Christian Unity

Mat 25:40 “The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.’

Christians are saved in order to do good works. Among the most obvious, and most important of those good works is to take care of the “least of these.” Nothing is more God-like, more Christ-like, than to defend the weak and powerless. And who is more powerless than an unborn child?

In the 35 years since the Roe Vs Wade decision in the U.S. Supreme Court, over 48 million unborn children have lost their lives to abortion.
The magnitude of horror in that number defies the imagination: 48 million innocent lives snuffed out in the womb! We recoil at the thought of six million Jews being killed in Hitler’s Germany. And yet, eight times that many innocents have been killed in America through abortion since 1973.

Abortion is wrong because it takes an innocent human life. We instinctively know that taking innocent life is evil. But just in case we miss that point, God has made his view of the matter clear.

It is easy to prove that murder is wrong according to the scriptures. The following two references should suffice:

Exo 20:13 “You shall not murder.

1Jo 3:15 Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life in him.

To show that this includes taking the life of an unborn child, we merely need to show that unborn children are considered human lives by God. That, too, is easily proven from the scriptures:

Jer 1:4 The word of the LORD came to me, saying,
Jer 1:5 “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
before you were born I set you apart;
I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”

Isa 44:1 Israel the Chosen
“But now listen, O Jacob, my servant,
Israel, whom I have chosen.
Isa 44:2 This is what the LORD says–
he who made you, who formed you in the womb,
and who will help you:
Do not be afraid, O Jacob, my servant,
Jeshurun, whom I have chosen.

Job 10:8 “Your hands shaped me and made me.
Will you now turn and destroy me?
Job 10:9 Remember that you molded me like clay.
Will you now turn me to dust again?
Job 10:10 Did you not pour me out like milk
and curdle me like cheese,
Job 10:11 clothe me with skin and flesh
and knit me together with bones and sinews?
Job 10:12 You gave me life and showed me kindness,
and in your providence watched over my spirit.

Psa 22:9 Yet you brought me out of the womb;
you made me trust in you
even at my mother’s breast.
Psa 22:10 From birth I was cast upon you;
from my mother’s womb you have been my God.

Psa 139:13 For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
Psa 139:14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
Psa 139:15 My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place.
When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,
Psa 139:16 your eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained for me
were written in your book
before one of them came to be.

The account of Mary and Elizabeth clearly demonstrates the humanness of the unborn child. Note that John the Baptist leaped for joy inside Elizabeth’s womb:

Luk 1:39 At that time Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea,
Luk 1:40 where she entered Zechariah’s home and greeted Elizabeth.
Luk 1:41 When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.
Luk 1:42 In a loud voice she exclaimed: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear!
Luk 1:43 But why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?
Luk 1:44 As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy.
Luk 1:45 Blessed is she who has believed that what the Lord has said to her will be accomplished!”

The Old Testament law directly addressed the protection of pregnant mothers and their unborn children, proving that unborn children have a right to life and to protection of the law:

Exo 21:22 “If men who are fighting hit a pregnant woman and she gives birth prematurely but there is no serious injury, the offender must be fined whatever the woman’s husband demands and the court allows.
Exo 21:23 But if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life,
Exo 21:24 eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot,
Exo 21:25 burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.

The scriptures also make it clear how God’s children should respond to the practice of abortion:

Pro 31:8 “Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves,
for the rights of all who are destitute.

Pro 24:11 Rescue those being led away to death;
hold back those staggering toward slaughter.
Pro 24:12 If you say, “But we knew nothing about this,”
does not he who weighs the heart perceive it?
Does not he who guards your life know it?
Will he not repay each person according to what he has done?

Est 4:12 When Esther’s words were reported to Mordecai,
Est 4:13 he sent back this answer: “Do not think that because you are in the king’s house you alone of all the Jews will escape.
Est 4:14 For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to royal position for such a time as this?”

Psa 82:3 Defend the cause of the weak and fatherless;
maintain the rights of the poor and oppressed.
Psa 82:4 Rescue the weak and needy;
deliver them from the hand of the wicked.

Whatever we do for the least of these, we do for Christ. And whatever we do not do for them, we do not do for Christ. Let’s resolve to speak up for the defenseless.

I am in the process of reading a fascinating book titled “The New Faces of Christianity: Believing the Bible in the Global South“. You can expect a book review on this blog when I’m finished.

Meanwhile, Jay Guin is blogging a series on the future of progressive churches of Christ, based on articles in the September issue of the Christian Standard. That topic is all the more interesting because the Christian Standard is a publication of the independent Christian churches, the ecclesiastically estranged cousins of the churches of Christ. Is the wall between these groups starting to crumble? Let’s hope so. There is no sound reason why these two groups should not embrace one another as brothers and sisters, despite differences on some peripheral topics.

On another unity front, the Portland ICOC is seeking to restore fellowship with the other ICOC congregations. This is a positive and hopeful sign for more brotherhood and peace between groups of believers.

And closer to home for me, our congregation is using the facilities of a nearby independent Christian church to conduct a session of Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University. We are also hoping to work out arrangements for us to use their facilities for other activities. The elders of this Christian Church have been extraordinarily gracious and eager to help. We are two congregations with so much in common doctrinally.

The church of Christ is at a crossroads.

More and more voices are questioning whether the teachings of the Bible continue to have authority in the postmodern world. A growing number of people argue that the world of today is much more enlightened than that of the early church, and therefore the teachings about what is sin and what is acceptable should be changed to fit our modern values.

The argument is made about an entire spectrum of topics. Do biblical teachings about the role of women apply today? Are biblical teachings about marriage, divorce, and remarriage still applicable? Is homosexuality still a sin? Is it still necessary to confine sex to the marriage relationship? In each of these topics, people are arguing that the biblical instructions should no longer apply. They hold that the church should change to accommodate permissive, progressive, postmodern culture.

A recent article in the Christian Courier laments The Erosion of Marriage due to mounting pressures to conform to the standards of our postmodern neighbors. It is shocking to read that someone speaking at a “Christian Scholars Conference” would take the position that

…the sexual regulations set forth in the Bible merely were cultural and the restrictions imposed in biblical times may be ignored in our contemporary, “post-modern” world.

Yet this should not come as such a surprise. For some years, people have been arguing for the abandonment of traditional, biblical teachings about topics like the role of women in the church. They claimed that the traditional teaching was a vestige of the distant past, and an unnecessary, unpopular burden for the church. Others objected that abandoning traditional teachings is a slippery slope. If we can eliminate one doctrine of the Bible because it conflicts with the consensus of modern society, why not another? But those advocating the change insisted that this was as far as it would go. Of course, it has continued to go farther and farther.

The church faces a choice. Will we teach a commitment to vivid otherworldliness, or will we become so much like the world that we will become irrelevant?

I recently wrote that Christians should keep their political views between themselves and God, for the sake of unity. Subsequently, a new Pew poll has discovered that more conservatives are coming to the conclusion that it can be a bad idea to mix religion and politics. From the Pew Forum article:

Four years ago, just 30% of conservatives believed that churches and other houses of worship should stay out of politics. Today, 50% of conservatives express this view.

In 2004, there was a sharp difference between conservatives and liberals on this question. In that poll, Democrats preferred for churches to stay out of politics by a margin of 51% to 45%. But in the 2004 poll, Republicans felt churches should be active in politics by a margin of 58%-37%. In the recent (2008) poll, the difference between Democrats and Republicans on this issue has virtually disappeared.

Overall, 44% of those surveyed in 2004 said that churches should keep out of politics. Today, 51% take that position. Conservatives account for the majority of that shift.

In short, the change of mind about the role of religious institutions in politics is most apparent among people who are most concerned about the very issues that churches and other houses of worship have focused on, and among those who fault the parties for their friendliness toward religion.

There are many theories why conservatives have changed their minds on churches being active in politics. Steve Waldman at Belief Net wrote:

But just as likely, this is a reflection of a genuine disillusionment among conservatives about what political involvement has actually gotten them. As the Evangelical Manifesto, produced in May by a group of leading Christians put it: “Whichever side it comes from, a politicized faith is faithless, foolish and disastrous for the church.”

I think that comes close, but misses a key point. Conservatives are not feeling great about either political party right now. They have no champion in today’s political arena for their most cherished causes. I suspect this is the primary reason they are less inclined to engage in the political arena today than they were four years ago.

For me, two issues trump all of the other factors that could be mentioned. First, we don’t need to be creating any unnecessary obstacles in our mission to reach the lost. A public stance on politics is likely to turn off about half of the surrounding community, over a disputable matter that should be kept to ourselves. Second, politics has a real potential to divide a church. How are we going to show the world our unity, as Jesus prayed, if we are quarreling about political candidates? The church has more important things to talk about.

You may already be familiar with e-Sword, the outstanding free Bible software for Windows PC, and its smaller companion, Pocket e-Sword. I’ve just discovered a new platform where this tool resides, called e-Sword Live, an online Web 2.0 Bible study tool.

You’ll need to register to access all the features of e-Sword Live. After selecting a user ID and supplying your name and email address, you will receive a temporary password to log in to the site. Once you log in, you will want to visit your profile to select your favorite translations, commentaries, dictionaries, lexicons, and topical resources. You can even link to verses on the e-Sword Live site in blog posts. When readers follow those links, they will have access to commentaries, dictionaries, and lexicons coordinated with the linked passage — a nice advantage in comparison to other existing online Bible study sites. If you are logged in to e-Sword Live while browsing, you can switch between your selected translations, commentaries etc just like in the original e-Sword application. If you are not logged in, you will get the ESV for Bible text and the Matthew Henry Concise Commentary when you follow the link.

I think I’ll start using that tool for scripture links. Let me know what you think!

The Christian Standard is currently featuring a pair of articles explaining two sides of the issue around the role of women in the church. In one, Joe Harvey takes the complementarian position. In the other, Lana West takes the egalitarian position.

I’m not going to get back into that debate, since I covered it previously in my series on First Corinthians. But I thought it was worthy of note that the Christian Standard is willing to present both sides of such a controversial topic, without making it an issue of fellowship.

Both sides cannot be correct. But I believe there are sincere Christians on both sides of the issue. A person can have their sins forgiven and receive the gift of the Holy Spirit without understanding anything about this topic. Such a person is therefore a brother or sister in Christ.

I doubt any Christian has absolutely perfect understanding of every Christian doctrine. We need to be willing to embrace as a brother those who disagree on topics like this one, because of our unity on the core gospel. Kudos to the Christian Standard for demonstrating that kind of unity.

Christianity and politics have had a rocky relationship.

In the early days of the church, government persecuted the church. Later, the government practically merged with the church. Those previously persecuted Christians must have viewed the sanction of government as a wonderful thing. But centuries of state-sponsored Christianity led to war in the name of Christ, and to corruption of both the morals and the doctrine of the church. In more recent times, separation of church and state has become the rule in western cultures.

Today, opinions among Christians vary about the relationship between church and state. Some believe the church should actively promote its agenda in the political realm. Others believe the church should focus on meeting the spiritual needs of individuals, and leave politics alone.

If your priority is Christian unity, then politics can be a hindrance. The American two-party system has a tendency to polarize issues. There are major Christian values on both sides of the aisle. One side opposes abortion, while the other side opposes the war. One side emphasizes individual responsibility, while the other advocates expansion of the government-sponsored safety net. Since we aren’t offered a choice that perfectly matches our Christian values, different Christians are drawn to different ends of the political spectrum depending on how they prioritize the issues, and on which compromises they find least offensive.

Many churches lack diversity of culture and therefore of political persuasion. I suspect those churches are the ones most likely to be politically active and to take public positions on political issues. Those who have a successful outreach to a diversity of cultures have to be more diplomatic about politics.

There are some opinions that Christians should keep between themselves and God, for the sake of unity. I think controversial political views are on that list.

In the preceding post I talked about the the new covenant, the Law of Christ, predicted by Jeremiah and announced by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount. In this new covenant, God promised to write his laws on our hearts, so that every Christian would know him. The new covenant is all about laws of the heart, which lead to the Christ-like behavior which God desires.

James wrote:

Jam 1:25 But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it–he will be blessed in what he does.

Again he wrote:

Jam 2:12 Speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives freedom,
Jam 2:13 because judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful. Mercy triumphs over judgment!

In the above passages, James tells us a couple of things about the Law of Christ: that it gives us freedom; and that we will be judged by that law. Those statements might seem to be in conflict with one another. If the law brings freedom, how is it that we will be judged by it? Doesn’t the prospect of judgment put us in bondage to that law? Are we not obligated to obey, with eternal consequences for failure to obey? How is this freedom?

Christians are often confused by these two seemingly conflicting ideas in scripture. We are called to be free. We are no longer under law, but under grace. Yet we also read about the Law of Christ, and are repeatedly warned against conducting a lawless way of life. On this topic, Christians tend to polarize into two camps. One camp holds to law, and the other to grace and freedom. But are the two concepts really opposed to one another?

In Galatians, Paul explains how we were set free.

Gal 3:24 So the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ that we might be justified by faith.
Gal 3:25 Now that faith has come, we are no longer under the supervision of the law.

The law of which Paul spoke in Gal 3 is the Law of Moses, which was put into effect to lead us to Christ. Christians are no longer under supervision of the Law of Moses. We have been set free from that law. Paul further explains:

Gal 5:4 You who are trying to be justified by law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace.
Gal 5:5 But by faith we eagerly await through the Spirit the righteousness for which we hope.
Gal 5:6 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.

In Christ, we are no longer justified by obedience to the Law of Moses. And we are no longer justified based on circumcision. Instead, justification is based on faith, expressing itself through love. We are deemed righteous and accepted by God, because of our active and visible faith, on the basis of the atoning sacrifice of Jesus. In regard to our justification, we are free from the Law of Moses.

Rather than an external law regulating our behavior, we now have God’s spirit living in us. And as a result, we have an obligation to live a certain way.

Gal 5:16 So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature.
Gal 5:17 For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want.
Gal 5:18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law.
Gal 5:19 The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery;
Gal 5:20 idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions
Gal 5:21 and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.
Gal 5:22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
Gal 5:23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.
Gal 5:24 Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires.
Gal 5:25 Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.
Gal 5:26 Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.

In this new covenant, the Law of Christ is written on our hearts by the Holy Spirit as the Spirit produces fruit in our lives. We are changed from the inside out. So we do the things that God desires, not because of a list of laws, but because our hearts are tuned to his. We freely obey. This is our freedom in Christ!

But freedom in Christ does not give us a license to do whatever we want. There still are behaviors that are offensive to God, which will keep us out of heaven. Jesus is Lord, and we are expected to obey and to teach others to obey everything he has commanded. We still will be judged by the law that gives freedom.

Obedience is not the most popular topic in Christianity today.

We latch onto those scriptures that speak of freedom. We interpret them as broadly as our imaginations will allow. We love the passages that tell us that we are not under law. And again, we want to interpret these passages very broadly. We don’t want rules. But aren’t there rules in Christianity? Hasn’t God given Christians a law to obey?

Let’s look at a few passages.

Rom 6:14 For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace.

Here Paul came right out and said we are not under law. But throughout Romans 6 and 7, Paul repeatedly urged Christians not to continue to sin. He explained how law causes us to be tempted to sin. Yet, although being set free from the law, we are still called to obey and not to sin.

But consider a couple of Paul’s other letters:

1Co 9:21 To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law), so as to win those not having the law.

Gal 6:2 Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.

In the above two passages, Paul indicates that there is another law, the Law of Christ, which governs Christians. Apparently Romans 6:14 referred to a specific law that is no longer in effect (of course, the Law of Moses). But there remains another law in effect for Christians.

Let’s see what more we can learn about that law.

Gal 5:13 You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love.
Gal 5:14 The entire law is summed up in a single command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

Gal 5 tells us that the law is summed up in the command to love our neighbor. This is very much like what Jesus said about the Mosaic Law in Matt 22:37-40. Paul did not mention the need to love God in Galatians 5:13-14. Of course we would not therefore conclude that loving God is no longer important! We should take Gal 5:13-14 in the same manner that a Jew would have taken Jesus’ words in Matthew — not as a substitute for everything else in the inspired scriptures, but as a generalization of the other commands.

Now lets’ look at one of the early teachings of Jesus:

Mat 7:21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.
Mat 7:22 On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’
Mat 7:23 And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’

Jesus was wrapping up the Sermon on the Mount, a sermon in which he had presented many challenging teachings. The theme of this sermon seems to be that God wants us to have pure hearts, not just pure actions. But in verse 23, during final judgment, we learn that Jesus will tell many people to depart from him, because they were “workers of lawlessness.” They had called Jesus Lord, but they had lived as though he had not given them a law to obey. And that failure cost them their souls.

So, there is a law for Christians, a standard of God’s will for us to follow, what Jesus called the “will of my father”. But what makes up that law? Surely, at a minimum, it included the teachings Jesus had been presenting in that sermon. In this early sermon Jesus was laying the foundation for a new law, the Law of Christ. As he said in the parable at the end of the sermon, those who heard this law and did not put it into practice were foolish builders. What they had built would be destroyed, because they did not do the will of the Father. God would tell them to depart, because they practiced lawlessness — they neglected the Law of Christ.

Jeremiah prophesied about this law:

Jer 31:31 “Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah,
Jer 31:32 not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the LORD.
Jer 31:33 But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
Jer 31:34 And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”

The new covenant would be a law written on people’s hearts. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus was introducing this new law — a law that called on us, not only to refrain from adultery, but also from lust; not only from murder; but from anger. It is a law that addresses the heart, not merely external behavior. The new law sets us free from the external regulations of the first law. But it establishes a higher standard — a law of the heart. Despite the fact that this new law addresses the inner being, obeying that law of the heart will still have visible external effects. And living as though Jesus had not given that law will cost many people their souls.

There is an element in modern Christianity which does not like the Law of Christ. They focus instead on freedom and grace. They love having Jesus as Savior, but not so much as Lord. For them, everything is optional. Their rallying cry is “Freedom in Christ,” but they do not understand that freedom. Christ does indeed bring freedom, but freedom from what? That will be the topic of the next post.

This summer is bringing two opportunities for members of the various streams of the Restoration Movement to come together in the interest of greater unity.

Earlier this month, the eleventh Stone-Campbell Dialogue was held in St Louis.  I have not been able to find a detailed account of the event online, but there is a brief article about it at disciples.org (a web site of the Disciples of Christ).   The same article appears at christianstandard.com (a journal of the independent Christian churches).

And  starting July 30, the World Convention will be held in Nashville, TN.  This will be the seventeenth meeting of this conference, which is held every four years.  Past conferences have been scheduled all over the world, so having it in Nashville this time presents an unusual opportunity for the many churches of Christ in the southeastern US.  I hope that many can advantage of the opportunity.

It is a shame that these conferences are not more prominently advertised. I’m sure there are many people in these churches who are not aware, and will not be aware of the conference.  I suspect that at least part of the reason is an ambivalence (or worse) among some of these churches toward unity efforts with the other Restoration Movement branches.  I would urge any who fall in that category to consider Eph 4:1-4, to rise above the disagreements, and to make every effort to promote unity.   Nobody is asking any of us to abandon our convictions on the topics where there is disagreement.  But surely we can come together with clear consciences to discuss areas of agreement.