Rules of Engagement for Constructive “Fighting” in the Kingdom of God
I would have never likely gotten my foot in the door at Baker Books to publish The Peacemaking Church without the help of my mentor and friend Ken Sande, author of The Peacemaker: a Biblical Guide to Resolving Personal Conflict. Founder of Relational Wisdom 360, Ken kindly consented to write the foreword to my book. He kicks off those two pages somewhat tongue-in-cheek: Where two or three come together in Jesus’s name . . . there will soon be conflict. Then he adds, This fact is reflected throughout the New Testament epistles, most of which deal with some kind of conflict in the early church. True enough.
Our Lord’s teaching in the Gospels reflects the same, especially near the close of his Sermon on the Mount. Matthew’s gospel details the good news of Jesus’s first advent from the vantage point of his kingship. Jesus came preaching, The kingdom of God is at hand;repent and believe in the gospel (Mark 1:15). In likely the greatest sermon ever preached, Jesus painted a stunning portrait of the character and lifestyle of true kingdom people—those who’ve repented of their sins and believed on him for salvation. Matthew 7:1-12 tackles how followers of Jesus must engage to fight well for preserving the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace in the local church (Ephesians 4:3).
“Judge not, that you be not judged. 2 For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. 3 Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? 4 Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye. 6 Do not give dogs what is holy, and do not throw your pearls before pigs, lest they trample them underfoot and turn to attack you. 7 Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. 9 Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? 10 Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? 11 If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him! 12 So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.”
Here is the main idea to summarize the thrust of our Lord’s instruction:
When sin threatens relational peace, kingdom people engage constructively, not destructively.
Jesus gets immensely practical and stunningly direct here. Offenses will certainly come (Luke 17:1, CSB). We all stumble in many ways (James 3:2). There’s no escaping it. The question is how do we handle things when it hits? What guides the way we engage one another’s brokenness? Jesus insists we kingdom-types engage constructively, not destructively.
Negatively, there are three ways we must not engage—judgmentally, hypocritically, and indiscriminately (vv. 1-6). And positively, there are two ways we must engage—dependently and lovingly (vv. 7-12).
In my next couple of posts, I hope to unpack helpful specifics for each of Jesus’s five rules of engagement for constructive, not destructive “fighting” within the kingdom ranks.
More on Practicing What I Didn’t Get to Teach in BC
Through two previous posts–JOMO NOT FOMO and JOMO AND THE GOLDEN RULE, I promised to recount my “Golden Rule Joy” encounter with my Idaho hospital roommate. Time to deliver.
Both nights of my stay at Kootenai Health I enjoyed the “delights” of a so-called semi-private room. Two beds jammed side-by-side into a smallish space with only a flimsy draw curtain between occupants makes for relative visual privacy only. You overhear just about any and everything going on with your roomie ALL NIGHT LONG. So much for HIPAA compliance. No one sleeps particularly well in a hospital given all that must occur for patient care. I get that. But when your first night partner never turns off his TV to boot–well prospects for any decent rest suffer a nearly insurmountable challenge.
Night number two brought a glimmer of hope for a better night’s sleep. Roommate #1 got moved elsewhere, somewhere around 9 PM. Hallelujah! I prayed. Lord, please don’t let them wheel a newbie in here until tomorrow. I’m so tired. I’m sick with pneumonia. I need my rest. Have mercy on me, Father! And the Lord heard my prayer. He quickly answered with a resounding No.
By midnight roommate #2 arrived intermittently hacking, coughing, and cursing up a storm. I kid you not. Within the first fifteen minutes of entering the room, the man blasphemed the name of the Lord Jesus Christ a total of three different times. Not only that, within minutes of getting situated in his bed, he turned on his TV and you guessed it–left it on ALL NIGHT LONG. Good grief. Things went from bad to worse just like that. I lay there a mixture of emotion stewing over such inconsiderate treatment by a fellow human being.
Just then began my JOMO learning experience. The Lord brought to mind the Golden Rule in Matthew 7:12: “So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.” I asked myself this question. If the circumstances were reversed, what would I wish my roommate would do for me? The answer came lightning fast. Pray for me! So, by God’s grace and with the Spirit’s help, I immediately traded my complaining, unthankful spirit, for a prayerful and merciful one. I had no idea what potentially life-threatening illness the man faced nor how serious his condition. A wave of compassion swelled within me and I prayed for his body and his soul. God prevented my teaching the Golden Rule in a church camp in Canada so I might learn something about practicing the Golden Rule in a hospital in Idaho. Welcome to JOMO.
The next morning Jan and I overheard doctors talking with my roommate about his head and neck cancer. He faced surgery that day to place a peg tube in his side to meet his nutritional needs while undergoing treatment to his throat. Hearing all that jumped my compassion quotient to an even higher level given my own tongue cancer story. When the doctors left, I snagged the opportunity to peek around the curtain. I introduced my survivor self. I told him and his wife how I felt strangely moved in the night to pray for him and now I knew why. Unfortunately, there was no time to share the gospel with him. I did however encourage him that I would continue to pray for him from afar.
Who knows how the Lord might use such a small thing to do a greater thing in Steve’s heart? I covet your prayers with me for him, if he comes to mind. Thank you!
In my quiet time with the Lord this morning, I read this from William Jay’s devotional Morning Exercises:
A natural man is only concerned to escape from trouble, but the Christian is anxious to have it sanctified and improved. He is commanded to hear the rod. While God chastens he teaches. I must therefore be in a learning frame of mind. I must say unto God, “Show me wherefore thou contendest with me.” “I will hear what, by this event, God the Lord will speak.”
In my recent post JOMO NOT FOMO, I shared something of the same idea as a result of the providential curve ball which landed me in an Idaho hospital with aspiration pneumonia. Part of the joy of missing out on teaching at the church camp in Canada was the benefit of a sharpened focus on hearing what God is saying and doing in the change of events. I alluded to a conversation I engaged with my hospital roommate who just so happened to be suffering with head and neck cancer–the very same kind which afflicted me back in 2005. How my health troubles were “sanctified and improved” by that encounter centered on one of the messages I planned to give at the camp from Matthew 7:1-12.
Jesus closed his teaching on how to engage others constructively in relational conflicts with the well-known and so-called Golden Rule. “So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.” Before I can share about the Golden Rule joy I gained from missing out in Canada through my roommate story, I need to unpack the message content from the talk I never gave, but Jesus led me to practice.
The Golden Rule has been called “the Everest of all ethical teaching.” The Reformed Study Bible entry notes:
This principle was stated in a negative form by various ancient thinkers as, “Do not do to others what you do not want done to you.” Jesus makes it a positive obligation, a requirement to proactively do for others the good one wants for oneself. Here it appears after the discussion of God’s goodness and His willingness to give.
Because God is this good to you, go and do likewise with others! Jesus stresses the importance of embracing this Golden Rule ethic in all our relationships at the end of v. 12: “So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets” (emphasis added). In other words, this MO in treating others matters so much as a professed kingdom follower of Jesus because it distills into one sentence the essence of everything taught in the Old Testament. This is Leviticus 19:18 in action: “You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD.” Jesus put it this way when asked which is the great commandment in Matthew 22:37-40: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” The Golden Rule puts radical greatest-of-these-is-love into action.
Ken Sande suggests asking ourselves some helpful questions to evaluate how well we do or do not embrace this: “Would I want someone else to treat me the way I have been treating him? How would I feel if I found out people were saying about me what I’ve said about her? If our positions were reversed, how would I feel if he did what I have done?”
Questions like those in application of the Golden Rule with my challenging middle-of-the night hospital roommate made all the difference in whether or not I sanctified and improved that trial and, as a result, more thoroughly experienced the joy of missing out.
Lest this turn into an interminably long post, the rest of the story must wait for the next edition!
The Grace of Waiting for One Another at the Lord’s Table
I have written elsewhere about various what I call graces of gospel-shaped community. In this post I want to consider another lesser-known one another text of the New Testament in 1 Corinthians 11:33: So then, my brothers, when you come together to eat,wait for one another.
The Biblical Setting
The Corinthian church struggled with multiple problems. Paul wrote the letter to address them one-by-one. When we come to chapter 11, he turns his attention for the next couple of chapters to abuses in their corporate worship—especially the most serious of all—their practice related to taking the Lord’s Supper. Serious doesn’t even begin to express the degree of alarm sounded here. Their abuses in this regard made God so sick, as it were, that He brought severe physical judgment upon the people (1 Cor. 11:30). The Table is not something with which to trifle!
The ancient world was in many ways much more social than ours is. It was the regular custom for groups of people to meet together for meals. There was, in particular, a certain kind of feast called an eranos to which each participant brought his own share of the food, and in which all the contributions were pooled to make a common meal. The early Church had such a custom, a feast called the Agape or Love Feast. To it all the Christians came, bringing what they could, the resources were pooled and they sat down to a common meal. It was a lovely custom; and it is our loss that the custom has vanished. It was a way of producing and nourishing real Christian fellowship.
Indeed, it is. We find biblical evidence of those kinds of love feasts among the churches in two other places: 2 Pet. 2:13—concerning false teachers plaguing the church—They are blots and blemishes, reveling in their deceptions, while they feast with you. And Jude 12: [regarding false teachers] These are hidden reefs at your love feasts, as they feast with you without fear, shepherds feeding themselves. Frequently those Christian feasts would culminate in the eating of the Lord’s Supper. They combined the Supper with their community meal—unlike the way we typically separate it on Sundays. OK, so far so good. But look what happened in Corinth with this whole deal in 11:20-21: When you come together, it is not the Lord’s supper that you eat. For in eating each one goes ahead with his own meal. One goes hungry, another gets drunk. More on this disgraceful behavior in a bit.
Understand a couple things about first century Corinth. Class distinctions abounded, rich and poor especially. The current famine (Paul speaks of it as the present distress in 1 Cor. 7:26) exacerbated the situation in that the slaves who normally went without anyway, suffered even greater want given the circumstances. In fact, the weekly common meal where the rich and poor would eat together in the church, sharing as each one had means, might amount to the only decent meal a poor person or family would get in any given week. The poor depended upon those with greater means to share from their abundance. But that was not happening in Corinth and Paul made sure here in chapter 11 that they would get nothing in the way of commendation for their astonishing behavior. He scolds them at the end of v. 22: Shall I commend you in this? No, I will not. He was ticked. He blistered them with godly reproof. For what?
Hurrying! He rebuked them for not waiting for the poor who couldn’t get to the feast as soon as they in their wealth and leisure could. No, instead they would wolf down the food, stuff themselves, and even drink to excess according to v. 21, with the result that some of them got drunk while the poor went hungry! A good bit of research into the first century as well suggests that the well-off may have taken up the prime spots in the household’s dining room leaving the poor to stand and/or congregate in ancillary rooms of the dwelling. Good grief!
Do you see the picture? Do you get the result? The calloused, selfish, insensitive, grab-game behavior in Corinth brought yet another form of division and separation into the assembly, based on the haves and the have nots, the rich and the poor! Before Paul hammered anything else in the letter, he took on the problem of factions in 1 Cor. 1:10-13:
[10] I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment. [11] For it has been reported to me by Chloe’s people that there is quarreling among you, my brothers. [12] What I mean is that each one of you says, “I follow Paul,” or “I follow Apollos,” or “I follow Cephas,” or “I follow Christ.” [13] Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?
So, in chapter 11, Paul returns to the poison of division in the body but comes at it from a different direction—the abuses of the Lord’s Supper. That’s why in vv. 23-26 he chooses to teach them again the true nature and proper observance of the Supper as a spiritual event of the highest order—not a cause of gorging the physical appetites! Indeed not, as he rails with rapid-fire rhetorical questions in v. 22: What! Do you not have houses to eat and drink in? Or do you despise the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing? In other words, you have homes for satisfying your appetites. Your sinful behavior despises the cross of Jesus which obliterated class distinctions of every kind, made abundantly clear in 1 Cor 10:17: Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread. And your behavior humiliates the poor for whom God takes up offense. Proverbs 17:5: Whoever mocks the poor insults his Maker.
Now we have a basis for understanding his loving, (note that though steamed at them, in v. 33 he calls them brothers, a term of affection) practical admonition at the conclusion of this section: when you come together to eat, wait for one another. The Greek word for wait can mean that or expect. I think the ESV gets it right given a text like Acts 17:16: Now while Paul was waiting for them in Athens and this immediate context previously reviewed. The ESV includes a marginal note with an alternate rendering of share with, I suspect, because waiting for the poor to show up implies the expectation of sharing with them and not hoarding. Do this waiting with a view to sharing, Paul says, (and if you can’t, eat at home to take the edge off) why in v. 34? So that when you come together it will not be for judgment. Judgment of the worst kind.
Now we’re finally ready for the main idea for this post: The gospel shapes community by empowering us to manifest the grace of practicing selfless, loving, and sensitive courtesy toward all, particularly with taking the Lord’s Supper in view. How do we make the jump then to our context before we partake? In some ways, the takeaways are not as closely connected, since we normally practice separation between the Lord’s Supper and our fellowship meals. I suggest three applications related to Communion.
One, acknowledge the priority of the Supper as supremely important in the worship of the church and as a means of grace for your spiritual life. We should not think too lightly of this ordinance of Christ.
Two, take extraordinary care in the way you participate in the Supper with particular attention to discerning the body (11:29). The church is one body where unity, peace, and equality should excel like nowhere else. It should matter greatly how we deal with one another and that we do nothing to separate or divide the church. Practice peacemaking when necessary.
Three, examine your heart for any exclusivist prejudices that rear their ugly heads in the form of racist feelings, sexist feelings, classist feelings, cliquish feelings, or insensitive, dismissive-of-others feelings that negate the true meaning of the Supper and despise the church of Jesus Christ where all stand equal as fellow heirs of the grace of life.
If you find such ugliness in your heart, admit it to Jesus and believe the gospel again for grace and forgiveness. Then come eat and drink at the Lord’s Table with a heart’s prayer to so thoroughly delight in the sacrifice of Christ on the cross for you that it elevates you to a still more excellent way, the way of love (1 Cor. 13), and the grace of “waiting,” no matter how different a class the object of your love.
Four Practical Applications for Overcoming Lovelessness
My recent posts focused on Christ’s letter to the church at Ephesus in Revelation 2:1-7.
“To the angel of the church in Ephesus write: ‘The words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks among the seven golden lampstands. 2 “‘I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear with those who are evil, but have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and found them to be false. 3 I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name’s sake, and you have not grown weary. 4 But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. 5 Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent. 6 Yet this you have: you hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. 7 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.’”
Jesus holds his churches accountable for practicing fervent love. We must make every effort to comply with his demands to that end. We need ears to hear his complaint against lovelessness. Embrace his remedy for lovelessness. Heed his warning about lovelessness. What will it look like if we have ears to hear what the Spirit says and overcome with conquering love? Here are some ideas for application.
Audit Your Love
What better, more obvious way to be a doer of the word and no hearer only from this text, than to continually audit yourself individually and your church corporately about how loving you are. If we don’t do this, we run the risk of hearing Jesus say, I have this against you. Please take this seriously. Regularly subject yourself to the blazing light of the attributes of love in 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 and remember and repent accordingly.
Study Biblical Love
Alexander Strauch’s little book Love or Die: Christ’s Wake Up Call to the Church (Lewis & Roth, 2008) is a profitable resource to this end. He points to nearly 1,000 references to love in one form or another in God’s word. Do you want to pursue love more diligently? Then you must read and study what God says about love in his word. Strauch’s appendix B contains 50 Key Texts on Love. That will get you started. Prefer learning by listening? Consider streaming John Piper’s sermon series (15 messages) entitled The Greatest of These Is Love.
Pray for Love
If Jesus reported on an audit of your church, would it include a commendation like this? I know your works how you earnestly pray for one another—especially that you grow in love and even overflow in love? Let’s take our cue from Paul in 1 Thessalonians 3:12. May the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, as we do for you. The Thessalonian church was a prime example of first love according to 1 Thessalonians 4:9-10:
“Now concerning brotherly love you have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another, for that indeed is what you are doing to all the brothers throughout Macedonia. But we urge you, brothers, to do this more and more.”
Practice Genuine Love
First John 3:16 says this: Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth. Here’s my challenge. Conduct a self-audit in Romans 12:9-21 soon, and ask the Lord to focus you on just one tangible love practice in which you want to grow. Choose from among honoring, praying, giving, serving, showing hospitality, blessing, rejoicing, weeping, peacemaking, associating with the lowly, and more. You can do this! The Holy Spirit will help you (Gal. 5:22).
There is evidence in the writings of the church fathers of the 2nd century that the Ephesian church did repent. A letter by Ignatius to the church praised them as “characterized by faith in and love of Christ”—their pastor “a man of inexpressible love.”
May we too have ears to hear what Jesus says about the serious sin of lovelessness. To the one who conquers he will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.
What Jesus Threatens If a Church Persists in Seriousness Lovelessness
I can only imagine one thing worse than my church getting a letter from Jesus containing his personal complaint about our fellowship–the consequences should we fail to comply with his demands. Both happened to the church of Ephesus back in the 1st century. The text is recorded for us in Revelation 2:1-7.
“To the angel of the church in Ephesus write: ‘The words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks among the seven golden lampstands. 2 “‘I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear with those who are evil, but have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and found them to be false. 3 I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name’s sake, and you have not grown weary. 4 But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. 5 Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent. 6 Yet this you have: you hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. 7 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.’”
In my first post in this series, The Serious Sin of Lovelessness, I introduced the letter with its complaint. In the second post, I Have This Against You, I unpacked the grievous complaint about their lovelessness. In this post, I want to consider Jesus’s prescription for change and consequences for failure.
A Continuous Remedy (v. 5a)
Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first.
Note the two-pronged cure for lovelessness which Jesus prescribes: remember and repent. Remember is a present tense command. It conveys a continual calling to mind the fervent culture of love they enjoyed in the past. Apparently at one time these people practiced a Romans 12:10-like brotherly affection outdoing one another in showing honor. They knew some good old days of Philippians 1:9-like love abounding more and more with knowledge and discernment. A good memory can be a good thing in the Christian life.
But somewhere along the way something broke. They fell. They abandoned the fierce love they had practiced earlier. And so, he commands them to repent. That’s a different verb tense suggesting a decisive, immediate break with present actions in favor of an altogether different direction—do the works you did at first. And work it is. Love is labor and toil in all kinds of forms. Martin Luther said our life is to be a constant and ceaseless repentance. Nowhere is that more important—think 1 Corinthians 13—than in the practice of love. To lack it makes us nothing.
An Ominous Warning (v. 5b)
What happens if we fail to conquer (v. 7), by his grace, in the matter of ongoing fervent love as a church? If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent. Jesus was dead serious, literally, with this church over its sin of lovelessness. Don’t be deceived. If we excel in championing doctrinal purity only to suffer a loss of ever-increasing love for one another, we face utterly devastating consequences. A failing grade in love invites Jesus’s sternest of judgments. I will come and remove your lampstand. Scholar D. A Carson explains:
“The removal of the lampstand from its place can signify nothing less than the end of Christ’s recognition of the church as a church of his. It will become as devoid of Christ as the temple of Jerusalem became empty of God prior to its destruction. So grave is the sin of lovelessness in a Christian church.”
An ominous warning indeed. May God spare us such a terrifying judgment.
In my final post in this series, I will offer four practical applications from the letter to help our churches thrive in love which keeps the lampstand burning brightly.
Jesus Takes Personal Offense to Lovelessness in the Church
You’ve been served.
Have you ever heard those words spoken to you? I have, thankfully only once. Years ago, I caused a car accident involving two other vehicles on one of our busy Orlando highways. Fortunately, no one was seriously hurt–or so I thought. Months later the doorbell rang one morning. Upon answering, I was handed a manila envelope giving me notice of a lawsuit against me for $100K in damages resulting from that wreck. Weeks later my insurance company settled for considerably less than that amount. But it’s hard to describe the sinking feeling which comes with hearing someone say, “You’ve been served.”
Imagine something quite similar happening to you and your church, only the One serving the papers is none other than the Lord Jesus Christ. The first-century Ephesian church experienced that very thing in Revelation 2:1-7.
“To the angel of the church in Ephesus write: ‘The words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks among the seven golden lampstands. 2 “‘I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear with those who are evil, but have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and found them to be false. 3 I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name’s sake, and you have not grown weary. 4 But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. 5 Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent. 6 Yet this you have: you hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. 7 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.’”
Because Jesus holds us accountable for practicing fervent love, we should make every effort to comply with his demands to that end.
There are three things in the text related to this accountability: from Jesus there is a grievous complaint, there is a continuous remedy, and there is an ominous warning. In this post I want to address the nature of the lawsuit.
Jesus’s Grievous Complaint
But I have this against you.
Before dealing with the charge, notice the context of this blistering accusation. It’s signaled by the strong contrast “but” at the start of v. 4. The previous two verses could hardly be different in tone and content:
“‘I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear with those who are evil, but have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and found them to be false. I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name’s sake, and you have not grown weary.”
The High Priestly audit does not overlook the good. Toil. Perseverance. Hatred of evil. Calling out false teachers. Suffering for the name. Yet more commendation comes in v. 6. Yet this you have: you hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. That’s probably a reference to libertinism—cheap grace—do what you want because it’s all forgiven anyway. Upshot? They hated false doctrine and ungodliness just as Jesus does, and he credited them for it. High praise indeed. Well done, good and faithful servants.
All well and good, but … back to v. 4. I have this against you. That’s highly personal language. Jesus takes personally this flagrant flaw among this otherwise first-rate church of his: you have abandoned the love you had at first. I suspect most are more familiar with a different translation: you have left your first love. The original literally reads: you have abandoned the love of you the first. The word “first” comes at the end of the sentence for emphasis. Either approach has merit. But I lean with the ESV in light of the word “fallen” in v. 5. We’re talking serious failure here.
My principal objection to the idea of abandoning their first love, Jesus, is that the praises heaped upon them don’t seem worthy of a lack of love for Christ in the midst of such a wicked culture. They strike me as far too strong. Unless of course a lack of love among one another in the assembly amounts to a lack of ultimate love for Christ. In truth, the two are never far apart, as in 1 John 4:7-8: “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.”
Professor Dennis Johnson of Westminster West Seminary hit the target here in a Table Talk article for Ligonier Ministries:
“Keeping a firm grip on both poles — truth and love — is a constant challenge for redeemed sinners who swing like pendulums from one extreme to another. Too often, churches and their leaders either stand for biblical truth vigorously but lovelessly or else they preserve apparent unity and love at the expense of truth. Of course, when the truth of the gospel truly grasps our hearts, love for others must result; and, by the same token, the love that delights Jesus grows only in the rich soil of fidelity to God’s truth.”
Jesus holds us accountable for practicing fervent love. We should make every effort to comply with his demands to that end. This is a grievous complaint. A loss of love is no minor defect. No amount of religious orthodoxy and doctrinal fidelity can make up for lovelessness. How should we respond?
Audit Your Love
What better, more obvious way to be a doer of the word and no hearer only from this text, than to continually audit yourself individually and your church corporately about how loving you are. If we don’t do this, we run the risk of hearing Jesus say, I have this against you. Please take this seriously. Regularly subject yourself particularly to the blazing light of the attributes of love in 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 and take stock accordingly of any hurtful way within you (Psalm 139:24).
Self-auditing must precede embracing Jesus’s remedy in the text–the subject of my next post.
I tend to look forward to fetching the daily mail. But I admit that my heart skips a beat when occasionally we get something with the return address label, Internal Revenue Service. I immediately stress. “Oh no, what if they wish to dispute a past tax return?” I think I’d rather have a root canal than face an audit by an IRS agent. Maybe you can relate.
Imagine with me for a moment a Sunday when the pastor announces to your church that he has received a certified letter from none other than King Jesus. And he informs you of a pending heavenly audit scheduled among the congregation at some future date. The Lord Jesus personally plans to conduct a thorough inspection of every aspect of your ministry and people. I wonder how you might take stock of your ways in advance. I wonder what changes that prospect might galvanize before his arrival.
Revelation 2:1 makes that plain. These are: The words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks among the seven golden lampstands (emphasis added). Charles Spurgeon, the great Baptist preacher of old, summed this up well:
“No one knows the churches as Jesus does . . . he continually walks among them. … His eyes are as a flame of fire. He sees the churches through and through, and knows their true condition much better than they know themselves. The Lord Jesus Christ is a most careful observer of churches and of individuals; nothing is hid from his observant eye.”
Does that sober you? I suspect it does. Your church is one of Christ’s lampstands. In a way, he has already written a letter to your church and every other church for that matter. Jesus means for us to ponder this one long ago to Ephesus, along with the other six in these two chapters, to see what he might say to us. As we confront the message here to Ephesus, I want to help you wrestle with what he might say to you about the serious sin of lovelessness.
Most scholars regard chapters two and three as real letters written to real historical, 1st-century churches. It begins with Ephesus—the highest profile, most influential one of all. Ephesus was a hotbed of idolatry, false teaching, and sin—a difficult city in which to function as an effective body of believers. This timely letter from John on Patmos took aim at a major fault in the church at the time of writing.
Here’s the text of the entire letter to Ephesus in Revelation 2:1-7.
“To the angel of the church in Ephesus write: ‘The words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks among the seven golden lampstands. 2 “‘I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear with those who are evil, but have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and found them to be false. 3 I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name’s sake, and you have not grown weary. 4 But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. 5 Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent. 6 Yet this you have: you hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. 7 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.’”
Here is the main idea: Because Jesus holds us accountable for practicing fervent love, we should make every effort to comply with his demands to that end. I want you to see three things in the text related to this accountability: from Jesus there is a grievous complaint, there is a continuous remedy, and there is an ominous warning.
In my next post I will unpack one or more of these particular aspects of the Ephesian audit. In the meantime, I invite you to pray Colossians 3:14 often for your local church community.
“And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.”
And remember, Jesus walks amidst the fellowship with eyes a flame of fire.
Numerous gains have come with our age of advanced technology. Few, however, will deny the reality of certain losses as well. Among them I count the utility of a printed church directory in favor of a tap-of-the-app digital kind. Granted, an online database makes accessing member contact information a convenience-lover’s dream. But in all the year’s I’ve employed these 21st century church versions, I’ve failed to find them as beneficial to my spiritual life as a good old, handheld, picture-containing church directory.
Major props to the officers of our church for favoring the ancient paths by providing a printed member directory. Who cares if it becomes outdated the moment you publish it? So what if a few more trees must be harvested to print the next edition? Maybe I’m just old and set in ways that prefer to turn pages of a book held in my hands rather than swipe them on a screen, but I find my printed directory so much more conducive to reaping its benefits than my digital options.
Whether you favor the new paths or the old, please consider three ways to use your church directory to the glory of God, the benefit of your church, and the growth of your faith.
One, to keep a covenant promise. Among the sacred things to which we commit in our membership vows is this: “Ever mindful of our fellow members, fellow heirs with Christ, we promise to walk with them in faithfulness, patience, grace and love” (emphasis added). Ever mindful. Talk about a high bar. Our directory contains twenty-nine pages of members with four households per page, except for the last with just two. That’s 114 units. I counted twenty-five of them I’ve yet to meet or know anything about after attending eight months at Grace Fellowship. I expect that number to decrease gradually, but in the meantime the directory helps me keep the still unmet in mind too, along with the rest with whom I already have some connection. More below on how it does that.
Two, to grow in brotherly love. Peter admonishes us, “Above all, love each other deeply” (1 Peter 4:8). Question. Do you feel loved when someone new in your life remembers your name? Of course you do. Names matter. Just read through Romans 16 and Colossians 4. Paul takes great pains to shout out by name all kinds of people and their service to Christ’s church. No matter how hard Jan and I try to recall names on Sundays, we constantly ask each other for help in remembering. But now we have a printed tool with color photos to help us match and review names and faces. And we can make important connections like family relationships that we often miss when just meeting a spouse or another family member. We also recall requests others have asked us to remember on their behalf. Our love for the body grows as a result.
Three, to help with intercessory prayer. None of us survives the battle with spiritual forces without the prayer support of other saints (Eph. 6:18-20). The directory adds a weapon to my devotional life the use of which use doesn’t require all that much additional time or effort. Take one page a day—that’s only four households—and pray a passage/verse of Scripture for each. This month I’m asking the Father to make 2 Peter 3:18 a reality in each household’s life. I add anything personal I know about them as well. Then I pick one of those households and text or email them a quick message of encouragement letting them know I’ve taken them before the Father that day. Do that consistently, or some version better suited to your schedule, and who knows what the Lord might do in our church as a result.
One 9Marks pastor considers a church directory the second most important book a pastor owns. He argues from Hebrews 13:17 for a pastor’s unique accountability for his members’ care which he does not have for Christians elsewhere. They are the sheep of his pasture, not someone else’s. The directory helps keep his priorities focused accordingly. Similarly, members of a local church steward unique accountability and support to their other covenant members in ways unlike other believers they know. Shouldn’t that make our church directories terribly important to us as well?
Brothers and sisters, let’s make good use of our tried-and-true church directories.
In coaching sessions with folks in conflict with others, I frequently quote Romans 12:18.
If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.
We can’t hope to control what someone else does about our issue with them, but we can take ownership of our personal approach to the situation. Love constrained by the gospel of Jesus as described in the immediate context (Romans 12:9-17), pulls out all the stops to achieve reconciliation. But what if all attempts fail? Even worse, what if our conciliatory efforts result in increased hostility and sinful behavior from the other party?
Even then gospel love kicks things up another notch. The rest of Romans 12 calls for nothing less than a supernaturally aided, two-fold strategy.
19 Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” 20 To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” 21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
Tactic #1 Never try to get even. Leave things with God who rights every wrong in due time. Instead, employ tactic #2: Treat your enemy just the opposite. Don’t repay evil for evil. Refuse to get even; overcome evil with good.
In Robert Peterson’s biography of Robert Chapman: Apostle of Love, he relates a story from the much-beloved life of the 19th century British pastor. It beautifully illustrates the power of a Romans-12 kind of overcoming love.
A grocer in Barnstaple became so upset when Chapman was preaching in the open air that he strode up to where Chapman was standing and spit on him. Later one of Robert’s wealthy relatives came to Barnstaple to visit him and to try and understand his activities. Arriving by horse-drawn cab at the address given to him, the relative at first would not believe that Chapman lived in such a simple abode in such a poor neighborhood. Chapman ushered him into the clean but simple interior and explained what living in dependence on the Lord meant and how the Lord had provided for all his needs.
The relative asked if he could purchase groceries for him. Chapman gladly assented but stipulated that he must buy the food from a certain grocer. The relative went there, made a large purchase, and paid the bill. When the grocer learned that the food was to be delivered to R. C. Chapman, he said that the visitor must have come to the wrong shop. Chapman’s relative, however, replied that Chapman himself had specifically directed him to that shop. The grocer, who had viciously attacked and castigated Chapman for years, broke down in tears. Soon he came to Chapman’s house, asked forgiveness, and yielded his life to Christ.
Perhaps we can’t truly say we’ve done all we possibly can as peacemakers, until we heap some burning coals of good upon the evil heads that spit on us.
