One In Jesus

Here, bearing the burden of the other means tolerating the reality of the other’s creation by God—affirming it, and in bearing with it, breaking through to delight in it.

This will be especially difficult where both the strong and the weak in faith are bound together in one community. The weak must not judge the strong; the strong must not despise the weak. The weak must guard against pride, the strong against indifference. Neither must seek their own rights.

(p. 101). It’s a standard argument in Church of Christ debates that the strong must submit to the weak. Therefore, those insisting on this or that argue that the other side should see them as weak and thus submit to them. Continue reading →

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Mark Driscoll pastors the Mars Hill Church in Seattle, which is quite a large and effective congregation. Here’s his advice on church growth –

1. Begin with the end in mind and know how large you want to be.

… Lyle Schaller, considered one of the best church consultants in the world, states in his book, The Very Large Church, that the two most comfortable church sizes are under 45 people and under 150 people, likely making them two of the hardest thresholds to pass through, in addition to the 800 mark. Continue reading →

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The first service one owes to others in the community involves listening to them. Just as our love for God begins with listening to God’s Word, the beginning of love for other Christians is learning to listen to them. God’s love for us is shown by the fact that God not only gives us God’s Word, but also lends us God’s ear. We do God’s work for our brothers and sisters when we learn to listen to them.

(p. 98). Wow. God blesses us by promising to listen to us. He doesn’t always answer in return, but we believe he always listens. Therefore, we take on the very image of God when we listen to one another. Continue reading →

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Mark Woodward posted a very insightful post comparing Mark Driscoll’s TV interview by Piers Morgan with Billy Graham’s TV interview by Dick Cavett many years earlier. Driscoll came across poorly; Graham appeared masterful. Why the difference?

Continue reading →

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Not considering oneself wise, but associating with the lowly, means considering oneself the worst of sinners. This arouses total opposition not only from those who live at the level of nature, but also from Christians who are self-aware. It sounds like an exaggeration, an untruth. Yet even Paul said of himself that he was the foremost, i.e., the worst of sinners (1 Tim. 1:15). He said this at the very place in scripture where he was speaking of his ministry as an apostle. There can be no genuine knowledge of sin that does not lead me down to this depth. If my sin appears to me to be in any way smaller or less reprehensible in comparison with the sins of others, then I am not yet recognizing my sin at all. My sin is of necessity the worst, the most serious, the most objectionable. Christian love will find any number of excuses for the sins of others; only for my sin is there no excuse whatsoever.

(pp. 97-98). This is true humility: the ability to recognize the depth of our own sin and to prefer to justify the sins of others rather than our own. The natural human tendency is to justify and excuse our own sins and to condemn as far more serious the sins of others. But true Christian humility is the exact opposite. Continue reading →

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The University of Alabama’s football team has won two of the last three national championships. That’s a fact. How did they do it? Well, here’s a surprising bit of insight from ESPN –

• The attendance for A-Day was 78,526 (1st in the SEC and 2nd nationally  this year to Ohio State) which was the fifth-largest in school history.  Each spring game under coach Nick Saban has had an attendance of  78,200 (2008) or higher. … Continue reading →

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There is probably no Christian to whom God has not given the uplifting and blissful experience of genuine Christian community at least once in her or his life. But in this world such experiences remain nothing but a gracious extra beyond the daily bread of Christian community life. We have no claim to such experiences, and we do not live with other Christians for the sake of gaining such experiences. It is not the experience of Christian community, but firm and certain faith within Christian community that holds us together. We hold fast in faith to God’s greatest gift, that God has acted for us all and wants to act for us all. This makes us joyful and happy, but it also makes us ready to forgo all such experiences if at times God does not grant them. We are bound together by faith, not by experience.

(p. 47). Bonhoeffer has this rare blend of idealism and pragmatism that I find incredibly … true. Yes, Christian community can produce some amazing, wondrous experiences. No, that’s not the test of true community. Continue reading →

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I’ve been working on a new series on faith and works (no surprise to those who got the “Oops” post, I know). And so I’ve not really had much time to ponder the profundities of President Obama’s decision to support gay marriage.

However, others have, and I thought it might be worthwhile to point out some thoughtful — though disagreeing — posts on the subject. Continue reading →

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In other words, a life together under the Word will stay healthy only when it does not form itself into a movement, an order, a society, a collegium pietatis, but instead understands itself as being part of the one, holy, universal, Christian church, sharing through its deeds and suffering in the hardships and struggles and promise of the whole church. Every principle of selection, and every division connected with it that is not necessitated quite objectively by common work, local conditions, or family connections is of the greatest danger to a Christian community. Self-centeredness always insinuates itself in any process of intellectual or spiritual selectivity, destroying the spiritual power of the community and robbing the community of its effectiveness for the church, thus driving it into sectarianism.

(p. 45). Bonhoeffer connects sectarianism — the division of the church — with self-centered love. Rather than pretending that we’re dividing over doctrine and truth, Bonhoeffer gets to the heart of the matter: division is all about selfishness. Continue reading →

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