December 28, 2006
Friends
John the Baptist is probably someone I wouldn’t seek out as a friend. The whole wilderness thing is not cup of tea. My idea of roughing it is staying in a motel where the maid changes the sheets. With some friends we may have a lot in common, while with others there’s just one common denominator that binds us together. If you’re like me, you have a few family members with whom you’d never have a relationship with if it weren’t for the fact that we’re related by blood. The same can be said about relationships within the church body. God knew that some of us wouldn’t naturally be friends, so He made us family.
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2 comments:
Gail;
----You are right. God did not call His people to friendship. He called them to love. Maybe we should not talk too much about love. The more we ponder what that word conveys, from a Biblical point-of-view, the more we realize how much duty it really involves.
----Consider I Corinthians 13. Often it takes a lot of effort to be kind, but love has the patience to do that. Love is not engaged for the interests of the self. Therefore it has no jealousy for what the self lacks, nor boastfulness over what the self has. Nor does it make things up based on the self, which is arrogance. It does not insist on ways directed by the self or desired for the self. Obviously then, it leaves room for the desires of others. It is not irritable or resentful over ways that have inconvenienced or damaged the self, whether those ways were right or wrong, or whether they were mistakes made by the self or by others. Now, lest that bring us to carelessly wink an eye at any wrongdoing which may have caused inconvenience or damage, love does not take comfort with wrongdoing, it takes comfort in doing right. Love's attitude is always to protect. Notice the lack of any modifying phrase limiting that which is protected to being the stuff of self, or the stuff of others. Love just protects, because love is a nature, not a possession. In the same way, love always preserves, always trusts, and always hopes. This is a synopsis of how I understand love.
----With that synopsis in mind, I view Ephesians 4:15 as saying much, much more than speaking the truth in warm-fuzzies. Love goes beyond being nice. Yes, the truth must be spoken patiently and kindly, but it must also be spoken to protect and preserve what is right. Those concepts are as much a part of the I Cor 13 definition of love as is kindness. And if the truth were seized by the self for the advance of its own way, or the puffing of its own pride, or for the mere effect of rudeness or retaliation, by the subtle twist of that seizure it would no longer be the truth. For the truth serves love and is intricately bound with love, because love is for the benefit of all. For benifit is defined by the truth.
----Then, if there is error in the church clearly denounced by Scripture, is it love to rejoice in that error? How about to wink at it? No, love always protects! Those who know the truth need to speak the truth to someone in error for his sake. But when the scripturally defined error is made by many people, including everyone in the leadership structure of the church, are we to stop loving them and the church, so that we will not have to speak the truth, or try to preserve? No! Never! The truth must be spoken clearly and openly to everyone. Not to do harm, but to heal. Not to divide, but to unite. Because the healing and unity are in doing what is right, not in continuing the error in the sight of a lot of happy hearted winking.
----So when there is serious error (which divisiveness is) in the leadership of the church, the truth is that those men must either truly repent or truly step away from any leadership or inspirational roles. Paul advocated that we are to discern those inside the church, and that we are to act upon that discernment. (I Cor 5:9-13) And when I, in the spirit of the watchman (Ez 3:17-24), sounded the alarm about the favoritism (Ez 34, Mal 2, James 2) being shown by the leaders of the church, I was doing it out of love for the church, the leaders, myself, and our Lord. And when I continue to point at those leaders who continue in that favoritism, am I the wicked man with crooked speech who scrapes with his feet, winks with his eye, and points with his finger? (Pro 6:12-13). Or am I acting upon discernment? What heave should I care about your church and those who are in it if I have no love for them all? No. The love in my heart causes me to continue to wish that I would have done more, and to wish that I would have sounded the warning with whatever note of warm-fuzziness it would have taken for the people there to hear and act, rather than to throw me out. But again, with second thought, speaking the truth is to be done in love, not in fuzziness, however warm it may be. And that is the line between family and friendship.
Gail;
----Everything I said I think could have more simply been said by demonstrating that the truth is as much a part of love as flour is a part of cake. Blood binds us in our physical families, but love binds us in our church family. Everyone in the church family is therefore bound by truth as well. If there is intentional disregard for the truth, then is there not intentional disregard for love? Discernment must be applied where errors are present. Room must be given for unintentional disregard. But more than bewilderment must be in operation when continuous error eminates from the leadership. The question must be asked, do they just not understand and why not, or do they just not care? Proclomation of love itself is inadequate for forming the bond to the church family. That proclaimed love must also contain the truth.
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