Feb
5
4 big ideas: #4-love
Filed Under Christian Living, Four big ideas, The Church
In preaching through Galatians last year I identified four big ideas that run through Paul’s letter. Those four big ideas should form and shape how ministry is carried out in the day-to-day life of the Church. I am trying to embody them in my own ministry and to impart them to our leaders at First, Kosciusko. Here’s the last of the four big ideas, which are truth, authority, integrity and love.
LOVE: Faith expressed in genuine, demonstrable love. In Galatians 5:6 Paul writes, For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love. Also in 6:1-10 he writes about the ways that faith works through love in the mutual sharing of burdens, in honoring those who teach us, in living holy lives, in persevering in the work God has called us to do, and in continuing to do good to all, especially to those who are of the household of faith. The freedom Christ has gained for us is the freedom to serve one another in love (5:13-15).
But this is something we don’t do so well. Doing theology right or having well-organized programs and ministries is a lot easier to pull off. When we join the church we expect to be part of a loving, happy group of people who live in harmony with each other–and guess what, it doesn’t automatically happen! Yet the New Testament, especially 1 John, is telling us again and again that we must love the brethren, that failure to do so is an indicator of phony religion. Read Eugene Peterson’s marvelous insights on this:
Men and women are not admitted to the community by presenting credentials of love skills, nor do we maintain our place in the community by passing periodic peer reviews on love. We are here to be formed over our lifetimes into a community of the beloved, God’s beloved who are being formed into a people who love God and one another in the way and on the terms in which God loves us. It’s slow work. We are slow learners. And though God is unendingly patient with us, we are not very patient with one another. Outsiders, observing our embarrassingly slow and erratic progress in love, wonder why we bother. Well, we bother because God is love: he created us in love; he saved us in an act of love; he commanded us to love one another. Love is the ocean in which we swim. So what if many of us can only wade in the shallows, and others of us can barely dog paddle for short distances? We are learning and we see the possibility of one day taking long, relaxed, easy strokes into the deep.
Don’t become cynical about the possibility of genuine, demonstrable love in the church. I know of some sightings, sometimes as rare as panther sightings in the Mississippi woods–rarely seen, but magnificent nonetheless. I have shown it myself once or twice and have been shown it a few times more than that. Don’t settle simply for a common creed or a common cause. Love God and love the brethren.
Peace and mercy be upon all those who walk by this rule…
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