Sunday, 19 February 2006

• Ah... xanga.  I can't say I miss you much, my surrogate life.  Better that I should trade the virtual world for the real thing.

  Even so, I feel like I should put up something worth reading from time to time, so that it doesn't look like the only important things in my life are Ultimate and stupid Internet quizzes.  And also so I'm not haunted by the Blog Enforcer.  Besides, the forum here serves as a depository of ideas and intuitions which sometimes proves helpful in sorting one's thoughts, so I will indulge the impulse once more. 

  We talked last week at small group about the unity of the Body of Christ.  This is something that I believe in very strongly -- that community is a important part of the Christian spiritual life.  No, not just important; vital.  In some mysterious, even mystical way, our fellowship somehow connects us to God, and vice versa.  And it is only through that community that these connections can become real in the truest sense.  This is a concept that is very clear in The New Testament.  Once you realize it, you start to see the concept popping up everywhere -- almost every passage.

  But this is something which is largely lost on the modern Church.  Even the words, since they are so overused, they tend to lose their meaning, as with so many other Christianese words.  Fellowship, for example, doesn't mean merely the "fellowship time" part of a Sunday morning service, which is when people refill their coffee cups, shake hands with a few strangers, and engage in social small talk with their respective cliques; the concept goes so much deeper.  To have fellowship means to have a common stake and interest, to realize that we must "all hang together, or we will all hang separately", to be fellows in the oldest, business sense of throwing in our lots together, for better or for worse.  Community, again, is a word which has largely lost its power.  Are we merely a group of people who happen to live in the same geographical location?  Is that community?  Is our community church one merely because it refrains from subscribing to any certain denominational beliefs?  Is that community?  No.  Think of the word: community means, literally, to have all things in common.  To share what we have as if it belongs not to me alone, but to whoever has need of it.   To commune is not merely communication, but the spiritual sharing of one's thoughts and feelings and needs in a way that is beyond natural or conventional means.  What else than this does Paul mean when he says to  "bear one another's burdens"? 

   Seth makes the excellent point that our fellowship is not a matter of doctrinal agreement; instead, it is a matter of choice, an active decision to love.  This is especially apparent in the parallel passages of Philippians 1:27 - 2:11, and Ephesians chapter four :  "have the same love" (Phil 2:2:) and "be patient, bearing with one another in love" (Eph. 4:2).  In fact, I can find no place in these passages -- and I challenge anyone to show me another -- that stresses the significance of doctrinal agreement.  Of paramount importance are these three things: living good lives, loving one another, and keeping the Unity.  In both passages, Paul urges them to "be worthy" (Phil 1:27; Eph 4:1), showing that by accepting the contract of Grace, you owe it to God to dedicate your life to excellence.  In the verses above and others, Paul echoes Jesus's command to love one another.  The end result, that each of these points lead to, is to bonded to each other in unity (Phil 1:27, 2:2-4; Eph 4:3-7), and to stand united against evil (Phil 1:27-30, Eph 4:17ff).

  But division was a problem for the Church almost from the beginning -- why else would Paul have to warn every church, repeatedly, against it?  From the Church in Corinth , he gives a poignant example: He names specific factions that have formed and directly damaged the unity of the Body and cause of Christ.  The interesting thing is how addresses the problem:  As a solution he emphasizes not only that they should unify under the banner of one Christ, but especially under the gospel of foolishness.  Again in Phil 2:5-13, Paul repeats the offer of Christ's humility as both the reason for, and the means of, the unity of the Body through loving submission (note the word "therefore" in v. 12).  As I've mentioned before, this theme keeps coming back to me, this idea that it really makes no sense (in human terms) that the Infinite of the Universe would make Himself nothing and become Crucified God. 

   

   

  And yet it's the answer to everything.

  • 3:10 PM
  • 56 Views
  • 2 eProps
  • 1 Comment