STANDING ON...

Recently, in my Sunday School class, I made the observation that the Church (meaning the Universal one) could be marked by two very distinct outward characteristics. Obviously when reducing complicated things into two point arguments, something is lost. Still, I later pondered the significance of my argument and decided, yes, if the Church is recognized for two, and only two, characteristics, these are the ones. The first one will be quite self-evident and very little argument will be needed. Arminians and Reformed Theologians will agree, as will liberal and conservative. Progressive and Evangelical Christians will, both, find themselves nodding in agreement with my first point.

Our first, almost universally understood, characteristic of the Church is love. Jesus said, John 13:34-35 (KJV) “A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. 35 By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.” This is our defining attribute, what distinguishes us from others. As a matter of principle, Mark 12:29-31 (KJV) “And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord: 30 And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. 31 And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these.” This would seem easy, after a sort, but Jesus expanded this notion of love; Luke 6:27 (KJV) “But I say unto you which hear, Love your enemies, do good to them which hate you”

Paul would expound on this notion, Romans 12:10-11 (KJV) “Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love; in honour preferring one another; 11 Not slothful in business; fervent in spirit; serving the Lord.” Later Paul also said, Galatians 5:13-14 (KJV) “For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another. 14 For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.” Paul would declare to a church, their distinguishing mark, Ephesians 1:15 (KJV) “Wherefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus, and love unto all the saints.” James, in his epistle (James 2:8), declares love as a characteristic, as did Peter (1 Peter 2:17), and of course John, 1 John 3:14 (KJV) “We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not his brother abideth in death.” Brotherly love was even observed by Roman historian Lucian (120-180 AD), “…it was impressed on them by their original lawgiver that they are all brothers.”

This next characteristic is less a universal given. Depending upon your definition of culture, the Church has always been Counter-Cultural. Culture, by my definition, is what the Bible calls the World (its system, economy in the sociological sense). The Church has surely been a Counter-Cultural institution. James 4:4 (KJV) “Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.” These clear and distinct words run both ways, that is to say, being a friend to God, will make you an enemy of the World, and the culture it advocates. There are some, on the more liberal side of Christianity, which would espouse our acquiescence to society’s shifts. Historically, religion that calls itself ‘Christian’ has changed with the tide of culture’s whims.

The Church’s history is filled with times that the Church had to go against the grain, and choose the ways of God, and His Word. The elder statesman, the Apostle John, surely had in mind the Roman government and its coming persecution of the faith when he wrote, 1 John 2:15 (KJV) “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” It is no coincidence that we call the time of the Church’s greatest political influence (and again I would call that religion not Christianity) and its least effective time of evangelism, ‘The Dark Ages’. ‘The Dark Ages’ ended, at least for the Church, as leaders like Luther, Calvin, and Knox, pulled the yoke of culture, that bound the Church and Society (and often the government) together.

Men like, Jan Hus, Peter Waldo, and John Wycliffe attempted to swim against the current of Church apathy, years before the so called, ‘Reformation’. Their bravery, vision, and faith, would be examples to the Knox’s of the next generation. Hus was burned at the stake for heresy against the doctrines of the Catholic Church, including those on ecclesiology, the Eucharist, and other theological topics. The culture of his day, a hundred years before Luther, accepted the ‘Church’s’ (of course the Roman Catholic Church, mind you) teachings as settled. Wycliffe, arguably, the most important Bible Translator in history, went against culture’s notion that the Bible should stay in the dead language of Latin. The vernacular of the day, in Wycliffe’s mind, was how God would communicate His Word. This was counter-cultural, each and every one of them.

Today, though we should stand against the confusion of gender, the advocacy of same sex marriage, and the sexual revolution that seems to allow anything, our love must be as powerful as our attitude on truth. Jesus, speaking to the church at Ephesus said, Revelation 2:4 (KJV) “Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love.” Many Bible scholars equate the Ephesian Church in Revelations as equivalent, symbolically, to the Apostolic Church of the first couple of centuries. If this is true, then the early church was chastened not for lack of counter-culturalism, but a lack of love. The New Living Translation has an interesting take on this same verse, Revelation 2:4 (NLT) “But I have this complaint against you. You don’t love me or each other as you did at first!” Maybe that’s the point, our love for the Church, would keep us doctrinally sound.

#culture #love #society