Love in Perspective (07/10/22-07/11/22)

There is something of a two-track transition happening in this passage, and this being that Paul is the one writing, that transition is assuredly purposeful.  In the last passage, we found him discussing love in the negative, what we might construe as eros gone astray in the form of porneia.  After all, what is porneia, but eros gone astray?  These are acts which, in their proper setting, would be entirely acceptable, but which have been transferred into the realm of the forbidden.  But now, we transition away from eros, through phileo, and right on to agape.  I’ll consider the other transition of thought in the next section, but here, I want to focus on this matter of love in perspective.

One way in which the world seeks to corrupt the message of the Gospel is to corrupt our understanding of love as it is discussed in Scripture.  For one, given the limits of English language, all these forms of love which Greek distinguishes get collapsed into the one word, and that leads us to fuzzy thinking when it comes to the subject.  We are generally attuned to the gauzy, emotional aspect of love, the romance, the candle-lit dinner and quiet talk between lovers.  Whatever there was of that in this discussion, though, was left off in the last passage.  That sort of love is so intrinsically connected to physical acts of sexual gratification, that we speak of the act as making love.  Well, no.  That’s not what’s happening.  One could hope that where such pursuits are involved, it might be an expression of love, and not merely primal urges, but we know that all too often this is not the case, and that which should be done in the tenderness of an intimate, one flesh relationship becomes an act of aggression, of violence, of violation.

But we’ve moved on, or at least, Paul has.  We have shifted first to brotherly love.  And, the prurient, seeing that phrase, and hoping to find support for their own predilection in the text, suppose they have evidence of homosexuality in the Church.  But there is none of that.  It is again a conflating of very different things because we happen to find the word love involved, and can’t get our minds beyond matters of gratification.  But this brotherly love, this philadelphia, is nothing to do with such gratification.  We have first, the word phileo, which pertains more to having interest in.  When we use the term philosophy, there is no sense of sensuality to it.  It simply indicates a deep interest in the pursuit of and attaining of wisdom.  Love of wisdom.  Nobody will look at that and suppose a sexual component applies.  The same should be the case here.  Love of brother:  A deep interest in the welfare of our relative.  There’s hardly anything sexual about that, nor even anything particularly unusual.

We must, of course, recognize that brother, in this case, is not restricting matters to the males in the church.  As has been standard practice in language for a few thousand years, it is to be taken generally, as including all within its compass.  There really shouldn’t be any need to spell out that it includes both brothers and sisters, although modern habit has been to do so.  We seem to have lost reading comprehension in our oh, so enlightened state of advancement.

What makes this unique, as regards Christian fellowship, is this recognition that all of those who are our fellow-believers in Christ, having been called by the Father, and adopted into His family, are in a very real sense now our brothers.  We share a new paternity, being all children of one Father.  This is the common understanding of the New Testament authors, because it is the clear teaching of our Lord and Master.  Love one another.  That is the commandment given us, the commandment by which Jesus sums up our way of life, our expression of God’s love for us.  It’s assuredly not a call to orgy.  It’s a call to family.  When we come together of a Sunday, it is as a family, gathered in our Father’s house to fellowship with one another, and to rejoice in His presence and His abundance towards us.

Now, thus far we have considered primarily the brotherly love that defines our shared interests as children of one Father.  But Paul moves us further along, and brings us to agapao, which we can see has close association with agape, although it is not quite that same term.  Yes, this is the love we express towards God, but here, we are called to express it towards, first, those same brothers of ours.  And what is the distinction?  Here, it is a question of directing one’s will towards these brothers, and finding joy in them.  It’s truly caring for them, and in fact, having preference for them.

I come to this idea that this comradery we feel as members of God’s family and being of like interest must necessarily lead to us truly caring for and finding joy in our fellow believers.  Now, obviously, our chief joy and preference is found in God alone.  He alone is worthy of our devotion.  But these brothers of ours are, in their own turn, walking as those made in the image of God.  They are image-bearers.  They not only share our interests in this faith of ours, they share in being objects of God’s love, and surely, what God loves, we who love God must likewise love.

If we’re being painfully honest, though, I suppose we shall have to admit that some of these whom God loves are not particularly lovely, or loveable.  They don’t always make it easy.  And if we’re to be more painfully honest still, chances are that many of our brethren find themselves holding the same views about us.  We don’t generally think of it from that perspective, but perhaps we should do so more often.  Perhaps we are the unlovely object of God’s love.  In simple point of fact, from God’s perspective at least, there’s no perhaps about it.  We remain besotted with our sins, for all that we seek to exercise this liberty into which Christ has bought us.  We seek to live more in keeping with His good pleasure, but we’re just not that good at it.  And those who know us best, know this all too well.

And yet, God directs His will toward us.  And yet, God finds joy in us.  He cares for us, and He does so in that particularly self-sacrificing fashion that really gives definition to this sort of love.  He will do what is needful in our case, even if we are not inclined to have what is needful done.  As is often pointed out in regard to this sort of love, Christ died for us while we were yet His enemies.  He saved us when we were entirely uninterested in being saved.  Quite likely, we were entirely unaware of any need for such a thing.  And yet, for all our antipathy towards God, God acted.

But let me just emphasize this aspect of things.  God finds joy in you!  This is shocking news, isn’t it?  I am sure there were those in the Old Covenant community who came to this realization, but it seems they were far and few.  Most still had their focus on a wrathful God in need of appeasing, lest He wipe man from the earth.  I mean, after all, He had done so once already, hadn’t He?  What’s to stop Him doing it again?  Tread carefully, human.  Here is true power, and power that is not particularly thrilled with your track record thus far.  How could He be, when our record is one of repeated abject failure?  How could this faithful, covenant-keeping God be pleased to find Himself stuck with a bunch of oath-breakers such as ourselves?  And yet, there it is.  God finds joy in you.  Consider the depths of His love for you.  Isaiah writes that as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so God rejoices over you (Isa 62:5b).  He rejoices over you!  You!

He has a real preference for you, and has undertaken to care for you. And thus, we find this care for us is God’s practice.  This begins to turn my attention toward that other transition of thought I mentioned, but here, I want to consider this term in respect to the love we have been discussing.  For this practice which Paul commends in his readers is a doing of agapeo.  It is action giving expression to one’s thoughts and feelings.  It is, then, love expressed, and thus, clear evidence that indeed, this brotherly love is actively on display in these Thessalonians as the functioning love of agapeo.  It’s not merely that they find joy in their brothers.  That could have been left at philadelphia.  No, it goes beyond that.  It goes to active love, active caring one for another, seeing to one another’s well-being and progress in this shared faith.  And lest we fall prey to our tendency to compartmentalize, we should understand that shared faith doesn’t somehow terminate at the walls of the church, or at the end of service.  It continues through all our days, informs all our activities.  How well it informs them is something of an open question, but the reality is that it does.  It should.  It must.

So, Paul says, you practice this love that cares, truly cares, for these others.  In a few years’ time, Paul shall write to Corinth of this love, and give it its grand definition in 1Corinthians 12.  He shall also make clear that this love, as with all the attendant gifts of the Spirit, has its goal in mutual edification, in building our brothers up in sound faith, contributing our effort to their growth, as they contribute their efforts to ours.  And in all of this, guess what?  God is at work. 

Paul reminds them of this point here, something of a counterbalance to that note of rejecting God’s instruction in the previous passage.  He who rejects the instruction in regard to sexual sin rejects not man, but God (1Th 4:8).  And here, on the positive side, we are reminded that God Himself teaches us to give expression to this selfless love for one another.  To put it in popular form, He calls us to be His hands and feet.  I rather prefer, however, the idea that He calls us to be quality instruments in His hands, that He might play through us.  That doesn’t relieve us of involvement, but it keeps us mindful that the work is His, and we are but the tools.

And God, directing His love towards us, finding joy in us, undertakes to make certain of our education.  Just like any loving parent.  Jesus observed this, speaking to a rather rebellious crew.  He reminded these religious experts that God had, through the prophets, observed that all would be taught of God (Jn 6:45).  And those who were in fact taught of God, those who truly hear the Father and learn from Him, come to Christ.

Hear this.  Have you come to Christ?  Have you heard and heeded that call?  I don’t mean, have you entered into professional ministry.  But have you professed that Jesus Christ is truly Lord, and not just in some relatively meaningless political sense, but your Lord, your Master, Who is closely involved in your oversight and development?  Well, then, guess what?  You, dear one, have been taught of God.  You have heard and learned from the Father Himself, apart from Whom no one comes to the Son.  You have discovered that indeed, He loves you.

You know, we sing often of how Jesus loves us.  We’ve learned it, many of us, from our childhood, or at the very least, from the raising of our own children.  “Yes, Jesus loves me.”  This we know, right?  This, we make sure our children know, and as best we may, that they know well.  But, when’s the last time, you thought to sing, “Yes, Father loves me”?  I’m guessing that much like myself, the thought simply does not occur to you.  But it occurs to Him.  This instruction, this seeing to your education in matters of faith and practice, is clear evidence of Father’s love for you.  He teaches you.  Personally.  He cares.  Enough to have sent His own Son to die on your behalf.  Jesus loved you that much?  Oh, absolutely, He did.  But so did Father. 

“Is Ephraim My dear son?  Is he a delightful child?  Indeed, as often as I have spoken against him, I certainly still remember him.  Therefore My heart yearns for him.  I will surely have mercy on him” (Jer 31:20).  Beloved, this same delight, this same heart yearning intent to have mercy and see full restoration, applies in regard to you who are called by His name.  You are His dear children, dear to Him, and therefore rightly dear to one another.  Learn, then, from Him who loves you.  As we have been hearing at church the last couple of weeks, “Take My yoke upon you, and learn from Me, for I am gentle, humble in heart ,and you shall find rest for your souls.  My yoke is easy.  My load is light” (Mt 11:29-30).  Learn from Him, and find rest.  Stop trying to power through.  You’ll only wear yourself out, and make no headway whatsoever.  You’ll only discourage yourself with failure.  No, but take His yoke upon you, learning from Him.

I recall that thought, many years ago, of the resemblance of the cross to that control paddle used for marionettes.  Not, that we are puppets in the hands of our God, but there is this:  The cross that Christ calls us to bear daily is not in fact a crushing burden, as it would have been for those thus punished by Rome.  No, but it is His yoke, an easy yoke, because that yoke does not bear down, but rather, lifts up.  The load He calls us to bear, He bears Himself.  The burden He sets upon us is carried by Himself.  As I said, we are more instruments than instrumental.  We can contribute our bit to render the music more beautiful, or we can mar the tune with our rebellious misbehavior.  But as we learn from Him, as we seek to excel all the more in emulating what we see in Christ, that music shall be made beautiful indeed.  And we, having found our joy in Him, shall find ourselves joyful indeed.

Family Life (07/12/22-07/13/22)

This love we have been considering is both familial and beyond familial.  But it finds its primary expression in our love for our Father who loves us, and in our love for these brothers of ours, who by their rebirth are family together with us.  It expands, to be sure, to encompass the world at large, but with this understanding; that there may be those within that larger company who are in fact lost sons of our Father as we once were.  That is not to say that one and all come to Christ in the end.  There simply is not the Scriptural support for such a view.  But we don’t know which will prove to be which, and so, we are urged to maintain this loving perspective to all whom we encounter.  Who knows, as Scripture observes, but that we might on such occasions be entertaining angels?

Here, however, we are turning slightly more towards family life, and one thing we need to recognize is that family life doesn’t just happen.  It’s not merely the happy accident of birth.  It takes effort.  It takes work.  If, in fact, there are to be relationships, then we shall have to put some intentionality into the process.  And so, we come to consideration of that second set of transitions that I mentioned.  Here, the transition begins with the concept of poeio, as I touched on briefly in the last passage.  The NASB translates the word as practice, in this case.  You do practice this love.  You’ve got that part.  And we saw that such works of love indicate deeds which give expression to our thoughts and feelings.  These are not just paid labors, things we do because we must, or things we do to earn a wage.  They are matters of self-expression.  These works are who we are.

We do them because we love, in that agapao sense, those who will benefit from our good deeds.  For those who go out and seek to help the homeless and such like, I have to ask:  What motivates you?  Are you doing this because you truly love those in the camps?  If so, by all means continue, and by all means adorn your works with the Gospel, that they might truly be loved.  But if you do this from some sense of obligation; if you do this because you feel you must, so as to please God, or worse yet, to please somebody else?  Well, perhaps you should keep at it anyway, but a change of perspective is needed.

We know, I hope, that works in and of themselves are of no merit with God.  But where works are an expression of our thoughts and feelings, they may have some value.  They are not hypocritical in that case, so they’ve got that going for them.  But they also give us some evidence of what God is doing in us, of what the Holy Spirit has been accomplishing in this temple of His which we know as our body.  So, we find Paul here both encouraging that which is done right:  You do this toward all the brethren throughout Macedonia.  You do this so well that even down here in Corinth I hear the news of it.  But he doesn’t let it rest there.  No, he urges more.

Now, how ought we to hear that more?  Is it to be the same recipients, but to a greater extent?  How does one even measure that?  I think again of that family cookout we were invited to a week or so back.  At some point, the outpouring of food exceeds the capacity of enjoyment.  One eats almost out of a sense of obligation to the one who prepared it all, but had it stopped even a quarter of the way through, I don’t think anybody would have departed feeling short-changed on hospitality.  So, I don’t think that’s the idea here.  No, it’s not the same field of recipients, but feed them more, give them more clothing, maybe buy them houses or something.

Perhaps, then, Paul is suggesting that these labors of love reach a wider world of believers?  I mean, there are brothers in Asia, too, right?  Brothers in Jerusalem, and even Babylon, for all that.  Should we not have this same sense of love expressed towards them?  Certainly, we should.  And there may be occasion for the local body to arrange mission trips or the like to go support our foreign brethren, and that may be something that God puts on your heart to do.  Again, supposing the motivation is found in expressing the true thought and feeling of a heart inflamed by the love of God, go for it!

But it seems to me that here, the expansion Paul is urging consists in how we are with those who are not, at least as yet, accounted brethren.  There are discussions now and again about the understanding of what it meant to be brethren and what it meant to be neighbors.  To the Jewish mindset, and I touched upon this briefly in the previous study, the division was kinsman equal brother, neighbor equal Gentile, outsider.  You could go back to those years when Jesus was present and ministering, and there was Samaria, very clearly neighbors to Judea, physically, and even genetically, if you wish to go that route.  Yet, they were not, to the Jewish mind, brothers.  They were not family.  We don’t invite them into our homes, nor do we enter into theirs.  It’s just not  proper.

But Christianity expanded the scope, particularly as Paul was sent out to reach the lost for Christ.  A brother could be of any nationality, any race, any sex.  There was no distinguishing brother by some physical aspect.  And who did that leave as neighbor?  Pretty much the whole world.  Then comes the need to apply God’s commandment, that which Jesus placed second in importance:  Love your neighbor as yourself (Mk 12:31).  Excel still more.  This, after all, is but the expression of that first and foremost command to love God with your whole being.

Love and work, you see, are integrally connected, as concerns what is being set before us.  That does not mean that as concerns our employments, we should only work at that which we love, that which really stirs us.  I can’t imagine that Paul found any great passion for making tents.  That wasn’t the point.  That was a means provided by which to earn one’s keep.  It was not an expression of truth and feeling.  That is not to say that we don’t give our best to whatever means God has given us for making a living.  No, as sons of an honest God, we seek to earn an honest wage by honest effort.

So, we may consider the second of the terms I have in view here, prassein.  In our passage, that comes in the clause, ‘attend to your own business, and work with your own hands’.  There are actually two terms to contemplate here, though I am primarily interested in the first, which is translated as attend in this case.  But to touch just briefly on the other, it is ergazesthai, working, laboring, and particularly working so as to earn a living.  That remains in view:  Earn your keep.  Don’t be idle.  Becoming a Christian, and particularly in light of the message that Christ is going to return and all of this will be burnt up, is not excuse to be slothful.  Christianity is not some variation on Manichean ideas, where the spiritual is good and holy and to be nurtured, but the physical is inherently evil and to be denied to the fullest possible extent.  No, some have tried to bring that view to true faith, but it cannot be done, for it does not reflect God’s Truth.  There is no call to monasticism or asceticism to be found here.  Quite the opposite, really.  Go about your business.  Be good servants to your masters, whether they are fellow believers or ogres of the worst sort.  In a different light, if you were married before, remain married.  As concerns your societal responsibilities, nothing has changed, nothing is severed.  It may be that certain relationships must be severed, but not those that have that covenantal aspect to them, which would include labor relations as well as marital or familial relations; not, certainly, at your instigation.  Now, if your former employments were of such a nature as precludes participation by a godly man, of course there must be change, but that’s the exception.  Note that when the Roman soldiers came to John the Baptist wondering how repentance should apply to their case, they were not told to quit the army.  No.  They were only told to cease from abusing their powerful positions.  Likewise the tax collectors.  Imagine that!  The problem wasn’t with taxes.  The problem was with profiteering.

So, work.  Attend to your own business, be busy with your own labors, with making your own living  And this, Paul says, we commanded you when we were with you.  It’s part of the Gospel lifestyle.  Now, where prassein is concerned, we have moved away from the ends or purpose of the work being done, and towards the question of means.  Be about your own business, laboring with your hands to earn your living.  Let’s give it a proper focus.  God has provided this employment for you, in order that you may in fact earn your way, having something to give when it’s time to give expression to this agapao love for others.  It’s not a race to see who can collect the most.  It’s not a competition, or a case of keeping up with the Jones’, as we used to say.  It’s God’s provision, and it being His provision, ought we not to have proper regard to how we pursue our duties therein?  Of course, we should.  We also ought to have proper perspective as to how we utilize the proceeds we earn thereby.

Now, I need to back up one step, to the clause, ‘make it your ambition’.  Here, we have arrived at philotimeisthai.  We recognize, of course, the first part of that as sharing with philadelphia.  We’re back at love again.  But, love of what?  It’s actually love of honor, in this case.  That may sound like a bad thing, and it can become so, just as proper expression of that eros sort of love can be twisted into pursuit of porneia.  Sadly, in our fallen nature, we are pretty adept at corrupting even the best of goods.  There is nothing intrinsically untoward in seeking to be honorable.  Indeed, we ought to seek to be honorable.  That is what Paul is urging here, and it’s not some isolated suggestion due to this being earlier in his ministry.  It’s not some mistake he later left behind.  No.  It’s part of the package.  Love honor, and from love of honor, live honorably.

Can I just say, there’s a huge distinction between loving honor and loving fame and notoriety.  We have whole systems of narcissism out there, urging everybody to chase their few minutes of fame.  Even watching a British show about moving to the country, you hit it.  So and so is an ‘influencer’.  Now, depending on your perspective and your media intake, that may be seen as a positive, a negative, or a nullity along the lines of, ‘what even is that?’  Well, on one level, it’s somebody seeking to influence your ideas, your desires.  We could call them ad-men, I suppose.  It’s the same trade.  But it’s plied differently.  The ad-man was always more or less behind the scenes, creating image.  The influencer is face-first in front of the lens, seeking to be the image.  It’s all about me!  Oh, yes, I’m talking about this product, or that locale, or whatever other wonderful thing I am into at the moment (or whoever is paying me, unbelievable as that may be, to pretend I am into it), it’s really about me.  Look how many followers I have!

You know, every so often I toss a song out on Soundcloud, primarily so my daughter, or a few friends with shared interests, might hear it without too much difficulty, and almost immediately, there’s these contacts that come back.  Oh, so and so liked your song.  Really?  I mean, I can look at the stats, and even if one assumed sufficient minutes had passed for you to even hear it, the stats say otherwise.  So, what?  You liked the title?  Well, if it begins with an A, yes.  But each of these contacts comes with the little self-advertisement.  I’ve got this many followers.  Honestly, who cares?  Does it do anything for anybody?  No.  Is it all about you?  Yes.  Is it a job?  I suppose it might be, but I can’t imagine anyone paying for it.

But here:  love honor.  Make living honorably your ambition.  This is what leads us to perform those things which give expression to a heart of compassion for others.  This is what leads us to give proper attention to our own duties, as concerns our employments and self-sufficiency.  Now, self-sufficiency means different things to different folks.  Some take it to mean living off-grid, trapping or growing your food, eschewing heating, electricity, plumbing and the like.  But I don’t think we need take in as applying that way.  But, earn your living.  Don’t go on the dole.  Yes, there are agencies to help through hard times, but I recall a time when even as kids we understood that this was not an honorable thing; not if one could avoid it.  It was intended as a temporary aid through a hard patch, not a way of life.  Somewhere, it seems, we lost sight of that.  But Scripture doesn’t.

In his second letter to the Thessalonians, written not so very long after this first one, Paul makes the point explicit.  “When we were with you, we instructed you:  If somebody won’t work, neither let him eat.  For we hear some of you are being undisciplined, doing no work, but going about as busybodies.  Such persons we command in the Lord Jesus Christ to work quietly and eat their own bread” (2Th 3:10-12).  Right now, we’re just seeing attention turn to those things that were giving rise to such a mindset within the body.  And already, the counterpoint is being established.

But there is another piece of the picture that Paul wants to address before he turns to that of unwarranted idleness.  And it is here, I think, that we find the widest variation in our translations.  The question, it seems, is what to make of this making a quiet life your ambition.  On the one hand, we have the One New Man translation with its translation of, ‘aspire to rest’.  Well, that sounds lovely, doesn’t it?  Let’s all go on vacation and relax.  But even with their added footnote explaining that this is talking about ceasing from one’s labor, doesn’t that rather contradict the rest of the sentence?  Indeed, how do you arrive at aspire to cease from your labors and do your own business, working with your own hands, which more or less presents the rest of the verse as they show it.

The Weymouth translation moves us a bit off of that idea, presenting it as, ‘vie with one another in eagerness for peace’.  Then we come to Wuest, who presents us with ‘cultivating the habit of attending to your own private affairs’.  It comes down to how one understands hesuchazein.   Elsewhere, we do have it used in regard to resting from labor, as the One New Man tried it, but we also have it used, and far more often, to simply mean being silent.  I note that none of our translations tries that meaning here.  Instead, the bulk stay pretty close to the NASB with its ‘to live quietly’.  It does seem the primary concern in this word is to live an undisturbed life.  Vine’s brings out the distinction of this word as giving expression to inward tranquility so as to cause no disturbance to others.  Be peaceable.  It’s the same thing Peter speaks of when he encourages us to be of a gentle and quiet spirit, that being precious in the sight of God (1Pe 3:4).

There is a twofold sense, in my estimation, that Paul is presenting to us, as he works through this transition to considerations of living in light of the end.  There is both the primary aspect of earning your keep, so to speak, which was clearly becoming an issue.  We see it more strongly in his second epistle, but that didn’t come so very long after this one, and it seems quite likely that the issue was already in evidence.  So, idleness is out.  Faith did not grant permit to just pack it in, huddle down, and wait for Christ to show up and take us home.  That, it seems, was to become a bigger issue for these folks.  They aren’t alone in it, by any means.  It’s proven a tempting thought for many down through the years.  Oh, He’s coming soon and very soon, so no point doing this sort of stuff.  We should devote ourselves entirely to worship.  Well, yes, you should.  But that includes in your approach to these more mundane labors.  It doesn’t exclude their consideration entirely.

But there is the second, underlying thread:  Mind your own business.  We have that old saying that idle hands are the devil’s workshop.  A brief search indicates that the saying isn’t so old as all that, only dating back to 1971, and the arrival of the Living Bible translation, in its presenting of Proverbs 16:27.  More directly, that passage says, ‘A worthless man digs up evil, while his words are a scorching fire.’  But you can see the thought there.  Bring it into this passage, with our ambition of living a quiet life, with its expressing of inward peace as we get on with our own work.  We might reasonably suggest the idea that we oughtn’t to be a busybody.

Obviously, at least to my mind, there is a balance point to be had here.  We are family, after all, and we are working through these ideas of how we love our brothers.  From a great number of other passages touching on life in the body, we understand quite fully that we are to know care and loving concern for one another.  We are to contribute our gifts and efforts to seeing that our brothers are growing in Christ, and building their edifice of faith straight and true.  There is room in this, even the necessity, for bringing loving correction when error is seen.  It is not edifying when our first reaction is to cast the offender out into the outer darkness.  No.  Our every effort goes toward restoration, towards encouraging positive change.  Isn’t that exactly what we find Paul doing here?  He isn’t leveling charges and demanding expulsion.  He is encouraging that which has been done well, and bringing gentle correction to that which has not.

On one level, we quite simply cannot be family without being in some degree in each other’s business.  We can’t be family if we have no clue what’s going on in  each other’s lives.  Clearly, there’s limits on that statement, right?  I mean, I have a brother in Washington state from whom I hear perhaps once a year, and that, generally, only if I make contact.  I have another in Connecticut whom I hear from perhaps a bit more often, particularly of late, as we have dealt with the passing of my father.  And the limited frequency of contact necessarily limits how much I can possibly be aware of what’s up in their lives.  For all that, my daughter, who lives but a few miles south of us, is no longer in a stage of life where we know almost too much about what’s going on with her.  And with her impending move west, I can readily imagine that we will know even less.  Yet, in all of these cases, we remain family, and not solely on the basis of physical, genetic connection.  There is a love and care that continues, however strained it may be by time, distance, and differences of lifestyle.

In the church, those three factors ought not to apply, not in the general case.  Yes, there are those who come some distance to attend, but that is something of an abnormality of modern life.  Certainly, as concerns the development of this country, and particularly here in the east, the church was central to the community.  In point of fact, as I have noted often in these studies, many a town was incorporated on the simple basis that there were portions of the population now living too far from church to attend of a Sunday while maintaining a proper respect for Sabbath rest.  A new church would be needed, establishing a new town.  And in that era, at least, I don’t think it was so much the case that sundry churches were vying for the same population to be attenders.  That’s a more recent phenomenon, and not a particularly beneficial one, by and large.  Yes, it’s nice to know that should the current congregation drift off into heresy, there are others one might consider.  But more often, it just proves easier to change camps than to live peaceably, not being a busybody, and not stirring up strife over minor disagreements, or allowing such disagreements to stir up strife in ourselves.

How does this work out?  Well, we don’t cultivate peace by running away.  Odds are, if we have taken this approach, we have merely carried our strife with us to a new locale, where it will rise up again and we shall, barring our own reformation, simply repeat the cycle.  In some cases, this cycle only ends when the individual simply decides organized churches are themselves the problem, and maybe if I just stay home with my Bible, that will be an end to it.  Well, no doubt it will.  But it won’t be a good end.  God has good reason for knitting us together in community, and it cannot but be ill-advised when we run counter to His good reason.

So, where there is disagreement, we seek God.  We seek understanding.  We seek to come to agreement if possible, and to understand and accept godly difference of opinion where such is necessary and possible.  If it’s just, let us say, whether one understands this passage as urging us to rest, or whether it’s urging us to mind our own business, for example, this is hardly basis for strife and division.  One can come to either conclusion, really, and have reasonable basis for doing so.  Many of us might find a more difficult example in the distinctions of perspective that pertain between those of a more Calvinist bent, and those of an Arminian perspective, as concerns the nature of faith and salvation.  They do, after all, seem so diametrically opposed on so many points.  Yet, we can accept that a man of God, earnestly desiring to worship God in Spirit and in Truth, could in fact arrive at either set of understandings.  That doesn’t make it easy, necessarily, for those of both opinions to peaceably coexist in the same body.  Gets a bit schizophrenic, to be honest.  But it doesn’t call for denunciations of one another as heretics, or sons of Satan.  It does not preclude acknowledging one another as brothers of one faith in one God and Christ.

And none of this, I have to say, supplies argument for seeking to simply dismiss and disregard all doctrinal differences entirely.  We have this penchant, it seems, for concluding that doctrine doesn’t matter, or doctrine divides, as if we can present the Gospel without doctrine.  But the Gospel is doctrine, and the Church is doctrinal in nature.  What is doctrine, after all, other than teaching the Truth of God Who is True, to the best of our ability and understanding?  If our doctrine is wrong, how can we claim to be worshiping the God Who Is?  Ought we not rather prefer to stand corrected in those places where our understanding is off?  Ought we not rather to correct our misapprehensions in order that we might build our faith straight and true on the one foundation of the Scriptures delivered once for all to the saints by the work of the prophets and apostles, always measured and tested to the cornerstone, Christ Jesus?  And, if this is our personal concern, ought it not also to concern us how our brothers are building in their turn?  Of course, it should.  But it shouldn’t make us busybodies.  We’ve got plenty to do getting the logs out of our own eyes.

So, how do we distinguish the two cases?  To be a busybody, I should think, comes in a few forms.  There is the aspect of digging up dirt, looking for faults to find.  You know, and I shudder to use the phrase, there are two kinds of people in the world, those who tend to see things in the best possible light, and those who prize out every fault, being satisfied with nothing less than perfection.  But then, perfection is defined imperfectly, isn’t it?  It’s what one construes as being perfect, which may or may not be truly perfect.  It assumes the worst, that everybody with whom we deal is cheating, seeking to take advantage of us, or just uncaring in their pursuit of shoddy workmanship.  But at some point, surely it must dawn on us that if this is so for every last person we encounter, it is quite likely so with us as well.  Now what?

And I think, in working through that, I’ve managed to present both aspects of being a busybody.  There is that prizing out every possible cause for complaint in others.  There is also the aspect of insisting that everybody should act in accordance with our personal standards.  That’s not the goal.  The goal is that we might all, together, be aspiring to abide by God’s standards.  And those standards include the loving care and concern for one another, and that being the case, must also include the loving, grateful receiving of such concern from others.  We have that teaching on marital relations that comes under the title, “Love and Respect”.  That text seeks to emphasize that women need love, and men need respect.  But it needn’t do so.  Both need both.  And both love and respect ought to inform our interactions with one another whether we are discussing married life, church life, or life in general.

What ought we to do?  Love your brothers, and even your potential brothers, your neighbors, more.  Mind your own business, and do your own work.  “Work with your hands.”  I admit the phrase perplexes me somewhat.  Why the call to physical labor, specifically?  Is there something wrong with, say, the arts, or the more intellectual pursuits such as philosophy or education and the like?  Well, they are less likely, I suppose, to provide a living wage, aren’t they?  And some of those pursuits are more likely to lead one away from Christ than to keep one close to Him, perhaps.  The art world is not, certainly not at present, a particularly godly world, and philosophers have by and large lost their way as they get lost in their own thoughts, denying God and seeking to find meaning without Him, only to find existence meaningless.  There’s a hopeful outlook!  So, perhaps that’s the point.  Stay occupied with honest work, work that can serve for provision, both for yourselves, and so as to have that with which to bless others.

Lord, may we take proper heed of the advice given us here.  May we be less inclined to pry and critique, and more inclined to lovingly guide and be guided.  May we seek to know You more fully, to express You more fully, to live in a fashion that allows Your blessings to be poured out upon us, and allows us to pour out from those blessings upon others.  May we be such as mind our own business, even as we seek to edify our brothers and sisters, even as we seek to bear Your Gospel to those in need of hearing Your call.

Exemplary Life (07/14/22)

As we come to the end of this passage, it should catch our attention that the focus has moved well beyond the confines of the church, and beyond that of the Church writ large.  This matter of taking care of one’s own business and not nosing into everybody else’s activities is a concern for how believers are perceived by outside observers.  There is a call here to behave properly towards outsiders, that comes alongside that of not putting oneself into a place of being dependent on those outsiders.

Perhaps I should consider the latter part first, as that connects most closely with the preceding matter of doing your own work.  Earn your own keep, eat your own bread, as he writes elsewhere.  Don’t become a welfare dependent, a ward of the state, due to your negligence.  Again, I fully understand that there are occasions in life which leave one no choice.  Been there, done that.  But when there, the goal should always be to find means to return to self-provision.  I won’t say self-sufficiency, because that tends to take us farther in our thinking and action than it should.  Self-sufficiency convinces us that we have no further need of God, we are fully capable on our own.  And nothing could be further from the truth.  But self-provision reduces scope.  It keeps us aware that our provision comes at the behest of our Father, our Provider.  It is but addressing ourselves to that which He has set before us to do.

The issue that was arising in Thessalonica was that believers, being convinced of the imminent return of Christ, had set aside such mundane concerns as providing for oneself, earning one’s keep, and caring for one’s needs; little things like food, shelter, clothing.  Surely these no longer matter, right?  I mean, He’s coming, and we should be spending all our time on that.  We should be so devoted to matters of ministry and faith that concerns as to how we shall eat and what we shall wear are completely gone from our minds.  Well, that’s lovely, but it’s also nonsense.  Yes, I am well aware that Jesus, from early on, taught us not to be anxious for such things.  But that’s a far cry from supposing we can summarily dismiss our responsibility in seeing to them.  God provides, yes.  But even the birds He set forth as example, could not benefit from His provision if they just hang out in the nest all day.  It doesn’t work that way.  God provides, and God trains, and He expects His children to be about those things He has given them to do.  There is no dishonor in honest pursuits.  There is no offense against God in pursuing one’s employments.  There is offense in doing so slothfully, going about as if the world owes us a living, and we can skate by on doing the minimum.

And this gets us toward the other half of the reason Paul gives for this attention to our worldly concerns.  I’ll follow the NIV for this.  “So that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders.”  Yes, we are to be a unique people, notably different as to our lifestyle.  Yes, being a Christian should be something clearly distinct from being a man of the world.  But it is not so distinct as to bear nothing of the world’s ways in its practices.  Let me put this slightly differently.  The mere fact that the worldly do such and so does not automatically render such and so ungodly.  That’s not the measure.  I recall, years ago, having to recognize that even reporters on a very worldly news station, even if committed rather strongly to opposing all that is holy, may yet speak what is true, even if they do so inadvertently.  Look.  Even Caiaphas managed to speak truly as he considered what to do about this Jesus.  It’s not that his intentions in that moment were suddenly holy.  Far from it.  But Truth is Truth, regardless the tongue by which it is spoken.  We don’t need to reject the great philosophers of our history out of hand.  We need to reject what is ungodly in their thinking, to filter it by the light of Scripture, that which was once rightly understood to be the queen of philosophy.

So, our attentiveness to pursuing our worldly employments is a matter of behaving properly towards those who don’t as yet know or acknowledge God, and of winning their respect.  How, pray tell, do you expect to gain a hearing for the Gospel amongst those who hold you in utmost contempt, not because they dislike your message, but because your way of life reeks?  I can readily call to mind the example of one ostensible brother back when I was first coming back to faith.  This gentleman was a coworker, although not one with whom I had any regular dealings.  But as the Internet came to be a thing in the workplace, he thought it perfectly fine and right that he spend the larger part of his office hours reading religious texts on the net, rather than doing that for which his employers gave him his wages.  It can hardly be supposed that such a mindset was winning the respect of outsiders.  It didn’t even win the respect of his co-religionists, so far as I could see.  On the other hand, there were other examples of men whose faith was plainly visible to all, but whose work ethic was equally plain to see.  One could perhaps question their beliefs, but they could not fault their work.  Actions were not giving excuse to reject the message.

This is a high calling, this Christian life.  We go about our days as ambassadors of the Lord we love.  We do so whether we pursue our duties with purposeful attention, or whether we act as if unaware of them.  You represent.  I would like to say that however quietly one may present their faith, still they represent.  But I do suppose it to be possible that we keep faith so much to ourselves that none outside our church body are aware of it.  That, if it be true, is a shame.  It is, I should think, evidence of being ashamed of this God we claim to love.  And God, in Christ, makes plain that where this is the case, He shall be likewise ashamed of such a one when He comes in His kingdom.  The call is not to hide away our faith, nor is it to be abrasive about our faith, rubbing the noses of unbelievers in it, as it were.  No.  We are called to be winsome in our presentation of our winsome God.  We don’t dress Him up and present Him as something He is not.  But neither do we seek to cover Him up and act as if He were not our true Lord and Master.

Behave properly towards outsiders.  Live your daily life in a fashion suited to win their respect.  For, having won their respect, you have established a footing from which to speak into their lives.  You have gained a stage for presenting the true Gospel.  This, I think, has ever been the issue with street evangelism.  It may have its place, but it seems to me that it seeks to jump the line a bit.  On what basis will you seek to speak into the lives of those you don’t know from Adam?  Will you lean upon the spirit of prophecy to reveal to you what this one needs to hear, what sins he needs to address?  That might work, if that’s the way God is really moving.  But it does not appear to me to be the biblical mandate, the biblical approach to ministry, at least not as a general course of action.  Rather, the call is to preach the gospel, fully and truly.  It is to go and make disciples, teaching them to observe the whole of God’s commandments.  This requires, to my thinking, connection.  It requires establishing relationship with those one would make disciples, giving them reason for faith.  God gave you reason.  He gave me reason.  He did not simply say, “Believe me!” and offer no proof, no cause for belief.  He proved Himself true.  He continually proves Himself faithful.  Faith, it seems to me, is the most fully proven thing we have in this life.  So, to go after outsiders with this idea of instant contact and conversion seems the most unlikely of ways to spread the Gospel.

Is there a place for it?  I suppose there is.  That first sermon Peter preached on Pentecost did not address a group of friends and familiar faces.  These were folks from all over, throughout the realms of Rome.  But neither were they strangers to God.  Indeed, they were gathered in Jerusalem as those who construed themselves God’s chosen people.  They were, then, at least in some way primed to hear the Truth of the Gospel.  And it may be that we occasionally find ourselves in like situations, but I would venture they are rare.  More often, we are dealing with the wholly unchurched, not the misled churched.  We are not looking to draw believers from other denominations and convert them to our views on sundry secondary matters.  It’s not a numbers game, after all, nor a competition to see who can have the largest congregation.  It’s a matter of bringing salvation to those in need.   This, if we would have a hearing, must needs include living in such a fashion as will win the respect of those we would reach.  They simply have no reason to listen to somebody they disdain.  And, if your faith has led you to be neglectful, to be a burden to others, and to count on the kindness of strangers, then I dare say, you will have the disdain of those who might otherwise have heard the gospel from you.

What have we then?  We have a call to live industrious lives, not for the purpose of enriching ourselves, but for the purpose of supporting ourselves.  We are called to get on with those things we have been given to do, so that when there is opportunity to give real expression to this love we have for others, we have means by which to do so.  We don’t have to respond with words alone, because God, in His wisdom, has provided us with ways to so supply ourselves that we can in fact pour out from His abundance into the place of need in these others we love.  And that love, dear ones, we are called to extend not only to our fellow believers, but to a world at large.  This does not require, nor even properly support, joining hands with the causes of social justice as they present themselves these days.  But it does call for living justly towards all.  It does not permit of neglecting and ignoring the poor and the needy.  But neither does it suggest that we ought to begin harassing the haves on behalf of the have nots.

This is a hard balance, isn’t it?  It’s easy to get caught up in wanting to right all the wrongs in the world.  But there is a huge problem there, and that is that our perceptions of wrongs and how to right them are rarely right in themselves.  We have a terrible capacity for making things worse because we seek to do something, and in doing so, neglecting to do that which is most needful:  Seeking God’s plan and purpose in these things.  What would You have me to do, here, Lord?  It’s so easy, in this situation, to fall back into self-sufficiency, to decide we know what to do, and have no need of bothering God on the subject.  Let’s just get on with it.  Except, we don’t have His wisdom.  We don’t have His inerrant knowledge.  We can’t see the end from the beginning.  And so, we put together these programs to address the problem, and wind up causing bigger problems.  The world around us is full of examples, because this is hardly a phenomena confined to the realm of the Christian.  It pervades the realm of politics and governance as well, and so we see a growing mess around us, because we had to do something.  And doing something, as it so often does, proved worse than letting things stand.

By all means, let us do something.  Let us pray.  Let us seek what the Lord is doing, and set ourselves to doing as He directs.  No other course of action is going to bring about anything of value.  And what does He direct?  Be peaceable.  Don’t be a busybody.  See to your own work and earn your own keep.  Behave properly towards those outside the church, as well as those within.  Function in life such that your lives are honorable, and your ways respected.  Then, when there is entry given, speak the Gospel in love.  Who knows?  Perhaps you will win your friend to life.