The first-century apostles meant business when they referred to the purity and exclusivity of Jesus Christ. It’s what led to their martyrdom. In the first decades of the Church, heresies arose that required the apostles to write letters to various churches warning and instructing people how to handle those who reject a pure and Christ-centered faith.

What this means for us today is that our first and foremost task is to preach the Gospel message and follow up that preaching with a process of equipping and maturation that only comes, as Paul stated, by having people sit under the teaching of the five equipping gifts of apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor, and teacher. The Gospel that begins this process centers around the purity, simplicity, and exclusivity of Jesus Christ. We must first understand who He is as King of kings and Lord of lords before that message can have a lasting impact on us personally and bring transformation to the world around us.

From time to time, the Lord will clean house in His Church just like He did when He entered the Temple compound overturning the tables of the money changers and whipping them out the door. The same need for cleansing is present today for those we have allowed to minister among us professing and teaching messages that set the stage for people to believe culturally acceptable deceptions about Jesus. Those susceptible to this kind of influence are people who are either ignorant of Scripture or who have been overcome by the spirit of the age to such a degree they no longer see the majesty of Jesus.

This cleansing of God’s house is not a removal of our varied opinions about life and a long list of non-essentials that refer to issues of lifestyle, politics, or someone’s favorite style of worship. It is always about how we see Jesus and the truth about Him.

The first apostles took this seriously. When addressing his readers, John wrote:

^“Watch out that you do not lose what we have worked for, but that you may be rewarded fully” (2 John 8).  We must “watch out” that we do not lose what has been given to us by allowing anyone or any influence to create an interpretation of Jesus not found in Scripture. These errant interpretations are created in the undisciplined imaginations of people, some with advanced degrees and great oratory skills who have set up a table of influence with the Church to hawk their errant theological wares.

John continues, “Anyone who runs ahead and does not continue in the teaching of Christ does not have God; whoever continues in the teaching has both the Father and the Son” (vs.9).   The phrase, “Anyone who runs ahead” has also been translated as “wander away.” We have been told in Scripture to not abandon a pure and simple devotion to the Lord that would cause us to wander away from the fundamental truths about the Lord. That pure and simple devotion to Him is the line that connects us to the anchor of our hope in times of despair and hopelessness.

The next verse is where it gets tough for a lot of believers, “If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not take them into your house or welcome them. Anyone who welcomes them shares in their wicked work” (vs. 9-11). The earliest expressions of the Church were meetings in homes where a challenge to someone’s theology was upfront and personal.

The whip of the Lord used in the Temple two thousand years ago is being handed to the Church today to clear the house of God in preparation for what lies ahead. The first stroke of that whip must be felt personally on our misconceptions about the Lord before we are allowed to go around whipping others with whom we disagree. 

Only a pure Church will possess the power needed to release Heaven on Earth. That purity is worth contending for even when the process that leads to that purity is uncomfortable and creates the kind of disruption Jesus created when He cleared the Temple in His day of deceptive influences.