unity

05
Jun
2022

Teaching a Love for Souls

Pentecost Sunday, 2022

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Luke’s Pentecost narrative [Acts chapter 2] challenges the church today to find even more effective ways of communicating the gospel to peoples in every land on earth. … Just as the early Christians moved beyond the land of Israel and the Jewish people, so we must help all the peoples in our world hear and express the gospel in their own languages and according to their own cultural patterns. – Daniel J. Harrington, “The Challenge of Pentecost,” America (May 5, 2008)

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Many peoples, one God

The sign over the classroom door encouraged students’ eagerness: “Enter with an open mind.” Inside, though, an open-minded approach was not consistently encouraged. In this elementary classroom at a Christian school, religious lessons for the month were focused on the practices of other groups, organizations, and faiths (different from the affiliation of the parochial school).  The children would come home and tell their parents, “Do you know what this (or that) group believes? They’re so weird!” The lessons were teaching young denomination members to judge others. One of the assignments, mislabeled as an “evangelism exercise,” asked the children to compose a letter that they would send to Tom Cruise, trying to convince him of the dangers and evils of Scientology.

Certainly, God tells us to be wary of temptations and to steer clear of false teachings. Yet our call as evangelists (proclaimers of good news) is to be warm and winsome in our witness to others, to be models and messengers of the character of Christ. It is an unhappy consequence if education efforts lead us to become insular and narrow and focused on our own ways and practices. Our discipleship goal in the body of Christ is not to close minds and hearts or isolate ourselves from others in our communities. Rather, we seek to expand and enrich our own understanding and reach out to others with the truths we have come to know in Christ. 

The apostle Paul advised us, “From now on … regard no one from a human point of view” (2 Corinthians 5:16). We don’t calculate who might be more inclined to agree with us or who seems too different from us. We take a view that is open to the wide variety of persons in our world–all of whom are people for whom Jesus died and rose again. We don’t close ourselves off from the world around us or avoid those who seem “weird” to us. [Truthfully, we likely seem “weird” to them too.]  Our aim is to live in the world and impact the world by the testimony of lives in Jesus. We want to be seasoned by the Spirit to serve as the salt of the earth, to walk as children of the light to give off light to the world (cf. John 13:35-36). May we see ourselves (and teach our children to see themselves)  as ambassadors for Christ, imploring other’s on Christ’s behalf to be reconciled to God (cf. 2 Corinthians 5:20).  That will be our way of “praising God and having the goodwill of all the people” (Acts 2:47). 


A Pentecost prayer:

God of all the nations, we pray for your one, holy, catholic and apostolic church. Praise to you for the great diversity present in the peoples, languages, rituals and practices of all people who follow you in the name of Jesus Christ. Turn us from fear of difference toward celebration. We pray for all people globally. Through the Spirit, grant us the power to be your disciples in the world. In our worship and in our work in the world, guide us to be good neighbors to our neighbors near and far. Free us from prejudice, that we may see your face in people around the world, through Jesus Christ, our Savior, and share his peace with all. (Adapted from Celebrate Global Ministries, Pentecost Sunday, 2017)

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Scripture quotations, except where otherwise indicated, are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Posted by David Sellnow
18
Jan
2021

Thoughts for Martin Luther King Jr. Day

Reject racism; God shows no partiality

On the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC (8/28/1963), the Rev. Dr. Martin  Luther King, Jr., famously said, “I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.” He dreamed that one day the United States would be a nation where individuals would “not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”  

Martin Luther King, Jr., speaking at University of Minnesota, Saint Paul campus, 1967 – Wikimedia Commons

Recent events reveal a distance still to go before King’s dream can be realized. Instances of propaganda and recruitment to white nationalist organizations have shown a more than fivefold rate of increase over the past two years.  The rate of death from COVID-19 for Native Americans has been 73% higher than for white Americans, and 40% higher for black Americans than white Americans.  What Dr. King said at a meeting of the Medical Committee for Human Rights (3/25/1966), sadly, still rings true today:  “Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health is the most shocking and the most inhuman because it often results in physical death” (Associated Press, 3/26/1966).

A dozen days ago, a self-proclaimed “shaman” stood at the rostrum of the Speaker of the House of Representatives in the US Capitol (after invading that space). He invoked the name of Jesus Christ and led a prayer of sorts, thanking God for “allowing the United States of America to be reborn” and “for allowing us to get rid of the traitors within our government.”  In response to such a misuse of Christ’s name, it seems fitting to gather together things spoken in Scripture and by recognized religious leaders about our call to work for peace and kinship among all human beings–children of God “from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages” (Revelation 7:9).   In King’s words, may we “speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: Free at last. Free at last. Thank God almighty, we are free at last.”

Bible statements

  • “I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.”  – The Apostle Peter  (Acts 10:34,35)
  • “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.”  – The Apostle Paul  (Galatians 3:28)
  • “When an alien resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress the alien. The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself.” – God’s word revealed to Moses (Leviticus 19:33,34)
  • “You do well if you really fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ But if you show partiality, you commit sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors.” – James, leader in 1st century Jerusalem church  (James 2:8-9) 

Statements by religious leaders

  • “Discrimination based on the accidental fact of race or color, and as such injurious to human rights regardless of personal qualities or achievements, cannot be reconciled with the truth that God has created all men with equal rights and equal dignity.” – United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Discrimination and Christian Conscience (11/14/1958)
  • “Racism—a mix of power, privilege, and prejudice—is sin, a violation of God’s intention for humanity. The resulting racial, ethnic, or cultural barriers deny the truth that all people are God’s creatures and, therefore, persons of dignity. Racism fractures and fragments both church and society.” – Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Freed in Christ: Race, Ethnicity, and Culture (8/31/1993)
  • “I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality. … I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.” – Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Nobel Prize acceptance speech (12/10/1964)
  • “Racism can ultimately never be benign, nice and respectable.  It is always evil, immoral and ultimately vicious and not to be tolerated by Christians and people of goodwill as well as those of other faiths. … Racism claims that what invests us, each person, with worth is some extraneous arbitrary biological or other attribute, skin colour or ethnicity. … The Bible and Christianity teach a categorically different position.  What endows the human person with worth is not this or that attribute.  No, it is the fact that each person is created in the image and likeness of God.  This is something that is so for every single human being. … It does not depend on status, on gender, on race, on culture.  It does not matter whether you are beautiful or not so beautiful, whether you are rich or poor, educated or uneducated.  … Reconciliation [of all people] is really the heart of the Gospel message.  Therefore to say that people are fundamentally irreconcilable is to deny … the central tenet of Christianity.  Jesus said of himself, ‘I, if I be lifted up, will draw all to me’” (John 12:32). – Archbishop Desmond Tutu, speech to the Parliament of Australia (12/6/1994)


To see additional thoughts here on The Electric Gospel that speak against favoritism and prejudice, go to the following link and scroll through previous posts on the topic:

https://theelectricgospel.com/tag/favoritism/

 

Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Posted by David Sellnow
26
May
2020

Pray for good government

Give wisdom to those who govern

by David Sellnow

An account has come down to us from the ancient world. The pharaoh ruling over Egypt had a pair of dreams that frightened him. In one dream, seven healthy, well-fed cows appeared. Immediately afterward, seven scrawny, starving cows came up out of the Nile River and devoured the healthy cows. The second dream was similar. Seven healthy ears of grain were consumed by dry, withered heads of grain. 

The pharaoh sought someone to give meaning to his dreams. He found Joseph, who had a prophetic gift. Joseph said, “What God is about to do he has declared to Pharaoh” (Genesis 41:25). Seven years of abundant harvests were coming. Then seven years of desperate famine would follow. Joseph advised the pharaoh to collect and store twenty percent of the kingdom’s harvests over the next seven years to prepare for anticipated years of food shortages. The pharaoh followed Joseph’s advice and put Joseph in charge of the kingdom’s emergency preparedness program.

We may wish a prophet had predicted our current crisis in the modern world. Had we known a deadly pandemic would be unleashed, we could have done more to prepare. Then again, there were voices that gave advance warning. They weren’t divinely inspired, but they were quite prescient in their projections. After the Ebola scare of 2014, Bill Gates gave a TED Talk in 2015 titled,  “The Next Outbreak? We’re Not Ready.” In 2016, the National Security Council developed an extensive Playbook for Early Response to High Consequence Emerging Infectious Disease Threats and Biological Incidents.  In September 2019, the US Naval War College ran a pandemic wargame that foreshadowed much of what we are experiencing now with COVID-19.  There is a human tendency, however, to avoid dealing with things we hope won’t happen. When the novel coronavirus began its global spread in recent months, governments around the world were challenged beyond their readiness.  And people who normally didn’t want governments to play too large a role in their lives found themselves wanting and needing government agencies to do more.

Another human tendency–during good times–is to want government off our backs and out of our pocketbooks. We don’t like high taxes or a proliferation of regulations. It’s easy to see government as an obstacle that gets in the way of personal liberties and the pursuit of profits. But when a crisis comes along, then we expect government to be there, protecting citizens, preserving stability, providing basic necessities. Even politicians who typically have fought tooth and nail over the purpose of government came to quick agreement when pressed by a pandemic. An enormous rescue measure passed by a vote of 96 to 0 in the Senate, and subsequent aid packages passed with similar wholehearted support.  The fourth such bill was passed in the Senate by unanimous consent and a vote of 388 to 5 in the House of Representatives. When the situation is dire, the need for intervention by government becomes immediately apparent.

In my days teaching history and religion, I used to assign the following take-home question to ministry students:    In explaining the Lord’s Prayer petition, “Give us this day our daily bread,” Martin Luther said one of the things we pray is that God would give us “good government.” Using examples from history, compose an essay that attempts to answer the question:  “What constitutes good government?”

Respondents to that question tended to focus on key common factors such as:
– Providing equal justice for all persons, without favoritism;
– Showing concern for the people and acting in the interests of all the people;
– Leadership and guidance during times of stress and crisis;
– Keeping citizens safe (criminal justice, national defense, public health);
– Building and maintaining infrastructure (roads, utilities, etc).

Their answers echoed things said by ancient prophets. Amos decried those in positions of power who abused the people under them. He said, “Hate evil, love good, and establish justice in the courts” (Amos 5:15). Moses stated these basic principles for government officials: “You shall not pervert justice. You shall not show partiality. You shall not take a bribe …. You shall follow that which is altogether just” (Deuteronomy 16:19,20). Governing authorities are servants of God, set in their position for the good of the human community (cf. Romans 13:4). We are grateful when government serves its purpose well. We pray “for kings and all who are in high places” (1 Timothy 2:2), so that we can live peaceful lives on this earth.

When Solomon became king in Israel after the death of his father David, he prayed for his own capability to govern.  He asked God, “Give your servant an understanding heart to judge your people, that I may discern between good and evil” (1 Kings 3:9). The Lord approved of Solomon’s prayer. “God said to him, ‘Because you have asked this thing, and have not asked for yourself long life, nor have you asked for riches for yourself, nor have you asked for the life of your enemies, but have asked for yourself understanding to discern justice … I have done according to your word. Behold, I have given you a wise and understanding heart” (1 Kings 3:11-12).

Let us pray today for wisdom as we face a difficult test of people’s mental, physical, financial, and social well-being. Pray for local leaders in towns and cities and counties. Pray for those serving at the state level, supervising laws and programs and human services. Pray for national officials who provide oversight for countries–our own as well as other nations. Pray for the work of global institutions in guiding collaboration to develop strategies and solutions. And pray for yourself and your neighbors, that we all may learn to love our neighbors as ourselves and do our best for one another. As we are being reminded often during this international health emergency: We are all in this together.

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Prayer:  On Memorial Day, we remember those who have died in active military service. Lord, fill us with gratitude for such dedication by members of the armed forces that serve and protect our nation. At the present time, make us mindful and thankful also for essential workers in healthcare, food production and grocery work, mass transit and other roles, hundreds of whom have lost their lives to the coronavirus pandemic. Help our communities, country, and world to find wisdom and strength to navigate the present challenges. May governments do the work you have established for them to do, good Lord, in the interests of all people. Amen.

[Bible quotations taken from World English Bible.]

Posted by David Sellnow
02
Mar
2020

Politics divide; Jesus unites

by David Sellnow

At the outset of this year’s State of the Union Address, the President of the United States rejected a handshake from the Speaker of the House of Representatives. When his speech was over, the Speaker tore up her copy of the President’s speech. There is deep division between the parties leading our politics. 

There’s deep division among people too.  A few months ago, a poll by the Pew Research Center showed that between two-thirds and three-fourths of Americans think persons on the other side of the political aisle are closed-minded.  Half of the members of each party believe the members of the other party are immoral. More than a third of the members of each party are convinced that those who vote with the other party are lacking in intelligence.

The political landscape is so full of divisions that even when you listen to a debate by members of the same political party, much of the time is spent yelling at each other and talking over each other. With Super Tuesday primary elections approaching, there is little clarity about who should lead or what direction leadership should take.

We are not the first society to experience polarization in its politics. In first century Judea, the Roman Empire had taken over control. They occupied the region with a military presence and assorted governmental authorities. There were members of Jewish society who saw no point in trying to resist Rome. Some found it advantageous to go to work for Rome as tax collectors, gathering revenue for the empire (and for themselves) within their own communities. Tax collectors typically are not popular figures anywhere, but tax collectors were especially disliked in Jewish society. They were seen as aiding and abetting a foreign oppressor–and lining their own pockets in the process.  At the opposite extreme, far from the tax collectors who served the Roman empire, there were radicals committed to fighting back against Rome. By the middle of the first century, there would be an organized group known as the Zealots, dedicated to the cause of ending Roman rule. During Jesus’ ministry years a couple decades before that, the anti-Roman sentiment was growing among the Jewish people. As Kenneth Yates of the Grace Evangelical Society has noted about views that became associated with the Zealot movement, “They hated the fact that Rome was ruling over Israel. The Romans were pagans and idolaters. The Zealots saw the situation as one that dishonored God.” 

When Jesus called together his inner circle of disciples–those he would train to be his apostles–he did not discriminate on the basis of politics. One of the men Jesus called was Matthew, also called Levi, who was a tax collector for the Roman Empire (cf. Matthew 9:9-13, Luke 5:27-32).  Another of Jesus’ chosen leaders-in-training was a man named Simon, “who was called the Zealot” (Luke 6:15). We don’t know for sure if this Simon was aligned with the political radicals that would become the Zealot party, devoted to opposing the Romans. The implication is there, though. And quite certainly, a revenue-collector for the occupying armies (such as Matthew) wouldn’t be a popular political choice with any of the others among the Twelve when Jesus gathered them. But that didn’t deter Jesus from making his choices. Jesus called them all to walk together as brothers and to work together for a cause higher than just earthly, social, political concerns.  Jesus calls us all to walk together as his disciples, serving him and bringing his love to all persons in the world.

Too easily we make judgments about people who think differently than we do, whose ideas about society are at odds with our own views. Some like to think that Jesus is on their side and theirs alone, looking for the Lord to cast down their opponents and champion their personal crusades. Jesus is bigger than that. His kingdom is bigger than that. The company of his followers was large enough to include imperial tax collectors as well as anti-imperial Zealots. As the Christian church grew in the first century, it included Roman soldiers as well as persons from places that Roman armies occupied. Christ’s followers included people from the highest economic standing down to those of the lowest. Christ’s family bridged across social, political, and ethnic divides. There are no “barbarians” or “savages” or persons unworthy of Christ’s love. Christ’s kingdom is expansive enough and inclusive enough to welcome all persons. And that means persons of different backgrounds and different politics are called to put Christ and his love first in their lives.

Let me close these thoughts with words from one of Christ’s apostles. Before Jesus stopped him in his tracks and made him rethink everything, Saul of Tarsus (whom we know as Paul the apostle) had stridently persecuted persons who didn’t see the world in the same way he did. But after seeing the light in Jesus, here is how he spoke to the church:

  • Get rid of … anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive language from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have stripped off the old self with its practices and have clothed yourselves with the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of its creator. In that renewal[e] there is no longer Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free; but Christ is all and in all!
  • As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body.

(Colossians 3:8-15 NRSV)

If you’re a Super Tuesday voter, feel free to vote for a “Medicare for all” candidate … or not.  Or to vote in one party’s primary … or the other. It’s not my place to tell you which political cause or platform you should support. Simply remember the words of God’s prophet that rulers (leaders) should be people who know justice, and that they should not be power-hungry types who “hate the good and love the evil,” who abuse and take advantage of the people over whom they have authority (cf. Micah chapter 3). And let us come together in the family of God, called together by Christ, and conduct ourselves with “compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience” toward all others, as he calls us to do.

Posted by David Sellnow
18
Jan
2020

No room for racism among God’s people

Originally published on the Electric Gospel on August 6, 2019.

No room for racism among God’s people

by David Sellnow

Last week, an old recording was revealed. Ronald Reagan (then the governor of California) described people in African nations as “monkeys” and added: “Damn them—they’re still uncomfortable wearing shoes!”   We might want to dismiss such statements as outdated ideas from decades ago, but racial and ethnic slurs are still heard in our cultural climate today.  And now there’s more than a war of words.  Ugly violence and murder has occurred.  Over the weekend, a young man posted a hateful manifesto online, complaining of a “Hispanic invasion of Texas.” He then went to a Walmart in El Paso, where he killed twenty-two people and wounded many more.

As people who live by God’s grace and under his direction, our attitudes are guided by his Word.  This seems a fitting time to review Bible lessons on race relations—on how we relate to all of our fellow human beings.

Episode one:  “Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Cushite woman whom he had married; for he had married a Cushite woman” (Numbers 12:1).  “Cushite” means Ethiopian.  Miriam instigated the animosity against this woman from a different ethnic background.  Miriam’s prejudice did not please the Lord. In response, the Lord afflicted Miriam with a visible and painful leprosy for a period of seven days. That was a real case of being “unclean” or unhealthy.  Skin color differences are not problems or impurities.

Episode two: A proud religious man asked Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?” Jesus responded with a parable: A Jewish traveler was robbed and beaten and left half-dead by the side of the road. Two prominent Jewish men came along … and each of them walked by without helping the man. Then a Samaritan man came along, and “he was moved with compassion” (Luke 10:33). He helped the man, bandaged his wounds, and took him to a place where he could recuperate.  Jesus asked, “Which of these three do you think seemed to be a neighbor to him who fell among the robbers?” (Luke 10:36). The proud teacher of Jewish law had to admit it was the man who showed mercy. Bear in mind, Jews of that era typically despised the people across the border, the Samaritans. Jesus’ story illustrated that true human compassion knows no boundaries.

Episodes three and four: Christ’s apostle Peter was called to the home of an Italian Regiment commander. Prior to the request from the Roman centurion, Peter had been given a vision to show him that “God doesn’t show favoritism” (Acts 10:34). God accepts people from every nation. And yet, on a later occasion, Peter didn’t show that same attitude. He didn’t stand up to Jewish purists in a congregation where there were many Gentile members. The apostle Paul challenged what was going on and called it hypocrisy to favor one group over another in the church (cf. Galatians 2:11-14).

Episode five:   The scene opens in heaven, and we see the countless multitude of the family of God. Where did they come from? “Out of every nation and of all tribes, peoples, and languages” (Revelation 7:9). There is no racial tension or discrimination in heaven.

There is also no room for racism in a godly heart on this earth. There is no room for disdain toward others, of any race or culture.   If someone says, “’I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar. For he who doesn’t love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen” (1 John 4:20)?  Our brothers, our sisters, our neighbors, our friends are the other members of our common human family.

The children’s song written by Rev. Clarence Herbert Woolston (1856–1927) states the simple truth:

Jesus loves the little children,
All the children of the world.
Red and yellow, black and white,
They are precious in his sight,
Jesus loves the little children of the world.

Posted by David Sellnow
12
Jan
2020

Loving others

Originally published on The Electric Gospel on January 21, 2019.

Loving others

by David Sellnow

In a sermon delivered at New Covenant Baptist Church in Chicago (April 9, 1967), Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., spoke of being committed to loving our neighbors – all neighbors.  In that sermon, he said:

  • There will be a day, the question won’t be, “How many awards did you get in life?” … It won’t be, “How popular were you?” … It will not ask how many degrees you’ve been able to get … or “What kind of automobile did you have?” On that day the question will be, “What did you do for others?”
    Now I can hear somebody saying, “Lord, I did a lot of things in life. I did my job well … I went to school and studied hard. I accumulated a lot of money, Lord; that’s what I did.”  It seems as if I can hear the Lord of Life saying, “But I was hungry, and ye fed me not.  I was sick, and ye visited me not. I was naked, and ye clothed me not. I was in prison, and you weren’t concerned about me.” …
    What did you do for others? This is the breadth of life.  Somewhere along the way, we must learn that there is nothing greater than to do something for others.

– from “The Three Dimensions of a Complete Life,” by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.,

via The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and EducationInstitute, Stanford University.)

For Martin Luther King Day, I’d like to share some thoughts of my own about showing love – and God’s grace – to all our neighbors.  The following is excerpted from my brief book, Faith Lives in Our Actions (available at Amazon).  Bible quotations are from the World English Bible (WEB).

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Loving all people

James, the brother of Jesus, pinpointed lack of love as a pivotal problem in our lives as Christians.  James wrote:  “If you fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself,’ you do well. But if you show partiality, you commit sin, being convicted by the law as transgressors ” (James 2:8-9).

If we could love with all our hearts, we would do well.  Love “is the fulfillment of the law” (Romans 13:10).  Jesus had said that the first and greatest commandment is to love God fully, and its corollary is to love your neighbor as yourself  (Matthew 22:36-39). James called this the royal law of Scripture.  It is the heart of the law, and it is where we fall most miserably short of what God expects of us.

James pointed at favoritism as the centerpiece of our lawbreaking.  Even after we have been converted to Christ, our old sinful tendencies diminish the extent of our love.  We may, for instance, spend much to send our own children to Christian schools, but give far less to extend Christ’s love to souls around the world.  Or we are pleased to be part of God’s kingdom ourselves, but often feel no great urgency to include others in his grace.  Once, when my congregation was planning an open house, I asked one of our members if he had invited his farmhands and their families.  He looked at me as though I had proposed something preposterous.  The thought had never crossed his mind. When I brought it up, it made him uncomfortable.  Mexican weed-pullers weren’t really the sort of folks he wanted in his church.  To him they were only hired hands, a lesser breed of people.

We try to convince ourselves we are law-abiding.  We set up church policies and programs.  We want everything to honor God, according to proper guidelines.  But we forget what the real line is:  love.  We callously, oafishly and repeatedly step over that line.  We strain out gnats while swallowing camels (cf. Matthew 23:24).  We make sure we have glorious choirs singing in our balconies, but fail to notice neighbors in need across the street.  When James described the sort of religion that God accepts, he mentioned nothing of formal church activities.  James had said, “Pure religion and undefiled before our God and Father is this: to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained by the world” (James 1:27).  Those are the kinds of aims we are to seek.

Posted by David Sellnow
24
Dec
2019

Working together to further the church’s mission

by Dillon Solomon

Originally published on the Electric Gospel on March 24, 2017, this letter to a congregation addresses issues that can be seen in many Christian churches.

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ’s church,

I hope this letter finds each and every one of you well! I thank God that we have the opportunity to be counted among the Lord’s believers and for all the blessings he has given us as a congregation.

Through the life, death, and resurrection of Christ Jesus, we have been made alive. Through that very same life, death, and resurrection we have been welcomed into the family of God and have been made part of the body of Christ himself. “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Jesus Christ … Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household” (Ephesians 2:13,19). With this divine citizenship comes a holy unity, a bond that pleases God. In fact, he urges through the apostle Paul, “Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit– just as you were called to one hope when you were called” (Ephesians 4:2-4). We are called by the same gospel message to faith in the one true God.

Along with this spiritual unity, God desires unity within our physical church. We can take these same passages and apply them to our work as a congregation. We strive to be patient with one another in dissenting opinions and bear with each other in love when we face difficult decisions. Keeping this fact in mind will go a long way towards unity: each and every member of the congregation looking out for the best interests of the congregation and God’s universal church as whole. Every single member is integral to the success of the congregation, as every single member is a part of the body of Christ.

“For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us. If your gift is prophesying, then prophesy in accordance with your faith; if it is serving, then serve; if it is teaching, then teach; if it is to encourage, then give encouragement; if it is giving, then give generously; if it is to lead, do it diligently; if it is to show mercy, do it cheerfully” (Romans 12:4-8).

Only through unity can we accomplish—to the best of our abilities—the mission God has placed before us.  We acknowledge that there will never be a truly perfect unity on this side of heaven. In spite of that, it is good to discuss things with one another, and even argue a little bit, regarding the best interests of the church, so that you can grow as a congregation. So I encourage you to keep working together towards a strong fellowship in Christ—a fellowship that allows for divergent opinions to converge into one mind, within the one body of Christ, as you work towards furthering Christ’s church.

Finally, brothers and sisters in Christ, I urge you not to become apathetic. We have a tremendous blessing from God by having easy access to his word. It can be easy to sit back and go through the motions of being a Christian or even to worry about our own internal struggles as a congregation. However, God speaks to us through the apostle James, “As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead” (James 2:26). Our works as are the beating pulse of our faith; they are the indication of living faith. It’s hard for us to put a sign of invitation out in front of our church if no one can feel the pulse of our evangelism. Jesus himself told us, “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:19). But our reason for doing this shouldn’t be simply, “God commands it.” Instead, take a moment to think about what Jesus has done for you, all of the sins he has taken away, and how, now, you have a place reserved for you in the eternal bliss of heaven. Is that not an incredible feeling? How can we not want to share that feeling with others? And so I urge you, as redeemed children of God, take this feeling of joy and use it. Use it to embolden our evangelism efforts. Use it to tell that friend or coworker the simple, yet powerful, message of the gospel. Because sometimes that’s all it takes: “Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ” (Romans 10:17).

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all!

Posted by Electric Gospel