20 Cognitive Biases That Affect Your Decisions

Good stuff here from Mental Floss. The first step in avoiding these pitfalls is being aware of them.

Unavoidable: Jesus Christ is the One and Only Head

One of the most fundamental truths of church life is that our Lord Jesus is the only Head of His body.

"Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ" (Ephesians 4:15).

"And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent" (Colossians 1:18).

My guess is that the vast majority of Christians, if asked, would agree that Jesus is the Head of His church. However, in practice we see a far different picture. In this country headship within the church has become muddled. This is caused by the unbiblical practice of elevating pastors to positions of authority and prestige within the body. While the bible shows us nothing resembling modern pastors, most churches continue with this practice year after year.

If you attend a typical worship service you might not be able to figure out who the head actually is. On the one hand, Jesus will probably receive some form of verbal praise. On the other hand, one man will likely be front and center for the majority of the gathering. The pastor does most of the "important stuff" while pretty much everybody else sits quietly. This typical situation provides the strong message that the pastor is actually the head.

The bible states clearly and unavoidably that Jesus Christ is the one and only Head of His own church. Since this is the case, we ought to gather in ways that model this. No one person should be preeminent. Everyone ought to be involved. All must be on equal footing before God. The only person who should be recognized as being in authority is Christ.

Any deviation from Christ as Head is extremely problematic. This is why God made this truth unavoidable.

Unavoidable Church Principles

When I look around the church landscape in this country I see a mess.

This mess stems directly from Christians trying to live church life as they see fit, generally disregarding the bible whenever they feel like it. This phenomenon of ignoring scripture has opened a Pandora's box of all sorts of problems. When Christians try to do things according to their own wisdom, apart from what we see in the bible, the results are predictable. In the end what we have in this country is a church that is largely ineffective in either edifying the saints or proclaiming the gospel to the lost.

Most Christians look to the bible to inform what they believe about God and the gospel. And yet, these same people act as if what scripture says about the church is unimportant. This despite the fact that God has given us in scripture numerous unavoidable principles for church life. They are unavoidable in the sense that they are right there in writing. A fair reading points them out. In fact, the only way they can be avoided is by actively doing so.

Over the next few posts I'm going to be discussing these unavoidable church practices. I do this because the American church as it currently stands generally does whatever it wants whenever it wants. It is like a boat adrift. It needs to return to its mooring. That mooring is the bible.