough edges, encouraging each other (there are over 30 "one anothers"). Someone stated that not going to church was like getting married but skipping the going home.

[@tedclemens4093]

I'm glad Wright broadens the scope of "church" to include the fellowship of believers of all traditions. What handicaps this union will be his call for "justice." Justice and the striving for righteousness are at odds with grace, the unlikely route the Gospel takes through the forgiveness of sins and transgressions. It's this act of grace which unites, not the justice it overcame.

[@jwillisbarrie]

Thanks for adding actual captions for the Deaf ❤

[@johnbristow8099]

I worshipped online during the early lockdown but was surprised how much I had missed actually being in church with fellow Christians when restrictions were lifted.

[@lynnglidewell7367]

I left the American Evangelical Church and all it's branches and entities for good even though I was raised my entire life in them. I'm considering the American Episcopal Church as the body of Christ I now adhere to. I'm late in life and most would probably say it's time for me to stay home because I'm probably not of a great deal of use anymore in the mission and life of the Church anyway. Still I feel compelled to join my fellow believers in corporate worship on some small level at least. The Episcopal and Anglican Church seem to value so many of the things that I do as well. Helping the poor, the immigrant, the forsaken, I'm able to embrace that completely. The White Evangelical has become unrecognizable to me a practicing Christian.I live in the Southern U.S. so Baptist congratulations are plenty close by but nearest Episcopal is several miles away. I ride a bus which doesn't run Sunday. I'd have to investigate more closely to see if weekday services are available I could attend. I found this video to be very instructive. Thank you.

[@Lynn-r8h]

Is there a reason you want to go to a woke denomination as opposed to a biblical one? Are there any Messianic congregations nearby so you can worship on the sabbath? I know baptists can be cliquish but not all baptists are southern baptists. What about Assembly of God?

[@lynnglidewell7367]

@Lynn-r8h oh gosh no Assembly of God is the absolute Pits! Snake handlers, pew jumpers, chandelier swingers, sawdust rollers, tongue talking gibberish, and Despinsational Theology believing kooks. Let me be woke for sure if that's the only alternative! lol

[@julesjgreig]

Thanks so much

[@peterjewoods]

The problem I see is that the current Church model does not operate like this. They all operate by their statements of faith and the minister/pastor has to agree to and abide with them. Therefore, for anyone like myself, who disagrees with a lot of these statements, debate and discussion is not an option because if the the minister/pastor gets to a position where they disagree with the SOF, they will lose their job.

[@byrondickens]

Yes. Christianity is meant to be lived out in community.

[@MyHanck]

You are free. Go in the promise of your baptism.

[@ARenewedmind]

I agree, the coming together of saints are important and necessary for the ministry of the Holy Spirit through the gifts each one are able to release. But it is very true that more and more witchcraft and "docrines of demons" (Paul's words) have infiltrated and taken over many "churches" making it impossible for those who desire to live holy lives, to attend these "churches". Paul clearly says in 2 Corinthians 6:16-18; 1Timothy 4:1-4 and others that we should separate us from these inside the church! 1 Cor. 5 is worth reading in this regard. I desire fellowhip with sincere, set apart believers in Christ, but that is now found less and less in church buildings. No church is perfect and church have leaven but when "leaven" is openly celebrated and "tolerated" because of the mantra "God is love" (as if that is all He is), then I cannot fellowship in such a gathering.

[@cuebj]

Could have been more forthright. A mark of being Christian is love for the brothers & sisters, eg Eph 1:15. Become Christian, desire to be involved with others, otherwise question if born again by Spirit. Unfortunately, so many individual congregations are at least as cliquey as other organisations, like bicycle clubs used to be. I wonder if Corinthians addresses the splitting of Church-in-town/region into separate homogenous unit principle groups of similar people - Kenneth Bailey develops this in his commentary, Paul Through Middle Eastern Eyes. Elsewhere, the NT addresses Jew-Gentile rifts but, in Corinth, there are more sub-groups. It's a battle Paul lost. While a degree of HUP is inevitable, especially as the total number of Christians in a given area became too many to meet in one place, each group should be deliberately working at how to be involved with other groups as a (maybe the) core evidence of Christ in us. We don't go to church. As individuals, we are stones or bricks intended for a building. We are church, we don't go to church. Try substituting the word 'church' for 'local Christian extended family' or something similar but more catchy. I have some spare paving bricks at the bottom of my garden. They are leftovers from when we laid our front driveway in 2018. I am about to use one or two to make good a hole below the damp proof course in a remote corner below our house through which one or two lone rats and mice have got in during the past few years. I will select a couple of those bricks, wash them, dry them, crawl around in the void under our ground floor to where the hole is, assess the sizes and shapes I need, use my small Bosch grinder to gut the bricks to size, mix up up some cement, plug the hole with a piece of conduit to take electric cable from inside to the back garden, hoover up the brick dust and grit. Thus those left over bricks will be taken to our house and incorporated into it. They will not be seen by anyone except me and the rodents that can no longer get into our house. They will be unseen guardians - an important role. Once they had no future, soon they will be incorporated into a home that could last another 100 years and be an asset for our children to inherit when we die.

[@Nevermind-eh]

Jhn 20.1 ¶The first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early, when it was yet dark, unto the sepulchre, and seeth the stone taken away from the sepulchre. 2Then she runneth, and cometh to Simon Peter, and to the other disciple, whom Jesus loved, and saith unto them, They have taken away the Lord out of the sepulchre, and we know not where they have laid him. This verse says Mary Magdalene arrived at the tomb when it was dark and the tomb was empty. Making a Sunday Sunrise Resurrection Scripturally, very difficult. How do you read it? Peace

[@kathleenwharton2139]

If you Obey Gods Laws and Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount..you will be fine. Church is a lot of Mens laws. Jesus Taught the difference 😊❤

[@TheParadoxDestroyer]

Given that biblical scholarship has firmly come to the conclusion that Paul did not write Ephesians and we don't know who did, I had to stop there.

[@davidmorrison2739]

It reads as though it has apostolic authority even if Paul didn't write it (or more accurately, dictate it). But you should say thst some learned commentators believe he didn't write it and some think he did.

[@TheParadoxDestroyer]

@davidmorrison2739 it depends upon what you mean by "commentators". Apologists or actual biblical scholars.

[@GreumMor]

I find the constant switches in camera angle from front to side really distracting

[@FredVanAllenRealtor]

You don't need to go to chruch, you need to get saved/born again/eternal life. How? Romans 10:9-10 states that a person is saved by confessing with their mouth that Jesus is Lord and believing in their heart that God raised Jesus from the dead.

[@ringthembells143]

I don’t quite understand this. You defined the church as the global Jesus movement and then redefined it back to a building that we go to on Sunday mornings. Which is it?

[@thecontagiouscajun4795]

He never said that the church is reduced to the building. Take everything he has said in context and I think it’s very clear.

[@shawnholbrook7278]

🙏

[@peteherrera1502]

Are you ready for the return of Jesus Christ. Means Do you have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and are you walking in all the light or truth that you have Mat 7:21-23 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ 23 Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’ And are you studying God's word daily so that you can learn what His will is for you and are you sharing what you have been shown by the Holy Spirit with those who are receptive to it and complete surrender. Complete surrender of our free will choices, by doing God will, instead of our own will, is a requirement to salvation and a requirement to being transformed into the image and character of Jesus Christ. Mat 7:21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Mat 7:22-23 Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ 23 Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’ And are you doing the will of my Father who is in heaven by obeying what you have been shown and have learned And are you working on overcoming all sin in your life and being transformed into the image and character of Jesus Christ. If the answer is yes to all of the questions above then you are running the race of faith all the days of your life as the one who get the prize which is eternal life with Jesus Christ our Lord. Beloved: Salvation is a 2 step process. The 1st step in the process of salvation is being justified by what Christ which happens when a person accepts Jesus Christ as their person savior. And after being justified by what Christ did by accepting Jesus Christ as your personal savior. The next step in salvation is sanctification. And Sanctification is a moment by moment and a day by day process of obedience to the will of God out of love ALL of the days of your life after accepting Jesus Christ as your personal savior. And To Repent of sin, means to ask The Son of God who is Jesus Christ incarnate for forgiveness of sin and he wants us to be literal about the sin that we are asking Him to be forgiven of and part of asking for forgiveness also means that we will give up in our lives whatever sin it is that we are asking to be forgiven of. Again Salvation is a 2 step process. The 1st step in the process of salvation is being justified by what Christ which happens when a person accepts Jesus Christ as their person savior. And after being justified by what Christ did by accepting Jesus Christ as your personal savior. The next step in salvation is sanctification. And Sanctification is a moment by moment and a day by day process of obedience to the will of God by doing the will of God out of love ALL of the days of your life after accepting Jesus Christ as your personal savior. And Our mission is to study the word of God so that we can share the word of God with those who are receptive to it and to be transformed into the character of Jesus Christ by our choices and by our actions. Mat 28:18 Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” The character we form in this world by our choices and actions will determine our destiny for eternity. Our future is determined by the way in which we now allow ourselves to be transformed into the image and character of Jesus Christ. which is why every person who says they follow Christ is to be transformed into the image and character of Jesus Christ by their choices and by their actions on a moment by moment and on a day by day basis with the help of the Holy Spirit. It is what we do, action wise, today, till we die that determines if we have accepted, the gift of salvation or not, God's grace, forgiveness and eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. is dependent on our belief and actions Those who choose not to become like Jesus Christ in character; Must know that their profession to follow Jesus Christ is a fraud. Obedience to the will of God out of Love is a requirement of those who would be saved. God knows our wants, needs and our desires, and He can read our heart, mind, and soul, and He knows our motives, our intentions and our desires by our actions. Jesus estimates the purity of motive, thoughts and actions and the character that we posse. which is used along with the things written in the books which determines if we have accepted the gifts described above. He looks to see how much of His Spirit and character is in us by our actions How much of His likeness of character is in our life which is revealed in us by our actions. To be great in God’s kingdom is to be as a little child in humility, in simplicity of faith, and in purity of love. And what you have done for those whom you think to be the least worthy of your help you have done unto the Lord. Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God." James 4:4, KJV 1 John 2:15 Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. Matthew 6:24 No one can serve two masters: Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God, the world and money.

[@phylliswilliamstn]

👍🏻❤️

[@davidmorrison2739]

Biblical scholars as well as some learned teachers and preschers.

[@tkyap2524]

Bathing is about hygiene. Going to church is about soul cleansing.

[@Caleb-w6l]

A follower of Christ wants to go to church much more than he or she needs to go to Church...

[@vintagegirl68]

The churches here turn the music up so loud you can't hear yourself or your neighbor sing, our ears hurt. We can't stand it.

[@petervonberg2711]

And of course there's the Sacraments.

[@jackbraaten726]

Too densely packed for my brain. Too many words too fast.

[@bettyh7586]

Excellent. I have often explained that, if you weren’t in communion together, you would be making yourself god. Unfortunately, some of us can’t get to church for a verity of reason, and church doesn’t come to us. 😢

[@williammccallum1550]

No

[@steveclark8538]

See: The Critique of NT Jesus Defense of Historical Jesus - Schweitzer

[@angloaust1575]

God is everywhere Organised religion can be satanic 2cor11v14.15