Category: Sanctification

Judging the Church and Reconciling the World

God’s heart is to have the Gospel (Good News) preached to all the world, but the Church is preaching judgment instead.

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Paul wrote to the Corinthians urging them “not to associate with sexually immoral people”, but he qualifies that statement to say that he is “not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world or the greedy and swindlers or idolaters since you would need to go out of the world”. (1 Corinthians 5:9-10) Thus, Paul clarifies by adding “not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler – not even to eat with such a one.” (1 Cor. 5:11)

Paul is obviously making a distinction between people in the church and people outside the church, Christ followers and non-Christ followers. This distinction is something we have generally glossed over in the modern church today, and it seems to me that we have gotten these instructions from Paul to the Corinthians exactly backwards.

I think of the Moral Majority with which I grew up in the faith when I say this. I think of more modern efforts of Christians fighting in the “culture war” to try to impose Christian values on our world. I used to be wholeheartedly behind those efforts, but my reading of what Paul said in his first letter to the Corinthians has caused me to rethink.

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The Choices God Gives Us

We must choose to receive Jesus, and then He gives us the right to become children of God.

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Depositphotos Image ID: 7103912 Copyright: kohy81

“But to all[1] who did receive[2] Him, to those who believed[3] in His name, He gave the right[4] to become[5] children[6] of God— children born[7] not of blood, nor of the will[8] of the flesh[9], nor of the will of man, but born of God.” (John 1:12-13)

Johns packs a lot into these short verses, tucked into the first chapter of his Gospel that is profoundly full of other significant meaning:

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…. All things were made through him….In him was life, and the life was the light of men…. The true light…. was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him… he gave the right to become children of God…. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us….”[10]

These are some of the most profound and remarkable verses in all of Scripture. God became flesh, and He lived among the people He chose as His own, but they didn’t even recognize who He was. But those who received – who believed Him – He gave the right to become children of God.

I see two choices here: the choice of receiving Christ and the choice God gives us after receiving Christ – the right to become children of God. My Reformed friends might be tempted to overlook the import of this power-packed passage.  I am little unnerved by it myself, truth be told. I don’t trust my own heart to make the right choices!

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The Rose and the Thistle

We live with the duality of being born of the flesh and born of the spirit

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Depositphotos Image ID: 4468140 Copyright: Estea-Estea

“Two things cannot be in one place. Where you tend a rose, my lad, a thistle cannot grow.”[i]

This quotation by Frances Hodgson Burnett is pretty profound when you think about it. A person cannot feed love and feed hate at the same time. One displaces the other, like light displaces the darkness.

Except, we know from our own experience that we can love and hate at the same time. It’s just that we cannot love and hate the same thing at the same time. This is what the quotation is saying: a rose and a thistle cannot occupy the same space, though roses and thistles can certainly stand side-by-side. We can love one person and hate another.

Jesus puts a twist on these thoughts when he says that a person cannot serve two masters. When two priorities are vying for position in our hearts, they cannot both occupy the top position: “Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other.”  And Jesus provides us a ready example: “You cannot serve both God and money.”[1]

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