Hope for the Church (3)
Watch, stand fast in the faith … 1 Corinthians 16.13
Interesting, but Christian?
You could hardly say the Corinthians were standing fast in the faith at the time Paul wrote his first epistle to them.
Undoubtedly, they all professed faith in Jesus. They surely sang whatever Christian songs were current at the time when they gathered for worship, and they no doubt resembled other churches of their day in many ways.
But they were not practicing the faith as Paul had taught them. Which was the occasion for his scalding first epistle. They promoted divisions in the church, tolerated scandalous sin, fought with one another over material possessions, tried to lord it over the consciences of weaker brethren, were complacent about growing in the Lord, failed to understand their callings, and turned the worship of God into a platform for spiritual showing-off.
As J. Gresham Machen wrote of the liberal churches of his day, what the Corinthians were practicing may have been interesting, well-planned, and appealing to many; it just wasn’t the Christian faith as they had learned it from Paul and the Word of God.
Their feet were firmly planted on a slippery slope of compromise, apostasy, decline, and disappearance.
Basic commitments
Sadly, the same can be said of much of Christianity in America today. Paul’s exhortation to the Corinthians to stand fast in the faith is a timely one for churches today, and that in two ways.
First, in the practice of our Christian faith: Christian faith, as we read of it in the New Testament, demands certain basic commitmentsof its followers. Living a Christian life takes discipline. Christians must root and ground themselves in God’s Word and prayer (Col. 3.16; Lk. 18.1). From that starting-point they are to take up the pursuit of holiness in the fear of God and devote themselves to good works (2 Cor. 7.1; Gal. 6.10; Tit. 3.1, 8). They prepare for various afflictions as they press further into the Kingdom of God (Acts 14.22). And in all things, wherever they’re going or whatever they’re doing, they focus on making disciples and glorifying God (Matt. 28.18-20; Heb. 5.12; 1 Cor. 10.31).
Further, each believer has been given spiritual gifts which he or she is expected to put to fruitful use in the ministry of building the church (1 Pet. 4.10, 11; Eph. 4.11-16).
But is this, in fact, what we see? Hardly. Spiritual disciplines are not taken very seriously by American Christians. A life of holiness is difficult to wedge into our getting-and-spending-fun-for-all-and-all-for-fun lifestyles. And ministries in the churches follow a kind of 80/20 rule—20 percent of the people do all the work and give most of the money while 80 percent wait to be served and entertained. Christianity has become a spectator sport in many churches. And as for pursing the Kingdom and making disciples? Where’s any of that?
We are not practicing the faith of Christ as it is clearly taught throughout the Word of God. Instead, we have substituted a kind of “suit-yourself” Christianity for the “take-up-your-cross” calling the Scriptures plainly demand.
Witness
Moreover, we are not proclaiming the faith the way believers did in Paul’s day.
The American Church today has become increasingly non-evangelistic, preferring to use its Sunday morning worship as a honey jar to attract any seeker bees in the community. Most churches do very little in the way of outreach to their communities, and the vast majority of Christians have never shared their testimony or the Gospel with another person.
What’s more, the gospel we do proclaim, when we proclaim it, is not the Gospel of the Kingdom, such as Jesus and Paul announced, but a kind of message of Jesus Who offers love, forgiveness, acceptance, and going to heaven when we die, and which should lead to joining our church. These are surely part of the Gospel, but they are not the Gospel of the Kingdom, to which we have been called and with which we are charged. Rather, they are a form of “near Christianity” which, in the end, is another gospel, and therefore not the Gospel at all.
It’s difficult to see how we could describe ourselves as standing fast in the faith when our practice of it is inconsistent and incomplete, at best, and our proclamation of it is compromised and localized to within our church walls.
The American Church will continue to struggle against the current secular consensus until we take seriously Paul’s charge and restore sound practice and faithful proclamation to the churches of the land. We are not free to define the faith of Christ on our own terms. We must set our feet firmly in the path of Jesus—the path of God’s Law and all His Word (Matt. 5.17-19; 1 Jn. 2.1-6; Jn. 17.17)—and hold fast to it, step by step, day by day. This is the only solid ground on which to build a growing faith and witness.
The Corinthians thought they could be Christians in name only, and they struggled to hold their churches together. Paul’s charge to them to stand fast in their commitment to Christ and His Word is a message we need to take more seriously today.
For reflection or discussion
1. What does someone do who is standing fast in the Word of God and the path of Jesus?
2. How does standing fast like this prepare us for the challenges of daily living?
3. Why is anything other than standing fast in faith a slippery slope to disappointment and irrelevance?
Next steps—Demonstration: How will you show that you are standing fast in faith today?
T. M. Moore
If you have found this meditation helpful, take a moment to give thanks to God. Then share what you learned with a friend. This is how the grace of God spreads (2 Cor. 4.15).
A good supplement to this ongoing study on the Church is our free PDF book, Pray for Your Church. Download your copy from The Ailbe Bookstore by clicking here. Also, we encourage you to visit our ReThinking Church page, where you’ll see a variety of free resources to help you church.
This week: Our Read Moore podcast continues an extensive look at the Kingdom of God from our book, The Kingdom Turn. In our Crosfigell teaching letter, we are looking at the state of pastors and churches during the period of the Celtic Revival, using contemporary witnesses. And in our Scriptorium column we are studying the Gospel of Matthew. Click here to see all the other columns and writers available to you.
And please prayerfully consider supporting The Fellowship of Ailbe with your prayers and gifts. You can contribute online, via PayPal or Anedot, or by sending a gift to The Fellowship of Ailbe, P. O. Box 8213, Essex, VT 05451.
Except as indicated, all Scriptures are taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
