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This little book captures better than anything else I've read what I have seen about "the church" and what it is more than any short piece on the subject.

When Jesus came to earth, what He saw was a religion (Judaism - the ONLY religion God ever gave to man) so totally unlike what God had given Moses that He battled it His whole adult life. And it was so unlike what God had given Moses that it not only rejected Him (God), but it planned, designed and implemented His murder. A large part of the book of John is His confrontations with Judaism and its leaders.

It took Judaism several thousand years to change from what God had given Moses to what Jesus faced. What happened? Man... More > spent all those years transforming what God had given into something that served man - his needs, desires and goals - not God's. After several thousand years, it ended up being the exact opposite of what God intended. So much so, that it insisted on His crucifixion. What God began was taken over by man, his flesh, his selfishness, his self-righteousness, and turned into the very opposite of what God intended. Jesus condemned it and its leaders.

The very same thing has happened to what is called the church. Over two thousand years, man has changed/warped the free, grace-based, life left us by our Lord jesus that is seen in the book of Acts into a rigid, formal religion that is totally unlike what He left us.

I saw this early on when I was on the staff of Campus Crusade for Christ in my early twenties after becoming a Christian at 21. My parents were not Christians when I grew up. Working with evangelical churches of every stripe and color in CCC, I saw quickly how they differed from what I read in Acts and the New Testament.

For all of my life as a Christian, I have sought to be a part of what is the real church. Sadly, what usually happened is that moves that began by the Holy Spirit were in a number of years taken over by man, his ways and his interests, and all ended up being systems that actually opposed God in many ways.

Sadly, we see what we call the church through the stained glasses of tradition ("Custom") and history, coloring our reading of sctipture with deceptions of history, time and experience. Our brother Firth helps expose a lot of the stain in our glasses, in a very gracious, loving and non-critical way.

This little book gets back to what the church really looked like before it was warped by almost 2000 years of man and his filthy motives and hands warping it. Thankfully, all through the ages God has raised up those (like Martin Luther, Watchman Nee and too many others to list) who saw and knew the real thing, and gave their lives to see it recovered.

Having served the Lord in various "ministries" for most of my 44 adult years, I highly recommend this book to all who want to see what God is after from a fresh view.

Then go to Wayne Jacobsen's website, www.lifestream.org, and read his series on "The Relational Church" for more to feast on. < Less