A Dirty Manger

Where there are no oxen, the manger is clean, but abundant crops come by the strength of the ox. (Proverbs 14:4 ESV)

I’m convinced that a church must make a decision. Do we want clean carpets and empty pews or do we want dirty carpets and a packed house?

This is what this Proverb is saying. You can keep a manger clean all the time if you don’t have an oxen in it, but having no oxen will mean that you don’t have an abundance of crops. If you want crops you need to deal with the inconvenience of a dirty manger.

Of course, just dirtying up your carpets doesn’t mean that people will beat down the doors of the church. A messy church doesn’t equal a successful church. Getting broken people to come into your church building is really only half the battle. A biblical church will see broken people transformed by the gospel.

But healing takes time.

And its messy.

Superficial healing is a bit more clean. In superficial healing we bring the easily conquered things to the surface and we hide the rest. But real transformation always gets down to the core of the thing. It’s a bloody mess. I’ve shared it this way before:

I’m finding that the deeper the gospel goes in my heart the more entrenched is the sin that it is uprooting. Early on the Lord was dealing with surface stuff. Things like cursing and watching inappropriate things or listening to really vulgar music.

My white-knuckled pew grabbing back then had to do with whether I wanted to follow Christ or keep driving through town blaring Eminem. It feels stupid now. I’d give that up in a heartbeat.

Now the stuff that I’m hanging onto are the things that are in the depths. Identity things. Deeply entrenched patterns of thought and action and character. But it’s no less bloody than giving up Eminem. In fact it’s probably more.

Bonhoeffer once said that when Christ calls a man he bids him to come and die. I’m coming to understand that this calling and coming and dying isn’t just pertaining to initial salvation. The whole thing is a bloody mess.

Being gospel-centered doesn’t just mean that we dance in the fields of favor with the Lord. It means that…a thousand times yes…it means that. But being gospel-centered also means that we are at times necessarily afflicted by the gospel. It is not as if the deeper our understanding of the gospel goes then the easier the bloodshed will be. No, it’s likely that the deeper the gospel goes then the deeper will be the things that the gospel is transforming.

This is why I say that the church must choose between clean carpets and empty pews or dirty carpets and transformed people. If a church wants an abundant crop it will only come through having a messy manger. There is no other way. Gospel transformation isn’t clean. It’s messy. No way around that.

So what do you want a clean manger or abundant crops?

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Image source: here

I also think you should read this one: How to Use the Bible to Avoid Annoying Christians