Convincing Love

Sexual abuse! Abuse of authority! Financial misdealing! Tax evasion! Divorce! Bigotry and racism! Are these problems in our society? Yes. Are they problems in the church? Yes. Sadly, yes. And when they are associated with the church they are so much worse than when those outside of the church fall into such sins. This is so not because we are proved to be as needful of a savior as the next person; it is so because we bear the name of Christ and we bring offense to that blessed name. The only scandal that should ever be attached to the church is the scandal of Christ and him crucified (1 Corinthians 1:22-24). All other offensive behaviors place stumbling blocks in the paths of people getting to the stumbling block of the cross.

Such things happen in the church when the church does not walk in the most basic of Kingdom principles: love. We can seek to eradicate poverty, fight against the evils of abortion, offer profound insights regarding the human condition, and join forces with others who seek renewal in all levels of society. But if we have not love, our pious pronouncements will sound hollow and our “good works” will be judged as just another self-serving agenda.

The need for followers of Jesus to walk in love is essential. Yet, how to walk in love is something to be learned. It needs to be shaped by the gospel working on our hearts till we understand gratitude and humility. And the classroom God has given us in which we are to be schooled in this most basic of principles is the local church. It’s in the church, walking side by side with other sinners, that we will come to appreciate that “love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” (1 Corinthians 13:4-7). This kind of love has the power to prevent scandals and persuade skeptics. The world is watching! Let’s offer them a convincing apologetic.

The Priviledge of Persecution

Our Christian brothers and sisters in the 1st century had a very different perspective on persecution than we 21st century western Christians. For them it was a privilege (see Acts 5:41; Philippians 1:29), for us it is something to be avoided, almost at all costs. But can it be avoided? If Jesus and the apostles are any measure, it cannot. The scriptures clearly attest that persecution follows proclamation.

Why is this so? The message of the Kingdom of God runs smack up against the prevailing powers of the kingdom of this world making conflict inevitable. And because the gospel offers a stern critique of the nature of human beings and the works we produce, when a person embraces the gospel as true it necessarily aligns that one with that assessment, provoking persecution. The demand to the believer in the face of this inevitable enmity, notes Glenn Penner, the late director of Voice of the Martyrs, Canada, “is not so much a willingness to die for Christ but a readiness to die due to one’s unconditional obedience to the Crucified One.” If persecution is part and parcel with proclaiming and living the gospel, we must accept that we are “destined for this” and “not be moved by these afflictions” (1 Thessalonians 3:3).

But suffering for the sake of Christ is not an end in itself. Jesus spoke of his redemptive suffering when he taught, ““The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit” (John 12:23-24). Each disciple of Jesus is a product of the redeeming death to which he alludes. For this we are grateful. The startling news, however, is that he also envisions our own sacrificial fruit bearing when he explains, “Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life” (v. 25). Our participation in the redeeming work of Christ through suffering for the sake of his name, has a redemptive purpose, not for ourselves but for others.

The power of the followers of Jesus united in the face of persecution offers a much needed testimony to the truth of the gospel. Ed Clowney notes: "“The very threats to the existence of the church in the twenty-first century show again our need of the church. The courage to stand apart, to be unashamed of Christ’s claims, is nurtured in the community of those who are baptized into his name. The church may not apply for a union card in a pluralistic establishment by signing away its right to proclaim the only Saviour of the world. Together we must make clear that it is to Christ and not to ourselves that we witness. In that witness we are not only individual points of light in the world, but a city set on a hill. In the ethnic hostility that ravages Europe, Africa and the Middle East, the church must show the bond of Christ’s love that unites former enemies as brothers and sisters in the Lord. Only so can the church be a sign of his kingdom: the kingdom that will come when Christ comes, and that is already present through his Spirit” (The Church. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1995. 15-16).

As our Savior was persecuted because he stood against the prevailing selfishness and cruelty of a sin-racked, idolatrous world, so will his church. Persecution is something to which we have been called and for which we must give thanks. 

Invitation to Grow

Koinonia, a Greek word that has rich meaning for the Christian. It stands for the reality that in Christ believers, bound together by our faith in Jesus, are called to mutual participation and identification with other believers. As N. T. Wright instructs: “The idea that we need to grasp . . . is that, in Christ, Christians not only belong to one another but actually become mutually identified, truly rejoicing with the happy and genuinely weeping with the sad . . . Koinonia is part of the truth about the body of Christ. All are bound together in a mutual bond that makes our much-prized individualism look shallow and petty.”

In theory, koinonia is noble. In practice, it is difficult. Followers of Jesus are brought into the body of Christ by the electing grace of God. As a result, we find ourselves in fellowship with people that we might not normally gravitate towards, and once in relationship we are called to maintain that relationship, sometimes at great cost. But if we are willing to pay the price, there is great reward.

This is what Paul was assuring Philemon when he asked him to receive back into his household Onesimus, his runaway slave, newly converted. Paul knew that this would be challenging for Philemon. But if his friend would fully embrace the implications of koinonia he would grow to understand in a deeper way what it means to be in fellowship with Christ and Christ’s people. Wright’s paraphrase of Philemon 6 is to the point, “I am praying that the mutual participation, which is proper to the Christian faith you hold, may have its full effect in your realization of every good thing that God wants to accomplish in us to lead us into the fullness of Christian fellowship, that is, of Christ.”

So, those folks with whom you worship each Sunday, you are bound to them in Christ. You are called, therefore, to koinonia, mutually identifying and participating in life with them for they, too, have been reconciled to God through the blood of the cross. In humility, work out your differences; in generosity, rejoice when they rejoice; with empathy, join them in their sorrow; in love for Christ, serve beside them in his kingdom. In this way we will all mature, until we “grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ” (Ephesians 4:15).

A Changed Man

Onesimus, a slave, had run away. When he fled he took something of value from his master's home: money? jewelry? He probably thought he had made a clean get away, traveling many, many miles to the city of Rome where he could live out his days, and his freedom, in anonymity. But things did not go as planned. He was now on his way back to his master to face the consequences of his flight and thievery. What's remarkable about his return is that he was going back not under guard, or in chains, but of his own volition. He was going back because he had come to a new understanding of his obligations to his master. How had this change come about? What made a man, who had decided it was best to flee his circumstances, now decide to face them? It was the presence of God's redemptive power in his life. While in Rome, he had met the apostle Paul, who shared with him the gospel of Jesus Christ. By the grace of God, Onesimus came to faith and he was a changed man, a new creation.

The brief story of Onesimus, which is the subject of Paul's letter to his friend Philemon, is a powerful example of what can happen when a person who comes to faith in Christ embraces the process of change that God intends to take place in the lives of his children. That process involves (at the very least) the renewing of the mind (so that we understand the will of God), the practice of repentance (when something we formerly thought acceptable is discovered to be outside of God's will), the participation in the life of the community of God's family (for mutual provocation and support in the process of change), and, most importantly, the resource of Jesus himself (who unites himself to us when we confess him as Lord; see Ephesians 4:17-24).

As the story of Onesimus illustrates, change is possible. We need not respond to the circumstances of life with the same default responses that exhibited themselves when we were governed by our old nature. With God's help, utilizing the means he has provided, we can put off the old self and put on the new and face the challenges of life with faith.