[image:Old&New, 2013, JA Van Devender]
Location: Inner Harbor, Baltimore, MD
Matthew 13:51–52 (NKJV)
51 Jesus said to them, “Have you understood all these things?” They said to Him, “Yes, Lord.”
52 Then He said to them, “Therefore every scribe instructed concerning the kingdom of heaven is like a householder who brings out of his treasure things new and old.”
Thanks to my friend Gordon for the following link: See HERE.
The Arch Bishop of Canterbury is worried:
“Tragically too often that is what we are doing – reorganising the structures, arguing over words and phrases, while the people of England are left floundering amid meaningless anxiety and despair.”
With seldom heard candor Lord Carey says that Christianity in England is one generation away from extinction. He sees the young generations fleeing from the Church (if they ever started there) and the wider culture not so much arrayed in opposition to it as simply being dismissive... they view it as not relevant to their lives and don't really care whether it ceases to exist or not.
At one point he notices: “So many people do not see the average church as a place where great things happen. “To sit in a cold church looking at the back of other peoples’ heads is surely not the best place to meet exciting people and to hear prophetic words.”
He appeals for a wider "youth ministry" to attract and retain young folks... and a return to evangelistic fervor "on a par with the ministry of the northern saints such as Cuthbert, Hilda and Aidan who spread Christianity in Anglo-Saxon times."
I applaud the Arch Bishop's insights... and his ultimate desires. Knowing a little about the relative status of theology in Great Britain, the fissure which the world wide Anglican church has faced with the pressures to break away from it because of its radical compromised view of Scripture and the nature of the Gospel, and its openness to realignment with the Roman Catholic Communion, I am a bit skeptical about how he would understand the way forward from here.
It appears to me that unless one returns to the essential "faith" of Cuthbert, Hilda and Aidan that the methods of re-evangelism, even if numerically successful, would prove to produce products which would be "twice as much a son of hell as yourselves." (Mat. 23:15)
There is always the need to communicate the Gospel in terms which the prevailing culture or the specific individual being approached, can understand. "Understanding the times" requires that we recognize how age old problems, even those already addressed in orthodox theology, are resurfacing in different clothing. We must bring to bear all our heart felt concern and empathy for those who are looking, in the Arch Bishop's words, for "spiritual fulfillment." Yes and Amen.
But what we must remember is that it is the "old" things that truly answer these questions. What is lacking in so many religious circles is the inner conviction, the zealous passionate belief, that what the Scriptures proclaim about God, the universe and ourselves in relation to each, is TRUE! When "spiritual fulfillment" is viewed as the end result desired rather than a by-product of the true end toward which religious yearnings are to move us, then this "program" or that "program" will be filled with emotional or pithy aphorisms which are designed to evoke those kind of "spiritual responses" and that will be that.
Flashy lights and up beat music and gentle little moralistic urgings will replace proclamation and as the pews fill with clapping people, the Word of God languishes because no great works are being done because of unbelief.
I very much long to see the Puritan zeal restored in England... and Holland (where it was transplanted prior to coming to the Americas) and the United States of America. But that zeal didn't start with flashy advertising... it started with a deep conviction about the truths that are found in God's word. It took off when intelligent men and women took a long hard look at what Scriptures teach and then contrasted that with their own lives and undertook to repent and bear fruits worthy or repentance. This conviction became so strong in them that they could no longer be ignored and contemptuous critics began to dismissively call them "Puritans" because their desire was not first to be spiritually fulfilled... their desire was to be HOLY!
Apart from an underlying passionate conviction that God's Word is true, inerrantly and infallibly, any programs seeking to save the institutional church... any institutional church... is firmly fixed on that wide road, which many tread, which leads to destruction at the hands of the living Christ who sits in the midst of the candles and threatens to remove them from their lampstands if they do not root out the cancer that is eating their souls.
The Arch Bishop and I are brothers in our desire to see the Kingdom of Christ in this world, His Visible Church, strong and well founded such that its future is secured into the following generations. I hope we are also brothers in our understanding of what the Kingdom of Christ actually is and whether or not our visible institutions which claim title to being of the Church of Christ are indeed in it. What we need is for "scribes of understanding" to reach into the storehouse God has provided us and bring forth good things... both Old and New.
And, if it is God's will to preserve His Church, then those things will be effective to that end. If it is God's will to judge His Church, then those things will be the articles of indictment against which conviction will be certain. Either way, the obedient servants of God will fulfill the ministry that have been set aside to complete.
I am bold enough to believe that this basic attitude must dominate the true sons and daughters of God in every age... and when present, God's intention will be to bless and prosper them to His glory.
Friends......
[Image: Friends, 2013, JA Van Devender}
Location: Inner Harbor, Baltimore, MD.
John 15:13–15 (NKJV)
13 Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends. 14 You are My friends if you do whatever I command you. 15 No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you.
This couple warmed my heart as I watched them. I do not know how intimate was their relationship... they may have just met... they may be married... they may be co-workers sharing a lunch break (it was shortly after noon). Their story may not be as warm as the image they evoked but sitting there, sharing time with each other and some bread crumbs or nuts with the gulls spoke to me at least.
Human beings are not the only companionable creatures. There are myriads of stories of dogs (especially, I know of none about cats) whose delight in their human companions was unbounded. There is that famous little dog up north, I forget where, which spent every night sleeping on his master's grave after he had died. The little village opened their heart to him and he would make the rounds during the day to be fed scraps but at night he always slept with his master. If I remember correctly they erected a monument to him after he died. This was friendship that death could not touch.
So humans are not the only companionable creatures... but it is a warped human soul at least that does not value friendship with anyone. Furthermore, when I speak of true friendship I necessarily am referring to a very limited condition. A finite human being cannot be true friends with everyone... nor even a lot... by definition, finite human friendship is an intimate thing, often taking significant time to develop and creates such vulnerability that trust has to be gained before friendship is truly accomplished. The confusion of terms, "acquaintance" and "friend", that is so prevalent in our society is because true friendship is so rare. Without knowing and enjoying such "friendships", all relations blur into mediocrity and the focus is primarily inward in those. Relationships are as disposable as the styrofoam cups from which we drink simply because we value them so little.
The idea of "giving one's life for our friends" is a strange concept to us not because we are inherently more selfish I think, though that certainly is one aspect, but mostly because we don't have any friends to start with. If we truly valued a person as a friend it would be a powerful incentive to do whatever we could for that person even to the point of sacrificing ourselves.
How absent this is from our culture... even in many marriages.
So I hope these young folk are true friends... across their social barriers... across their racial distinctions... across the gap that stretches unseen in modern conversations. I hope they know what it means to simply be "fulfilled" in another person's company especially in silence and contemplation. I hope they have sat together, each lost in his or her own thoughts, pondering significant questions, only to discover when at last they speak, that they were both thinking the same thing. I hope they have experienced the joy that comes from receiving some inexpensive momento from the other... that exactly encapsulates a common experience they shared... which will become a precious reminder preserved through the years, evoking smiles even in old age.
Feeding the birds, warmed by the sun though the surrounding temperature was quite chilly, under brilliant blue skies - quiet in the midst of chaos - could be one such memory. I hope it was.
Human beings are so constituted that apart from these types of relationships, we lead warped and empty lives. We are designed to be companions. In Scriptural terms Eve was created as a "helper, suitable to Adam" - and that description beautifully sums up true friendship. It is a helping relation, exactly tailored to our whole being, that fills us out and completes our humanity.
The Lord Jesus Christ was truly human. As such, He also "needed" (in a very tightly constrained sense) friends. He was "one" with His Father in heaven but to be truly a creature, He needed to be "friends" with other humans... to fulfill all righteousness. It was for His "friends" that He gave up His life for His joy in them was complete when they were made complete in their joy. The mutual delight of giving, receiving, responding and returning, that constitutes true friendship is the bond of faith fully experienced. Of course we love others who love Christ. Why??? Because we love the Christ in them. He is our friend... and the friend of our friend is our friend. The way is open for human flourishing because the bonds of friendship are set on a firm foundation... a foundation that will never crumble nor disappoint.
Do you know Jesus? He's my Friend.
Posted by Gadfly on November 26, 2013 at 08:46 AM in Commentary, Culture, Movies, etc., Devotional Meditation, Discipleship, Ethics | Permalink | Comments (0)
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