October 26, 2007
Revealed With Fire
The California fires are a tragedy, and yet I find them a powerful Biblical visual. Paul tells us to be cautious when building on the foundation of Jesus Christ. “If any man builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, his work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each man’s work. If what he has built survives, he will receive his reward. If it is burned up, he will suffer loss; he himself will be saved, but only as one escaping through the flames.” (1Cor 3:12-14 NIV) I’m not sure if I’ve ever thought about the church being burned up. However, it makes sense because I can identify some of the building materials used in today’s church as being, ‘gold, silver, wood, hay and straw’. We can expect some churches to suffer loss, but the good news is they will still be saved, “but only as one escaping through the flames.”
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Gail;
-----I think matters of convenience have kept our ideas a bit wobbly on their feet, so we might insert the church into the fire of I Corinthians 3:12-14. When we speak of an organization we relate to maybe the High School on Townsend and the City Market a few blocks North of it. These are both organizations created by man to achieve each its specific purpose. Each one funnels its efforts into its own goal. The High School does not sell groceries on a large scale, nor does City Market teach history. But because the Bible refers to the church a few times and gives some basic instruction about the necessary character of its overseers and their position of influence, we all have developed the mistaken notion that the church is also an organization like these, having charter and empirical form.
-----Indeed the church is the congregation of those who have turned to the Lord and are known by Him. But everything about the church is from the individuals of the church. Its character, its demeanor, its works all are an aggregation of those of all the individuals involved with the Lord. About the nation of Israel, this nature of individual relationship was in the background while God’s dealing with the congregation was in the fore. But His dealing with the individual is now in the foreground, and the collective is moved into the background. That is why we see so much in the Pentateuch regarding laws, rituals, ceremonies, etc., and so little regarding the attitudes and nature of the soul. Yet, in the New Testament we see much regarding the attitudes and nature of the personal life, but little regarding church function and organization.
-----Still we have made the church into such an organization that we casually think of it as an institution as empirical and self existing as the High School or City Market. We think of it in terms of the man who preaches there and the men who assist him. We think of it in terms of the programs and projects those men design to serve their spiritual products to its customers and to trumpet the usual gospel sound around the hills. Indeed some leaders are projecting a new message to the customers, suggesting that they should not be customers but salesman and servicemen to all who should flow out of the hills into the service stations of their churches. But the point of conceptual weakness has still been missed, the service station yet proceeds from blue-prints and plans of human organizers. It is still the High School. It still has the air of City Market. It remains an organization into which individuals come and fade.
-----If there were any reference to churches passing through the fire of I Corinthians 3:12-14, then the burning up would be nearly total. The smoke would carry the scent of organizing documents and creeds pressed upon individuals by Type A men who call themselves called. In the trace of wispy, surreal ash, the substance extracted from the fire, the product for eternal life, would be the inspirations and helps and counseling, the maintenance and preservation of one another, and the echoes of the true calling sent into the hills that are the memories of those who responded. For the reference to those who pass through this fire of I Corinthians 3:12-14 is a reference to the individual: any man. Aggregately each man’s work is that of the church, but the individual is still the point of responsibility. And away in the smoke of the burning will be carried each one’s concept of the church being the High School to teach us its unified contrivances and the City Market to dispense products sanctified by its programs.
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