Unity, Diversity, and the Body of Christ

One of the beautiful aspects of being connected with believers as members in the body of Christ is the celebration of our diversity.  When we love well, our differences become causes for celebration, not barriers to inclusion.  This is one of the unique features of the church.  The church is not a social club where membership depends on a shared trait or interest.  We are not an affinity group.  We are a body.  Listen to Paul’s description of the church in I Corinthians chapter 12.

“For even as the body is one and yet has many members, and all the members of the body, though they are many, are one body, so also is Christ.  For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.  For the body is not one member but many” (I Cor 12:12-14).

“If the foot says, ‘Because I am not a hand, I am not a part of the body,’ it is not for this reason any less a part of the body.  And if the ear says, ‘Because I am not an eye, I am not a part of the body,’ it is not for this reason any less a part of the body.  If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be?  If the whole were hearing, where would the sense of smell be?  But now God has placed the members, each one of them, in the body, just as He desired” (I Cor 12:15-18).

“If they were all one member, where would the body be?  But now there are many members, but one body.  And the eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you’; or again the head to the feet, ‘I have no need of you.’  On the contrary, it is much truer that the members of the body which seem to be weaker are necessary; and those members of the body which we deem less honorable, on these we bestow more abundant honor, and our less presentable members become much more presentable, whereas our more presentable members have no need of it” (I Cor 12:19-24).

But God has so composed the body, giving more abundant honor to that member which lacked, so that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another.  And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it.  Now you are Christ’s body, and individually members of it” (I Cor 12:24-27).

It is incredible to me how, after almost 2000 years of human history have transpired, this passage could have been written to today’s church.  Maybe that is because it was written to today’s church.  Themes like celebrating our diversity at the same time as practicing our unity, God forming the individual parts of the body as He desired, the danger of declaring “I have no need of you”, jealousy mixed with inferiority as to our part in the body, each suffering when one in the body suffers, and each celebrating when one is honored all have application to our contemporary church; application that we will explore next time.

Hating One’s Parents?

Last post, in the comments, Nancy brought up Matthew 10:37 and appropriately so.  “He who loves father and mother more than Me [Jesus] is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me” (Mt 10:37).  In the parallel passage in Luke chapter 14, Jesus uses even more striking language, “If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple” (Lk 14:26).  This seems to be in direct contradiction to the point of our last post – we love God by loving our families – so what gives?

It is important to understand the words of Christ in the context of His overall message.  Throughout His ministry,  Jesus extended – and to his listener’s ears – pushed the limit of the law of love to a radical model of unconditional love that, for example, includes forgiving our brother an infinite number of times (Mt 18:22) and loving our enemies of all stripes (Lk 6:27).  With that kind of expansion of love taught by Jesus to include even our enemies, it would seem to contradict Himself to suggest denying love to those closest to us.

Additionally, Jesus supports love of parents in his complaint against the Pharisees in Mark 7:9-13.  When talking about the Pharisee’s tradition of allowing a man to say to his parents in need, “The money I have available to help you has been set aside for God, so you are on your own”, Jesus condemns this action as not honoring one’s father and mother.

With that background of support for love of family, what is Jesus saying in Matthew 10 and Luke 14 about loving family less and hating one’s parents?  Just as the pursuit of wealth can come between us and the kingdom of God (think rich young ruler of Mark 10:21, 22 who when commanded by Jesus to sell all that he had went away “saddened for he owned much property”) so too family ties can become a barrier to following God.  I believe we honor and love God by loving our families, but never by putting them ahead of God’s leading in our lives.  For example, do we deny God’s call to come to salvation because family disagrees?  No.  Do we ignore His instruction in the path He has for us because family cannot accept it?  No.  But we can always respond in a loving way and trust God to work in the hearts that don’t agree with God’s call on our lives.

Back to Luke 14:26, I don’t believe Jesus is asking us to “hate our parents” in a literal sense.  What Jesus is saying is discipleship is serious business and we dare not minimize His point.  The context of the two verses we opened this post with is Jesus’ focused teaching on the cost of discipleship; the need to take up our cross and follow Him.  The story of the Pearl of Great Price and many other parables and teachings of Jesus emphasize that our first allegiance is always to Christ and His kingdom.  The “hating one’s parents” is Jesus using the most jolting and arresting language available to him to make His point; our first allegiance as Christ followers is to Christ and His kingdom.

What is interesting to me is how, as the New Testament revelation progresses, it becomes clear that one of the ways we demonstrate our allegiance to Christ is by the way we love our wives (“Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her” Eph 5:25), by the way we love our family (“But if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever” I Tim 5:8), by the way we love our neighbor (“If, however, you are fulfilling the royal law, according to the Scripture, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself,’ you are doing well” James 2:8) and by the way we love each other (“No one has seen God at any time; if we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us” I Jn 4:12 and about a hundred other love one another passages).

Love of family and love of God, as presented last time, are not competing loves.  They are both part of our pursuing all that God has for us in this wonderful adventure of being His child; loving Him as our Father and loving our wives, children, parents, neighbors, and brothers and sisters in the Lord.

 

Love in the Big Circle

In Matthew 22:35-40, Jesus identified the two great commandments – love God with all your heart, soul, and mind and love your neighbor as yourself – as the greatest commandments in the Old Testament.  Did I just say Old Testament?  I did, and I said it because Jesus said it.  Jesus listed these as the greatest commandments in “the Law” (understood to be the Old Testament) saying that “the whole Law and the Prophets” (again, the Old Testament) depended on them.

In the New Testament, Jesus introduced a new love emphasis.  “A new commandment I give to you, that you love on another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.  By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another” (Jn 13:34-35).  Three times in these two verses, Jesus repeats the new and radical command, “Love one another”.  And Jesus elevated loving one another as the gold standard by comparing its priority to His love for us.

When we view love’s priorities as competing circles, love God first and love others second, we may defend our lack of loving others in a particular situation with the reasoning that in this case my actions demonstrate that I am loving God more.  The message and model of the New Testament is that we are never to deny love to others on the basis of loving God first.  Our loves are not competing loves, but complementing loves.  Loving God is one big circle and loving our wives, loving our children, loving our fellow believers, and loving our neighbors are part and parcel of the big circle of loving God.  The apostle John, for example, equates loving God and loving others at the highest level in his epistle.  As to love’s priorities, John writes that we demonstrate our love for God who we cannot see by how we love our brothers and sisters who we can see.

Let me give you one example of how this works in practice.  In Ephesians chapter 5, Paul encourages husbands to, “Love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for it” (Eph 5:25).  When we add in, “Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends” (Jn 15:13), we find that we are to love our wives with the greatest love possible.  Our wives do not take second place to loving God.

The challenge, for ministers and laymen alike, is to not put our love of ministry – whatever God has given us to do to serve His body – above our love for our wives and I believe by extension our families as well by some expectation that leaving them behind is putting God first.  Ministers gaining their congregation’s admiration while loosing their family’s is a well-worn tale.  It shouldn’t be that way.

Before I set up shop to prepare a Sunday School lesson or write a blog post, I often ask Rhonda, “Will you be lonely if I go off and …?”  It is my way of saying, “Do you need anything from me right now before I disappear into the study?”  It is, in a small way, an expression of my love.

In I Peter chapter 3, the apostle starts the chapter off with an admonition to wives on how to treat their husbands with respect.  Turning to the husbands in verse 7, Peter writes, “You husbands in the same way, live with your wives in an understanding way, as with someone weaker since she is a woman; and show her honor as a fellow heir of the grace of life, so that your prayers will not be hindered” (I Pet 3:7).  Do you want to be a prayer warrior?  You can pray in Jesus’ name, stare down the devil, exercise great faith, or whatever you want, but the effectiveness of your prayers may come down to the simple question, “Are you treating your wife in an understanding way?”  Or put another way, “Are you loving your wife as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for it?”

When you are doing your seminary homework and you hear the dishes rattling around in the kitchen, the most spiritual thing you could do at that moment might be to go downstairs and help your wife with the dishes.  When you would like to start the day with focused prayer and see a lunch that still needs packed for your grade-schooler, the most spiritual exercise might be to pitch in and finish the job.  In the final analysis, loving your wife does not compete with your spirituality, loving your wife completes your spirituality.  Putting down your Bible and filling the dishwasher might be the clearest expression of your love for God today!

Motivated by Love

When we embrace the gospel message of Jesus Christ, one of the changes we experience, whether rapidly or gradually, is that we are no longer motivated by selfish ambition, by “what’s in it for me.”  We have a new motivation for our actions.

In the first chapter of I Peter, the apostle goes to great length to explain our inheritance in Christ.  “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you” (I Pet 1:3-4).

Peter continues in this chapter with two actions that should naturally follow when we recognize the spectactularness of our salvation.  Obedience and love.  “Therefore [based on what I just said about so great a salvation]…as obedient children, do not be conformed to the former lusts which were yours in your ignorance, but like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your behavior” (I Pet 1:14-15).  And, “Since you have in obedience to the truth purified your souls for a sincere love of the brethren, fervently love one another from the heart” (I Pet 1:22).  Obedience and love.

It is interesting that Peter follows verse 22 with the reason we are even able to love.  “For you have been born again not of seed which is perishable but imperishable, that is, through the living and enduring word of God” (I Pet 1:23).  God’s imperishable seed inside empowers us to love fervently.

If our goal for living the Christian life is to keep a set of rules or attain a certain level of character qualities, the road will grow stale and the motivation will fade away.  If, on the other hand, our goal is to love from a pure heart, our motivation and enthusiasm will grow as our love grows.

Think about this progression with me and the verses that go with it.

  • My ultimate goal, the greatest commandment in the New Testament, is to love one another.  (See Jn 13:34, Jn 15:12, Jn 15:17, Rom 12:10, Rom 13:8, I Thess 3:12, I Thess 4:9, II Thess 1:3, I Pet 1:22, I Pet 4:8, I Jn 3:11, I Jn 3:23, I Jn 4:7, I Jn 4:11, I Jn 4:12, II Jn 1:5.)
  • I love others by serving them.  “Through love, serve one another” (Gal 5:13).
  • A clean vessel is a vessel fit for service.  “Therefore if anyone cleanses himself from these things [the bad stuff], he will be a vessel for honor, sanctified, useful to the Master, prepared for every good work” (II Tim 2:21).
  • I cleanse myself by obeying God’s commands, an obedience that comes from my love motivation.  “If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love” (Jn 15:10).
  • Love is our motivation to do the right thing.

The apostle Paul adds an additional dimension to our love motivation in II Corinthians 5:14, “For the love of Christ controls us.”  The idea of being “controlled” or “constrained” (KJV) by love is more than just being motivated by it.  As my friend Greg Despres points out, the word picture in this verse is like a rushing river being controlled or constrained by its banks.  Its the idea of being controlled or constrained by a crowd as we all press into an arena for a sporting event.  Faced with this “control”, it only makes sense to go with the flow.  Our love is going with the flow of who Christ indwells us to be.  Let your pride and selfish ambition fall to the wayside and go with the flow of Christ’s love filling you and overflowing in service to others.  Go with the flow!

On the Road to Change

Without taking anything away from our last post, The End of Sin’s Power?, we do need to talk about how this works in practice.  The message of the New Testament – the indwelling resurrection power of Christ in our lives and the thousand new things that come with it – is all true, but experiencing this power is a process.

The path to all that happened at our new birth becoming our normal practice is hindered by at least two barriers.  The first is our group of enemies – the world, the flesh, and the devil – that seek to empower our moribund sin nature.  I will not elaborate here as we have discussed this challenge many times (see Galatians 5 and The War with the Flesh).

The second barrier is what I call the timeline of our lives.  We start off at birth with a sin nature, personality quirks, and all kinds of things that make us us (Nature).  As we grow, we are influenced by our family dynamic, our upbringing, our poor choices, etc. (Nurture).  Added together, Nature and Nurture become a volatile combination of selfishness, ambition, pride, laziness, lust, and the list goes on and on.

Somewhere  along the way, in the beauty of God’s grace, Christ breaks through this volatile combination with His salvation and we are delivered to a new life.  “If any man or woman be in Christ, they are a new person.  The old has passed away.  New things have come” (II Cor 5:17).  When Christ enters our life, we become a new person.  However, we still retain some of the parts and pieces of the old man, even though dead, that was our normal way of doing business.  So then, the normal Christian life is a life of constant change, renewal, and repentance.

And the prospect of change should excite us.  Who doesn’t want to be a better person?  Who doesn’t want a better marriage?  Who doesn’t want more family unity?  As a new person in Christ, we don’t want the volatile combination to continue.  Change is what we want.  When we fail to change or change moves too slowly, we become discouraged and are tempted to give up.  And the excitement of change grows dim.

What I have tried to say in a multitude of ways during these posts about our promised victory over sin’s power is that Christ has given us the promise of change and the power to change by the gift of the Holy Spirit who lives inside us.  This unseen change is instant and real, but the outward expression is not automatic.  The outward change is not overnight.  But the promise and power to change is available to every believer.

I have observed two accelerators that speed up our spiritual transformation; the outward practice of the change inside.  The first is the Word of God.  “Therefore putting aside all filthiness and all that remains of wickedness, in humility receive the word implanted, which is able to save your souls” (James 1:21).  To “save your souls” means to deliver you from your present enemies in your struggle with sin.  The “implanted Word of God” that we receive through reading and study delivers us and feeds our spiritual transformation.  One of the keys to change is to change our thinking – getting rid of our former grid that we interpreted the world through – and begin to interpret the world through the grid of God’s thought process.  Here is a simple question, “How long will it take for your thinking process to become like God’s thinking process if you are never reading God’s Word, where His thinking process is described and explained?”  The answer might be infinity.

The second accelerator is our community of believers.  Change does not happen in a personal vacuum.  It happens in a community.  Lasting change has the  most hope of success when we grow together, side-by-side.  Is there a place for working on personal transformation by ourselves?  Yes!  But personal change has the best chance of “sticking” if it happens in the context of community.  Growing in Christ together is the emphasis of the over fifty “one another” passages of the New Testament.  “Love, encourage, greet, build up, be devoted to, accept, admonish, care for, serve, be kind to, speak truth to, be subject to, forgive, comfort, and have fellowship with one another” are just a few.  We need each other to flesh out what life looks like on the new path God has for us.