The Corinthian Rule

The teaching of holy apostle Paul…

Pray to our Lord Jesus Christ.

1 Corinthians 1:2

Never stop thanking God for all the graces you have received through Jesus Christ.

1 Corinthians 1:4

Make up the differences between you, and instead of disagreeing among yourselves, be united in your belief and practice.

1 Corinthians 1:10

Instead of the spirit of the world, we have received the Spirit that comes from God, to teach us to understand the gifts He has given us. Therefore we teach not in the way in which philosophy is taught, but in the way that the Spirit teaches us. We teach spiritual things spiritually.

1 Corinthians 2:12-13

The temple of God is sacred, and you are that temple.

1 Corinthians 3:17

There must be no passing of premature judgment. Leave that until the Lord comes.

1 Corinthians 4:5

Keep to what is written.

1 Corinthians 4:6

The Kingdom of God is not just words, it is power.

1 Corinthians 4:20

You should not associate with a brother Christian who is leading an immoral life, or is a usurer, or idolatrous, or a slanderer, or a drunkard, or is dishonest. You should not even eat a meal with people like that.

1 Corinthians 5:11

How dare one of your members take up a complaint against another in the law courts of the unjust instead of before the saints! As you know, it is the saints who are to judge the world; and if the world is to be judged by you, how can you be unfit to judge trifling cases? Since we are also to judge angels, it follows that we can judge matters of everyday life.

1 Corinthians 6:1-3

You know perfectly well that people who do wrong will not inherit the Kingdom of God: people of immoral lives, idolators, adulterers, catamites, sodomites, thieves, usurers, drunkards, slanderers and swindlers will never inherit the Kingdom of God. These are the sort of people some of you were once, but now you have been washed clean, and sanctified, and justified through the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ and through the Spirit of our God.

1 Corinthians 6:9-11

Keep away from fornication. All the other sins are committed outside the body, but to fornicate is to sin against your own body.

1 Corinthians 6:18

Your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. You are not your own property. You have been bought and paid for. That is why you should use your body for the glory of God.

1 Corinthians 6:19-20

Let each man have his own wife, and each woman her own husband. The husband must give his wife what she has the right to expect, and so too the wife to the husband. The wife has no rights over her own body; it is the husband who has them. In the same way, the husband has no rights over his own body; the wife has them. Do not refuse each other except by mutual consent, and then only for an agreed time, to leave yourselves free for prayer. Then come together again in case Satan should take advantage of your weakness to tempt you.

1 Corinthians 7:2-5

A wife must not leave her husband, or if she does leave him, she must either remain unmarried or else make it up with her husband. Nor must a husband send his wife away.

1 Corinthians 7:10b-11

If a brother has a wife who is an unbeliever, and she is content to live with him, he must not send her away; and if a woman has an unbeliever for her husband, and he is content to live with her, she must not leave him. This is because the unbelieving husband is made one with the saints through his wife, and the unbelieving wife is made one with the saints through her husband. However, if the unbelieving partner does not consent, they may separate. In these circumstances, the brother or sister is not tied. God has called you to a life of peace. If you are a wife, it may be your part to save your husband. If a husband, it may be your part to save your wife.

1 Corinthians 7:12-16

What each one has is what the Lord has given him, and he should continue as he was when God’s call reached him.

1 Corinthians 7:17

Let everyone stay as he was at the time of his call. If, when you were called, you were a slave, do not let this bother you. But if you should have the chance of being free, accept it.

1 Corinthians 7:20-21

You have all been bought and paid for. Do not be slaves of other men.

1 Corinthians 7:23

We all have knowledge. Yes, that is so, but knowledge gives self-importance. It is love that makes the building grow. A man may imagine that he understands something, but still not understand anything in the way he ought to. But any man who loves God is known by Him.

1 Corinthians 8:1-3

The man who thinks he is safe must be careful that he does not fall. The trials that you have had to bear are no more than people normally have. You can trust God to not let you be tried beyond your strength, and with any trial He will give you a way out of it and the strength to bear it.

1 Corinthians 10:12-13

For me there are no forbidden things, but not everything does good. True, there are no forbidden things, but it is not everything that helps the building to grow.

1 Corinthians 10:23

Nobody should be looking for his own advantage, but everybody for the other man’s.

1 Corinthians 10:24

Whatever you eat, whatever you drink, whatever you do at all, do it for the glory of God. Never do anything offensive to anyone.

1 Corinthians 10:31-32

No one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” unless he is under the influence of the Holy Spirit.

1 Corinthians 12:3b

Love is always patient and kind. It is never jealous. Love is never boastful or conceited. It is never rude or selfish. It does not take offense and is not resentful. Love takes no pleasure in other people’s sins but delights in the truth. It is always ready to excuse, to trust, to hope, and to endure whatever comes. Love does not come to an end.

1 Corinthians 13:4-8a

You are not to be childish in your outlook. You can be babies as far as wickedness is concerned, but mentally you must be adult.

1 Corinthians 14:20

By all means be ambitious to prophesy, do not suppress the gift of tongues, but let everything be done with propriety and in order.

1 Corinthians 14:39-40

The gospel will save you only if you keep believing what was preached to you. Believing anything else will not lead to anything.

1 Corinthians 15:2

Never give in, never admit defeat. Keep on working at the Lord’s work always, knowing that in the Lord you cannot be laboring in vain.

1 Corinthians 15:58

Be awake to all the dangers. Stay firm in the faith. Be brave and be strong. Let everything you do be done in love.

1 Corinthians 16:13-14

We are Christ’s incense to God for those who are being saved and for those who are not. For the last, the smell of death that leads to death, for the first the sweet smell of life that leads to life.

2 Corinthians 2:15-16a

We do not go around offering the Word of God for sale, as many other people do. In Christ, we speak as men of sincerity, as envoys of God and in God’s presence.

2 Corinthians 2:17

We with our unveiled faces reflecting like mirrors the brightness of the Lord grow brighter and brighter as we are turned into the Image that we reflect.

2 Corinthians 3:18

The troubles which are soon over, though they weigh little, train us for the carrying of a weight of eternal glory which is out of all proportion to them.

2 Corinthians 4:17

From now onward we do not judge anyone by the standards of the flesh. Even if we did once know Christ in the flesh, that is not how we know him now. For anyone who is in Christ, there is a new creation. The old creation has gone, and now the new one is here. It is all God’s work.

2 Corinthians 5:16-18a

It was God who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the work of handing on this reconciliation. God in Christ was reconciling the world to Himself, not holding men’s faults against them, and He has entrusted to us the news that they are reconciled.

2 Corinthians 5:18b-19

We are ambassadors for Christ. It is as though God were appealing through us, and the appeal that we make in Christ’s Name is: Be reconciled to God.

2 Corinthians 5:20

For our sake God made the sinless One into sin, so that in Him we might become the goodness of God. As His fellow workers, we beg you not to neglect the grace of God that you have received.

2 Corinthians 5:21-6:1

We do nothing that people might object to, so as not to bring discredit on our function as Christ’s servants. We prove we are servants of God by great fortitude in times of suffering, in times of hardship and distress. We prove we are God’s servants by our purity, knowledge, patience, and kindness, by a spirit of holiness, by a love free from affectation, by the word of truth and by the power of God.

2 Corinthians 6:3-7a

Do not harness yourselves in an uneven team with unbelievers. Virtue is no companion for crime. Light and darkness have nothing in common. Christ is not the ally of Belial, nor has a believer anything to share with an unbeliever.

2 Corinthians 6:14-15

To suffer in God’s way means changing for the better and leaves no regrets, but to suffer as the world knows suffering brings death.

2 Corinthians 7:10

As long as the readiness is there, a man is acceptable with whatever he can afford. Never mind what is beyond his means. This does not mean that to give relief to others you ought to make things difficult for yourselves. It is a question of balancing what happens to be your surplus now against their present need, and one day they may have something to spare that will supply your own need. That is how we strike a balance.

2 Corinthians 8:12-14

We live in the flesh, but the muscles that we fight with are not flesh. Our war is not fought with weapons of flesh, yet they are strong enough in God’s cause to demolish fortresses. We demolish sophistries and the arrogance that tries to resist the knowledge of God. Every thought is our prisoner, captured to be brought into obedience to Christ.

2 Corinthians 10:3-5

Examine yourselves to make sure you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Acknowledge that Jesus Christ is really in you.

2 Corinthians 13:5

Try to grow perfect. Help one another. Be united. Live in peace, and the God of love and peace will be with you.

2 Corinthians 13:11

All texts are taken from the Jerusalem Bible (1966).

Only because of Jesus

The source of the disciple's life lies exclusively in his fellowship with Jesus Christ. He possesses his righteousness only within that association, never outside it. That is why his righteousness can never become an objective criterion to be applied at will. He is a disciple not because he possesses a new standard, but only because of Jesus Christ, the Mediator and very Son of God. That is to say, his righteousness is hidden from himself in fellowship with Jesus. He cannot, as he could once, be a detached observer of himself and judge himself, for he can only see Jesus, and be seen by Him, judged by Him, and reprieved by Him. It is not an approved standard of righteous living that separates a follower of Christ from the unbeliever, but it is Christ who stands between them.

Christians always see other men as brethren to whom Christ comes; they meet them only by going to them with Jesus. Disciple and non-disciple can never encounter each other as free men, directly exchanging their views and judging one another by objective criteria. No, the disciple can meet the non-disciple only as a man to whom Jesus comes.

Here alone Christ's fight for the soul of the unbeliever, His call, His love, His grace and His judgment comes into its own. Discipleship does not afford us a point of vantage from which to attack others; we come to them with an unconditional offer of fellowship, with the single-mindedness of the love of Jesus.

When we judge other people we confront them in a spirit of detachment, observing and reflecting as it were from the outside.
But love has neither time nor opportunity for this. If we love, we can never observe the other person with detachment, for he is always and at every moment a living claim to our love and service.

But does not the evil in the other person make me condemn him just for his own good, for the sake of love?

Here we see the depth of the dividing line. Any misguided love for the sinner is ominously close to the love of sin. But the love of Christ for the sinner in itself is the condemnation of sin, is His expression of extreme hatred of sin.

The disciples are to love unconditionally. Thus they may effect what their own divided and judiciously and conditionally offered love never could achieve, namely the radical condemnation of sin.

If the disciples make judgments of their own, they set up standards of good and evil. But Jesus Christ is not a standard which I can apply to others.

Christian love sees the fellow-man under the cross and therefore sees with clarity.

There is only one judgment, one law, and one grace. Henceforth the disciple will look upon other men as forgiven sinners who owe their lives to the love of God. ‘This is the law and the prophets’—for this is none other than the supreme commandment:

To love God above all things,
and our neighbors as ourselves.

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship, Book 2, Chapter 18

The Roman Rule

The teaching of holy apostle Paul…

Preach the obedience of faith to all pagan nations.

Romans 1:5

It is not listening to the Law but keeping it that will make people holy in the sight of God.

Romans 2:13

You must not let sin reign in your mortal bodies or command your obedience to bodily passions. You must not let any part of your body turn into an unholy weapon fighting on the side of sin. You should offer yourselves to God and consider yourselves dead men brought back to life. You should make every part of your body into a weapon fighting on the side of God. Then sin will no longer dominate your life, since you are living by grace and not by law.

Romans 6:12-14

There is no necessity for us to obey our unspiritual selves or to live unspiritual lives.

Romans 8:12

Everyone moved by the Spirit is a son of God. The Spirit you received is not the spirit of slaves bringing fear into your lives again. It is the spirit of sons, and it makes us cry out, “Abba, Father!” The Spirit Himself and our spirit bear united witness that we are the children of God. And if we are children we are heirs as well, heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, sharing His sufferings so as to share His glory.

Romans 8:14-17

We must be content to hope that we shall be saved—our salvation is not in sight—we must hope to be saved since we are not saved yet. It is something we must wait for with patience.

Romans 8:24-25

Nothing can come between us and the love of Christ, even if we are troubled or worried, or being persecuted or lacking food or clothes, or being threatened or even attacked. These are the trials through which we triumph, by the power of Him who loved us. Nothing that exists can ever come between us and the love of God made visible in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 8:35-39

The Word, that is, the faith that we proclaim, is very near you. It is on your lips and in your heart. If your lips confess that Jesus is Lord, and if you believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. By believing from the heart you are made righteous. By confessing with the lips you are saved. Everyone who calls on the Name of the Lord will be saved.

Romans 10:8-13

Think of God’s mercy, and worship Him in a way that is worthy of thinking beings, by offering your bodies as a holy sacrifice, truly pleasing to God.

Romans 12:1

Do not model yourselves on the behavior of the world around you, but let your behavior change, modeled by your new mind. This is the only way to discover the will of God and know what is good, what it is that God wants, what is the perfect thing to do.

Romans 12:2

All of us, in union with Christ, form one body, and as parts of it we belong to each other. Our gifts differ according to the grace given us. If your gift is prophecy, then use it as your faith suggests; if administration, then use it for administration; if teaching, then use it for teaching. Let the preachers deliver sermons, the almsgivers give freely, the officials be diligent, and those who do works of mercy do them cheerfully.

Romans 12:5-8

Do not let your love be a pretense, but sincerely prefer good to evil. Love each other as much as brothers should, and have a profound respect for each other. Work for the Lord with untiring effort and with great earnestness of spirit. If you have hope, this will make you cheerful. Do not give up if trials come; and keep on praying. If any of the saints are in need, you must share with them; and you should make hospitality your special care.

Romans 12:9-13

Bless those who persecute you. Never curse them, bless them.

Romans 12:14

Rejoice with those who rejoice, and be sad with those in sorrow.

Romans 12:15

Treat everyone with equal kindness. Never be condescending, but make real friends with the poor.

Romans 12:16a

Do not allow yourself to become self-satisfied.

Romans 12:16b

Never repay evil with evil, but let everyone see that you are interested only in the highest ideals.

Romans 12:17

Do all that you can to live at peace with everyone.

Romans 12:18

Resist evil and conquer it with good.

Romans 12:21

You must all obey the government authorities.

Romans 13:1

Avoid getting into debt, except the debt of mutual love. If you love your fellow men you have carried out your obligations.

Romans 13:8

You know “the time” has come. You must wake up now. Our salvation is even nearer than it was when we were converted. The night is almost over, it will be daylight soon. Let us give up all the things we prefer to do under cover of the dark. Let us arm ourselves and appear in the light.

Romans 13:11-12

Let us live decently as people do in the daytime: no drunken orgies, no promiscuity or licentiousness, and no wrangling and jealousy.

Romans 13:13

Let your armor be the Lord Jesus Christ.

Romans 13:14a

Forget about satisfying your bodies with all their cravings.

Romans 13:14b

If a person’s faith is not strong enough, welcome him all the same without starting an argument.

Romans 14:1

It is not for you to condemn someone else’s servant. Whether he stands or falls, it is his own master’s business. He will stand, you may be sure, because the Lord has power to make him stand.

Romans 14:4

If one man keeps certain days as holier than others, and another considers all days to be equally holy, each must be left free to hold his own opinion.

Romans 14:5

You should never pass judgment on a brother or treat him with contempt. We shall have to stand before the judgment seat of God.

Romans 14:10

Far from passing judgment on each other, you should make up your mind never to be the cause of your brother tripping or falling.

Romans 14:13

The Kingdom of God does not mean eating or drinking this or that, it means righteousness and peace and joy brought by the Holy Spirit. If you serve Christ in this way you will please God and be respected by men. So let us adopt any custom that leads to peace and our mutual improvement. Do not wreck God’s work over a question of food.

Romans 14:17-20

Every act done in bad faith is a sin.

Romans 14:23b

We who are strong have a duty to put up with the qualms of the weak without thinking of ourselves. Each of us should think of his neighbors and help them to become stronger Christians.

Romans 15:1-2

Be tolerant with each other, following the example of Christ Jesus, so that united in mind and voice you may give glory to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Romans 15:5b-6

Treat each other in the same friendly way as Christ treated you.

Romans 15:7

Be on your guard against anybody who encourages trouble or puts difficulties in the way of the doctrine you have been taught. Avoid them.

Romans 16:17

All texts are taken from the Jerusalem Bible (1966).

The Apostolic Rule

The holy apostle Paul writes, ‘Be united in following my rule of life. Take as your models everybody who is already doing this and study them as you used to study us’ (Philippians 3:17). The little manual which follows for the next few days, entitled The Apostolic Rule, is the product of my first years as an adult Christian, when I was being grounded in the Word of God by reading it constantly every day. My bible was the Jerusalem Bible, first published in English in 1966, the work of the School of Biblical Studies in Jerusalem. I was drawn to this version because it was in modern English and charged with an energy that brought the words to life in a way that I had never experienced before. The use of the name Yahweh in the Old Testament made my contact with the Lord immediate and concrete and, strangely, unreligious. The way that the Old Testament apocryphal books are smoothly integrated into the Jerusalem Bible also appealed to me. Finally, the book of Psalms became my daily prayerbook, translated as they are with poetic rhythm and compelling imagery. Although I sometimes read The New English Bible, the Good News Bible, and The Living Bible, to gain further insight, the Jerusalem Bible continues to speak the Word of God to me with directness and clarity, and it is from this version that I collected the extracts that became The Apostolic Rule.

Speaking of the words of divine scripture, the Word of God declares in Psalm 19, that ‘more desirable than gold, even than the finest gold, His words are sweeter than honey, even than honey that drips from the comb. Thus Your servant is formed by them, observance brings great reward’ (Psalm 19:10-11). And further, in the prophet Isaiah, ‘I have not spoken in secret in some corner of a darkned land! I, the Lord, speak with directness! I express Myself with clarity!’ (Isaiah 45:19).

As I read the apostolic writings, the letters of Paul, of Peter, John, James the brother of the Lord, and Jude, it became clear to me that the rule of Christian life was contained in them. As I studied the epistles over and over, certain verses and passages began to stand out as powerful utterances and expressions of this rule. I copied them out in a little notebook and divided them into ‘chapters’ called by the name of the epistle where they were written, such as ‘The Roman Rule’ from the letter to the Romans. The verses found in Paul’s letters to individuals I grouped under the apostle’s name, as ‘The Pauline Rule,’ even though he also wrote letters to the churches. This is the plan I followed, harvesting powerful living words from every one of the epistles from Romans to Jude.

Now, please notice that I am not calling this manual ‘The Apostolic Rules’ in the plural, because it is not the following of rules that makes a Christian life. The ‘rule’ of Christian life referred to by the apostle Paul in his letter to the Philippians is more like a ruler (or gauge, as we might call it today), a standard against which we compare our life, or perhaps a specific pattern on which we model our life. That seems to be what the apostle is trying to tell us.

The verses and passages that I collected in my notebook were therefore not normally expressed as ‘rules’ but rather in the form of (1) concrete commands, (2) definitions, (3) exhortations, and (4) reasons for behavior. The first four passages in ‘The Roman Rule’ are examples of exactly these forms.

Sometimes a verse is removed from its context because that part of the passage brings out the meaning better than does the whole. It should focus our attention on what is essential and suggest to us a plan of action. No comments clutter the text of the verses presented, because ‘the anointing He gave you teaches you everything’ (1 John 2:27).  It is important to remember that reading a manual like this one is never a substitute for studying the bible itself, in which we will always find the life-giving promises of the Word of God, who says, ‘If you make My word your home, you will indeed be My disciples’ (John 8:31). ‘And My Father will love you, and We shall come to you and make Our home with you’ (John 14:23).

Turning back to Psalm 19, we read, ‘The Law of Yahweh is perfect, new life for the soul; the decree of Yahweh is trustworthy, wisdom for the simple. The precepts of Yahweh are upright, joy for the heart; the commandment of Yahweh is clear, light for the eyes. The fear of Yahweh is pure, lasting for ever; the judgments of Yahweh are true, righteous every one, more desirable than gold, even than the finest gold; His words are sweeter than honey, even than honey that drips from the comb. Thus Your servant is formed by them, observance brings great reward. But who can detect his own failings? Wash out my hidden faults, and from pride preserve Your servant, never let it dominate me. So shall I be above reproach, free from grave sin. May the words of my mouth always find favor, and the whispering of my heart, in Your presence, Yahweh, my Rock, my Redeemer!’ (Psalm 19:7-14).

The Apostolic Rule — Passages pulled from all the epistles of the New Testament and organized by book, that reveal how simple and direct are the instructions that the apostles have left us about how to live the Christian life. Click HERE to download a PDF of the entire booklet (40 pages) which you can print out.

Back to basics

ο ποιμήν ο καλός

(oh pee-MEEN oh ka-LOSS)

‘the Good Shepherd’

‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’
Matthew 25:44

Notice that both the rewarded and the condemned refer to Christ as ‘Lord,’ clearly acknowledging His divinity, but as Christ asserts in the gospel according to Luke, ‘Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord’ and not do the things which I say?’ (Luke 6:46) Both the ikon above and the text cited below it come from the weekly bulletin of my church, Aghía Triás, Portland, Oregon. The ikon is rustic in style, like the simple faith it represents, the simple trust in the Good Shepherd, who is the Word of God and Who says, ‘The sheep that belong to Me listen to My voice; I know them, and they follow Me.’ (John 10:27)

Here in America, but also in other ‘Christian’ lands, we find ourselves living inside the ruins of a great and ancient civilisation, one which bequeathed us not only spiritual values but cultural and material benefits as well. This civilisation is patronisingly called ‘Judæo-Christian’ and the sacred name of it is pulled out of safekeeping whenever anyone wants to press their point of view.

An example of this that everyone knows, is when someone who calls himself a Christian pulls out of context a bible verse or passage to legitimize his personal opinion. This is the downside of ‘proof texting.’ That doesn't mean that every quoting of scripture is invalid; it just means that there are two ways of using the written Word of God: either you submit your ideas to what the Word declares and let your mind be formed by Christ (that is, having the ‘mind of Christ’); or you develop a personal philosophy and then go fetch bible verses that seem to bolster your thoughts, in case you want to appear to have the mind of Christ.

If the Son of God, the Word of the Father through whom all things were made, is the Light of the world which that world cannot overcome,
if He emptied Himself to assume the conditions of a slave, suffering for our sake, and dying to pay the debt of each and every one of us, on the Cross,
if He went down to She‘ol to yank Adam and Eve by their wrists out of their deathly misery along with everyone else from righteous Abel to John the Baptist, and place them in paradise with Abraham and the good thief,
if He rose from the dead, taking death captive, and after establishing the saints on earth as His Bride, ascended to the right hand of the Father to intercede for us,
if He did all that, and we spend ourselves in entertainment and call it ‘worship,’ take Bible cruises, listen to self-improvement and ‘God wants you to be prosperous’ talking books, and if there's anything left over, help the convenient needy of our choice, is it any small wonder that the world which Christ came to save plays with our leftovers and says, ‘oh, nothing special, just a gospel message!’

The good news drew crowds in the days of the Apostles. Why do we now have to run after the unsaved and shove tracts in their faces?

The preaching of John Chrysostom and Basil (the Great) drew crowds in the days of the Christian Roman Empire, no matter what the time of day or the season. Why do we try to fill our empty assembly halls with ‘spiritual’ bread and circuses?

The signs and wonders of our Christian ancestors were changed lives, which in turn changed society. Instead, we have people standing around downtown holding signs that say ‘Portland, you need to change!’ and their followup is such things as a program of praise music!

Now, there's nothing wrong with worship and praise, except when we deceive ourselves into believing that worship and praise happens between the hours of church services or Christian concerts. In the heavenlies, the worship is unceasing, according to the will of God. And don't we pray, ‘Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven’?
Jesus told Photiní (the woman at the well), ‘…true worshippers will worship the Father in Spirit and Truth: That is the kind of worshipper the Father wants’ (John 4:23).

What is this ‘worship in Spirit and Truth’?

Holy apostle Paul's answer is, in part, ‘I worship spiritually by preaching the Good News…’ (Romans 1:8).

Speaking more directly to us, Paul also writes, ‘Think of God's mercy, my brothers, and worship Him, I beg you, in a way that is worthy of thinking beings, by offering your living bodies as a holy sacrifice, truly pleasing to God. Do not model yourselves on the behavior of the world around you, but let your behavior change, modeled by your new mind. This is the only way to discover the will of God and know what is good, what it is that God wants, what is the perfect thing to do’ (Romans 12:1-2).

Where am I going with all this?

By our willingness to read the Word of God publicly outside of church, we are being taught many things. Christ wants to gather His lost sheep. It's too late—‘the time is close’ (Revelation 1:3)—to deliberate and develop programs. We waste valuable time. The Word of God, the Holy Scripture, is already everything we need to accomplish what He sent us forth to do: ‘Go, therefore, make disciples of all nations…’ (Matthew 28:19).

Churches are, by and large, pitifully asleep, enmeshed in the cares of the world.

Why do I think this?
Ask any Christian, where his/her bible is right now. Ask what book, passage or verse did he/she read this morning. Ask how long did he/she spend praying yesterday. Ask how long since he/she had a one-on-one, deep, spiritual fellowship with another Christian.

Churches have produced the very things they say they are against, by the refusal of most ministers and people to put God first in their lives. Every pierced and tattooed ‘Goth’ has both a mother and a father who, in their turn, have a mother and a father. Was the youth I often see downtown, who has images of barbed wire tattooed all across his face, born that way?

Jesus Christ has already won the victory over sin, hell and death. About His Bride, the Church, the ‘Christian people’ He says (speaking to His heavenly Father), ‘May they be one in us, as you are in me and I am in you, so that the world may believe it was you who sent me’ (John 18:21). How can we be one in God the Trinity as Jesus prays, and at the same time not live in His victory over sin, hell and death? Impossible.

The time is close. Now, if never before, read the book of Revelation.
Read it every day. It is like a ‘fifth gospel.’ Don't try to interpret it. It's a mystery to him who seeks to open its seals, but it is revealed to him who trusts the Lamb of God, the Only Worthy One, to open the seals.

Just read the book, and read it aloud, and read it to others, your family, your friends, whoever will listen. It is not a literary relic of the apostolic age. It is not just a source for Orthodox liturgica. It is exactly what it says about itself. It's the only book of the bible with this blessing attached: ‘Happy the man who reads this prophecy, and happy those who listen to him, for the time is close’ (Revelation 1:3).

Read it as personally addressed to you, and the Lord will reveal to you what His instructions are for you.
Will He do that the first time? Probably not, but by the tenth time you will begin to understand.

What! Do I have to read it over and over again? Yes. This is how we keep our lamps lit, we keep filling them with oil (see Matthew 25:1-13).

What else? Back to basics.

You really do have to put God first. You can't fake it. You can go to church all you want, but you cannot avoid the winnowing fork of the Lord. You can't hide forever what kind of seeds you've planted. Judgment begins now, but it takes a long time… maybe.

The pious Jews have a saying, ‘Repent one day before your death.’ God is being patient with all of us. He doesn't want us to lose any more of our children by drugs, sex and suicide.

What? You don't have any children? Think again, if you're a Christian reading these words. As Francesco of Assisi proclaimed, echoing Christ His Master,
‘There are no more fathers. There are no more sons. And everyone who has left fathers and mothers, children, lands for the sake of our heavenly Father will receive a hundred times more in the life to come…’

We are all His children, and all His children are ours. ‘You must call no one on earth your father, since you have only One Father, and He is in heaven’ (Matthew 23:9).

If your church has a lot of members, if they're enrolled in lots of classes, seminars, programs and groups, if they give lavishly, how many of them have made the Word of God their home? How many are stepping out, every day, in faith to the lost, calling them ‘brother’ and acting likewise?

It's hard to get the unsaved to trust us, because we have let them down. Now, we have to break through the protective walls, and show them Jesus. If we are following along behind Him, neither we nor they have anything to fear anymore.

There's no loss with Jesus.

Yes, at once

Και παραγων ειδεν Λευιν τον του Αλφαιου καθημενον επι το τελωνιον και λεγει αυτω, Ακολουθει μοι, και αναστας ηκολουθησεν αυτω.

And as he passed by he saw Levi, the son of Alphæus, sitting at the place of toll, and he saith unto him, Follow me. And he arose and followed him. Mark 2.14

The call goes forth, and is at once followed by the response of obedience. The response of the disciples is an act of obedience, not a confession of faith in Jesus. The cause behind the immediate following of the call by response is Jesus Christ himself. It is Jesus who calls, and because it is Jesus, Levi follows at once.

This encounter is a testimony to the absolute, direct, and unaccountable authority of Jesus. Because Jesus is the Christ, he has the authority to call and to demand obedience to his word. Jesus summons men to follow him not as a teacher or a pattern of the good life, but as the Christ, the Son of God. There is no road to faith or discipleship, no other road — only obedience to the call of Jesus.

What does the text inform us about the content of discipleship?

Follow me, run along behind me! That is all.

To follow in his steps is something which is void of all content. It gives us no intelligible program for a way of life, no goal or ideal to strive after.

At the call, Levi leaves all he has — but not because he thinks that he might be doing something worthwhile, but simply for the sake of the call. Otherwise he cannot follow in the steps of Jesus. The disciple simply burns his boats and goes ahead.

He is called out, and has to forsake his old life in order that he may ‘exist’ in the strictest sense of the word. The old life is left behind, and completely surrendered. The disciple is dragged out of his relative security into a life of absolute insecurity (that is, in truth, into the absolute security and safety of the fellowship of Jesus), from a life which is observable and calculable (it is, in fact, quite incalculable) into a life where everything is unobservable and fortuitous (that is, into one which is necessary and calculable), out of the realm of the finite (which is in truth the infinite) into the realm of infinite possibilities (which is the one liberating reality).

Again, it is no universal law. Rather is it the exact opposite of all legality. It is nothing else than bondage to Jesus Christ alone, completely breaking every program, every ideal, every set of laws. No other significance is possible, since Jesus is the only significance. Beside Jesus nothing has any significance. He alone matters.

When we are called to follow Christ, we are summoned to an exclusive attachment to his person.

The grace of his call bursts all the bonds of legalism. It is a gracious call, a gracious commandment. It transcends the difference between the law and the gospel. Christ calls, the disciple follows; that is grace and commandment in one.

‘I will walk at liberty, for I seek thy commandments.’ (Psalm 119.45)

Discipleship without Jesus Christ is a way of our own choosing. It may be the ideal way, it may even lead to martyrdom, but it is devoid of all promise. Jesus will certainly reject it.

And they went to another village. And as they went in the way, a certain man said unto him, I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest. And Jesus said unto him, The foxes have holes, and the birds of heaven have nests, but the Son of Man hath not where to lay his head. And he said to another, Follow me.

But he said, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father. But he said unto him, Leave the dead to bury their dead, but go thou and publish abroad the kingdom of God. And another said, I will follow thee, Lord; but suffer me first to bid farewell to them that are at my house. But Jesus said unto him, No man, having put his hand unto the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.

Luke 9.57-62

The first disciple offers to follow Jesus without waiting to be called. Jesus damps his ardour by warning him that he does not know what he is doing. In fact, he is quite incapable of knowing.

That is the meaning of Jesus’ answer. No man can choose such a life for himself. No man can call himself to such a destiny, says Jesus, and his word stays unanswered. The gulf betwen a voluntary offer to follow and genuine discipleship is clear.

Where Jesus calls, he bridges the widest gulf.

The second would-be disciple wants to bury his father before he starts to follow. He is bound by the trammels of the law. He knows what he wants and what he must do. Let him first fulfill the law, and then let him follow. A definite legal ordinance acts as a barrier between Jesus and the man he has called. But the call of Jesus is stronger than the barrier.

Nothing on earth, however sacred, must be allowed to come between Jesus and the man he has called — not even the law itself.

Now, if never before, the law must be broken for the sake of Jesus. Therefore Jesus emerges at this point as the opponent of the law, and commands a man to follow him. Only Christ can speak in this fashion. He alone has the last word. This call, this grace, is irresistable.

The third would-be disciple, like the first, thinks that following Christ means that he must make the offer on his own initiative, as if it were a career he mapped out for himself, but the third is bold enough to stipulate his own terms.

He lands himself in a hopeless inconsistency, for although he is ready enough to throw in his lot with Jesus, he succeeds in putting up a barrier between himself and the Master. ‘Suffer me first.’ He wants to follow, but feels obliged to insist on his own terms. Discipleship to him is a possibility which can only be realized when certain conditions have been fulfilled.

This is to reduce discipleship to the level of human understanding. The trouble about this third would-be disciple is that at the very moment he expresses his willingness to follow, he ceases to want to follow at all. His desires conflict not only with what Jesus wants, but also with what he wants himself.

If we would follow Jesus we must take certain definite steps.

The first step, which follows the call, cuts the disciple off from his previous existence. Jesus makes it clear from the start that his word is not an abstract doctrine, but the re-creation of the whole life of man. The only right and proper way is quite literally to go with Jesus.

The call to follow implies that there is only one way of believing on Jesus Christ, and that is by leaving all and going with the incarnate Son of God. The first step places the disciple in the situation where faith is possible. If he refuses to follow and stays behind, he does not learn how to believe.

This step is not the first stage of a career. Its sole justification is that it brings the disciple into fellowship with Jesus, which will be victorious. The road to faith passes through obedience to the call of Jesus. If men imagine they can follow Jesus without taking this step, they are deluding themselves like fanatics.

Discipleship is not an offer man makes to Christ. It is only the call which creates the situation, and the situation in which faith is possible is itself only rendered possible through faith.

Only he who believes is obedient, and only he who is obedient believes.

If we are to believe, we must obey a concrete command. Without this preliminary step of obedience, our faith will be only pious humbug, and lead us to the grace which is not costly. Everything depends on the first step. It has a unique quality of its own.

This first step starts as an external work, which effects the change from one existence to another. It is a step within everyone’s capacity, for it lies within the limits of human freedom. To take this step it is not necessary to surrender one’s freedom.

Come to church! You can do that of your own free will. You can leave your home on a Sunday morning and come to hear the sermon. If you will not, you are of your own free will excluding yourself from the place where faith is a possibility.

Once we are sure of this point, we must add at once that this step is, and can never be more than, a purely external act which can never of itself bring a man to Christ. Nevertheless the external work must be done, for we still have to find our way into the situation where faith is possible.

We can only take this step aright if we fix our eyes not on the work we do, but on the word with which Jesus calls us to do it. In the end, the first step of obedience proves to be an act of faith in the word of Christ.

Unless he obeys, a man cannot believe.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

“Remember who your teachers were…”
2 Timothy 3:14

Church Fathers and Councils

Thanks to the reports of eye-witnesses, we have a lot of historical documents telling us about the lives of early Church fathers, in addition to having their writings. It helps to know something about those times, as we reflect on what is happening in the Body of Christ at the present moment.

If we think that the Church has problems today, or that bad behavior is the specialty of contemporary Christian leaders, we should delve a bit into the past. On the other hand, if we tend to equate the ancient fathers with an idea of a ‘golden age’ of Christianity, or think that their writings and opinions are to be held uncritically superior to ours, we should think again. C. S. Lewis observed that ‘we are still the early Christians.’ Every Church father, just as every Christian pastor, teacher or writer, still has to be examined in the light of the scriptural Truth, which remains the source and measure of the Christian ‘tradition.’

We’ve heard, with unthinking amusement, of the incident at the Council of Nicæa where Nicholas, the bishop of Myra, slapped or punched the 80 year old presbyter Arius, whose teaching about the non-deity of Christ was the reason for calling the council. Supposedly he was placed under house arrest until some of the bishops had a common dream that made them release him and restore him to the Council. I read in another place that this story is found for the first time in a 14th century Latin manuscript. To me, that smacks of tale-spinning, as do many of the other tales told of the saints in West and East.

Be that as it may, violence, at least in speech, was not rare among some of the Church fathers. An excerpt from the authentic transcript of the Council of Chalcedon follows. The moment is that of the Imperial officers ordering that Theodoret, the bishop of Kars, should enter the assembly:

“And when the most reverend bishop Theodoret entered, the most reverend the bishops of Egypt, Illyria, and Palestine shouted out—‘Mercy upon us! The faith is destroyed! The canons of the Church excommunicate him! Turn him out! Turn out the teacher of Nestorius!’ On the other hand, the most reverend the bishops of the East, of Thrace, of Pontus, and of Asia, shouted out—‘We were compelled [at the former Council] to subscribe our names to blank papers! We were scourged into submission! Turn out the Manichæans! Turn out the enemies of Flavian! Turn out the adversaries of the faith!’ Dioscorus, the most reverend bishop of Alexandria said—‘Why is Cyril to be turned out? It is he whom Theodoret has condemned!’ The most reverend the bishops of the East shouted out—‘Turn out the murderer Dioscorus! Who knows not the deeds of Dioscorus?’ …The most reverend the bishops of Egypt, Illyria, and Palestine, shouted out—‘Long life to the Empress!’ The most reverend the bishops of the East shouted out—‘Turn out the murderers!’ The most reverend the bishops of Egypt shouted out—‘The Empress turned out Nestorius! Long life to the Catholic Empress! The Orthodox synod refuses to admit Theodoret!’

“Theodoret then being at last received by the Imperial officers, and taking his place, the most reverend bishops of the East shouted out—‘Axios! Axios! [He is worthy!]’ The most reverend the bishops of Egypt shouted out—‘Don’t call him a bishop! He is no bishop! Turn out the fighter against God! Turn out the Jew!’ The most reverend the bishops of the East shouted out—‘The Orthodox for the synod! Turn out the rebels! Turn out the murderers!’ The most reverend the bishops of Egypt—‘Turn out the enemy of God! Turn out the defamer of Christ! Long life to the Empress! Long life to the Emperor! Long life to the Catholic Emperor! Theodoret condemned Cyril! If we receive Theodoret, we excommunicate Cyril!’ At this point the Imperial commissioners who were present put a stop to the clamor, as unworthy a meeting of Christian bishops.”

It’s really ironic how these bishops are described repeatedly with the honorific ‘the most reverend,’ in view of their atrocious behavior. After reading this account, it’s easy to see that blood had a low boiling point in that era, even among shepherds of the flock. Admittedly, the Council of Chalcedon was one of the more violent ones, and most historians consider the 1st Council of Nicæa much more civil. Yet even there, what we have from letters written at the time, indicate that tempers flared.

And why not? The understanding of the content of the revelation of Jesus Christ, who He is, was at stake. Moreover, we are so far removed from that time that we can’t be sure, always, that we’re understanding what we read in those old books. Still, it does seem that many of the things that were debated, argued about, and even fought over back then have little bearing on the gospel, on the good news.

It’s good that we look at what the Church fathers said and did, what they taught, how they lived, and how they died. They were people like us, living in a culture not really too unlike our own, facing very similar social and ethical challenges. To their glory they laid down the foundations of our common orthodox faith, to their shame they quibbled and sometimes nit-picked each other to death over trifles, or over speculations on divine things for which there was never any warrant in scripture.

The contemporary Orthodox Church sometimes idolizes them, even seems to put them above scripture, while quietly shuffling their misdeeds under the rug, but the fact is they were humans just like us, their squabbling no different than modern denominational disagreements, and yet, underneath it all, they had a common faith that they could have practiced in peace and love, had they put away the works of the flesh.

Yes, faith in God and in His Christ is one thing, and faith as a body of doctrine quite another, yet we use the same word for both. This has been largely responsible for the decline of Christianity throughout the ages, and especially now, when we are living not in a post-Christian age, but deservedly in a post-church one.

Church is people in Christ. We can institutionalise ‘church’ just as church has institutionalized ‘faith.’ We think we do this to preserve both, yet we do exactly the opposite.

Christianity is not and never was perpetuated by institutions, only by what C. S. Lewis so aptly called ‘good infection.’ In our studies of the Bible and the Church fathers, we should never forget that it is only God and His Christ, Jesus, and what He has won for us, that matters.

A religionless Christianity

Is there enough grace in Christ to enable us to follow Him without religion? People have called me a hypocrite because I say, ‘religion is a sickness, and Christ is the cure,’ and ‘I am not a religious Christian,’ yet they still see me going to church. Those who have lived with me have seen me reading and studying scriptures and the Church fathers, a few have even seen me praying (more have, of course, prayed with me than have seen me praying ‘in secret’). Visitors to my home are met immediately at the front door with the image of Christ crucified—the Cross of San Damiano—as well as a small tapestry ikon of the Holy Triad. When I open to them—if they didn’t know to open the door themselves—they can see in the vestibule to their left, hanging on the wall right inside the door, a bas relief carving representing the Ten Commandments in Hebrew script, then a small ikon of Christ holding an open book that says, ‘Ye have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you and ordained you, that ye should go and bring…’ and then a plain olivewood cross with budded ends. There are dried laurel leaves and palm crosses stuffed behind the ikon.

A small dark mahogany Chinese table with a carved top under glass is next, with a ceramic three-legged toad sitting on it, holding a cash coin in its mouth, facing the doorway. I place my keys and my bible there when I first enter, so I can take off my shoes and hang up my coat in the closet across the hall. Down the runner on the same side of the wall is a little bench to sit down on to untie your shoelaces or drop off your things. On the wall are family mementos from Indonesia. When I hung up my guest’s coat in the front closet and closed the door again, he may have noticed a cartoon poster of ‘Comparative Religions in a Nutshell’ hanging on the door, and next to the door on a narrow spit of wall, an ikon of Christ blessing the children. Then, there’s the stairway up to the private rooms of the house. I will invite my guest in and ask him to sit down on a sofa and make himself comfortable, while I go to bring tea and some sweets, usually loukoumi—Turkish Delight—or some Japanese mochi, anything light and natural. While I am momentarily away, my guest, if new, may look around.
I am not a religious Christian, but I have already given something away, something that I never intended to hide, that I am a follower of Jesus. If my seated guest looks to his left or across the room if seated on another sofa or in one of the becak chairs by the windows, he will see a strange little paneled roll-top desk, barely a cubit wide and little taller than a kitchen table against a narrow east wall. On its top stands an incense burner, a green copper candlestick in the shape of a book-reading field mouse whose tail has unexpectedly grown long enough to rise up and support a candle, and some other strange objects, like three tiny pine cones clinging to each other, and a small ceramic pot with a lid. Centered on the wall above this little desk, or whatever it might be, there is a small photographic image of a man who looks like he might be Jesus, set in a simply carved wooden frame. To either side are ikons of two somebodies. (In fact, holy prophets Daniel on the left, and Moses on the right.) Another very tiny ikon with gold and silver shines out below these three, but above a hole in the wall that offers its shelf to a thick book with Greek writing on its cover—that’s my synekdemos, the priest’s prayer book with all the liturgical services. Then there’s an oil lamp hanging in front of these pictures.

Looking into the dining room, above the table a large leather parchment covered in strange writing hangs on a canvas scroll backing, flanked on the same wall by two brass scallop shells that hold candles and reflect their light when they are lit. There’s another hanging oil lamp in front of this. This is not the home of an non-religious person or a non-Christian, for sure. Whoever lives here has to be religious, has to be a Christian. Well, that’s what people think, but looks can be deceiving. Anyone can pretend, anyone can act. That’s what it means to be a hypocrite—an actor. But the man who lives here says he is not religious. What is he then? Enough people call themselves Christians but do not live like one to drive the world to despair or contempt. Why then, go to church, read the bible and study the fathers, why pray, why fast, why keep oneself from wanton acts, why refrain from lying, stealing, committing adultery? Why would anyone do any of these things, if he is not religious? Is he living in denial? Is he living in a fantasy world? Anyone can easily see that religion is the law of this house. What can he possibly mean—the man who lives here—when he tells us he is not a religious Christian?Again I ask, ‘Is there enough grace in Christ to enable us to follow Him without religion?’ And of course, the answer is yes, but it’s not that simple. There is enough grace, but most of us, even followers of Jesus, cannot bear the weight of that grace, light though it is. Religion is what it has always been, both a crutch for the weak and the refuge of sinners. But a crutch can become permanent, when no effort is made to walk without it, and a refuge can become a prison as much as a protection. Religion without Christ is crippling, it is a prison. Religion with Christ is a clinic with the Physician in residence. But this is a strange clinic. Those whom the Physician heals do not depart, but they stay and assist in the cure of the other patients, not because they must, but because they want to. Those who claim they are healed, but leave the clinic, what of them?
I don’t know the answer to this. I still say, ‘religion is a sickness,’ and by this I mean the crippling and the imprisoning of souls. I still confess, ‘and Christ is the cure.’ Who else but Him? Though ‘He came unto his own, and his own received him not’ (John 1:11), those who ‘received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God’ (John 1:12). What else can this mean but a religionless Christianity? ‘To walk in the Light, as he is in the light’ (1 John 1:7): this is what awaits us when we follow Jesus. It is what this looks like when it appears that confuses us. But only until we forget what we believed, and only keep what we received.

To have a heart

Abba Pambo said, ‘If you have a heart, you can be saved.’

To have a heart is to love your neighbor, to hold him and every creature with love, tenderly, inside of you, in your will, your prayer. It is the willingness to welcome not only Christ into you, but your brothers for whom He died, as well.

Welcome them into what? into where?
That is the heart. It wasn't there before, not until you began to welcome others with love. At that point, the only Lover of mankind entered into you and built a mansion where both He and the brethren could be brought in and welcomed.

If we have a heart, yes, then we are sure to be saved, for ‘with our brother lies our salvation.’

This is what life in the bridal chamber of the Lord, the Holy Orthodox Church, has taught me, and not by words, but by actions.

You too, brother, have a heart, I know you do, and having one is a risk, it can be broken, but not for long. And the breaking is necessary, so that it can grow larger and larger, becoming in the end a tree in paradise in which the birds of heaven, the souls of the redeemed, can build their nests.

‘Welcome them all as you welcome Me,’ says the Lord, ‘for verily, in them you have welcomed Me’ (cf. Matthew 25:40).

Lost and found

Why do we witness?
Is it to save people from hell and from the wrath of an angry God?

No, only Christ can save people, and hell is the fruit of mankind’s choosing—and the wrath of an angry God? Well, let the scriptures teach men of that, if they will only read.

We witness out of love for the lost, yes, we do, but also with trust in the man-loving God to move the hearts of those who are stuck, to actually create clean hearts in those who have no hearts, or whose hearts are filthy.

Love for the lost is akin to love for our own souls which we have already delivered to the foot of the Throne. We only want to share what has been bestowed on us, knowing that
outside of God, all is nothing.

Yes, we witness out of love for the lost, but only because we are driven to it by knowing what ‘lost’ really means.
‘I once was lost, but now I am found.’

To speak of people ‘going to hell’ is not part of our vocabulary, except to speak in terms of common parlance. Who can utter the words with meaning?

When we hear the mention of ‘hell’ we see the image of the Day of Judgment, whose nature and timing are known alone to God. We see the Lord separating the sheep from the goats. We hear the voice speaking, ‘Whatever you did to the least of these, you did it unto Me’ (cf., Matthew 25:40), and we tremble as we realize that the ‘lost’ we say we love are they for whom Christ died.

Our love becomes the greater. It becomes our life, not just an idea we say we believe in. We sing the song of the redeemed by our witness, and our worship is like that of holy apostle Paul, who writes, ‘the God I worship spiritually by preaching the Good News of His Son…’ (Romans 1:9).

How great is the mercy of God our Savior, the God of Israel, who makes His home among us, in our praises! And what are those praises if not our testimony that ‘God is great!’ not by His mighty power only, but by His condescension, His longsuffering love, His mercy?

And what is our testimony if not our witness, our love for those whom God places next to us, our neighbors? And how can we love those for whom Christ died? By telling them they are lost? That they are going to hell? Or by telling them the Good News that even before they knew they were sinners, Christ gave His life for them, even before they could say ‘in sins, my mother conceived me’ (Psalm 51)?

This is our witness, our testimony, our life, our love, our faith—that ‘Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the worst’ (1 Timothy 1:15).

Mercy and grace

Before all else let us list sincere thanksgiving first on our prayer-card. On the second line we should put confession, and heartfelt contrition of soul. Then let us present our petition to the King of all.

John Klímakos, The Ladder of Divine Ascent, Step 28: 7

Without having read John Klímakos, except in excerpts as presented here (from Aunt Melanie's blog, Repentance and Ascent), my (informal) prayer order matches his exactly. I rarely ‘read’ formal prayers, since my ‘read’ prayer is always the psalms of the day. But without a doubt and almost without exception, my talking to God starts with thanking Him for answering my requests, needs and even wants before, and oft without, my asking. 

Then I reflect on the fact that He is a good and loving God, and incidentally that without His grace I am sinfulness incarnate (but I do not dwell on that, since He knows me through and through, and there’s nothing I can do about my condition, except want His will to be done in me). 

As I wind down and begin to come in for a landing, I will think of those whose need I want to present to Him. He knows I am carrying these persons in the pocket of my heart because He sees the bulge in my chest. 

As I skid onto the run way of my earthly life, I have to thank Him again for granting me a safe landing. I could crash. He knows that I know that. He knows that I know that He knows I know. It, no He, is all mercy, and I am all naked need, and my only response can be thanksgiving. There is no other candle I can bring Him as offering, and no other flame to light it from, except His mercy. 

Yes, mercy, mercy, mercy. Mercy and grace.

Only three years

Sometimes looking back on my life, searching for those moments of real happiness, it seems that the longer I look, the shorter and fewer those times become. Maybe in a lifetime of fifty or sixty years, one might find only five or six years when the memory shows times of pure happiness, and not all connected either, but scattered about. This kind of pondering leads nowhere and belies the fact that one is happy right now, else there could be no leisure for such plundering of the vanished past. What’s more, everything looks and feels different in retrospect. We find that looking back seldom recovers the truth. In this body of sin, memory like everything else doesn’t work right, but always partakes of that fatal flaw that taints everything on this side of the resurrection. But on the other side of the resurrection, it’s a different story, literally.

Thinking back to my own youth, I remember how I spent four years of my life in training to become a traditional furniture maker under an old Norse-American cabinetmaker. This man was thirty-two years my senior, and I was his last apprentice. He grew up on a farm in the borders of Minnesota and North Dakota, one of twelve brothers (there was also one sister). His family was swept up in the pentecostal revivals of the 1920’s and 30’s, and he told me many stories of tent meetings and other experiences in his early life.

I was a new Christian, just having accepted the Lord at the age of twenty-four, and only six months before hiring on at the Sterling Furniture Company in Portland. I had prayed, while still living in Corvallis, to be led to a workplace where there would be at least one other Christian. In very short order, the prayer was answered.

The four years I spent with this elder were hard but happy years. Along with his teaching and example in the crafting of wood, without intending it, he passed on to me the legacy of his life in Christ, and little did he know (or perhaps he was aware) that I followed his every move so as to make it my own, my soul being stamped, like communion bread, with the cross of Christ. I was not a pentecostal, yet there was never a difference between us. Knowing about the ancient faith, he would sometimes say to me, when I had done something that especially pleased him, ‘May the saints bless you!’ For my part, it never occurred to me to think of him and his faith as different from my own. Certainly not. How could I judge him? In my eyes he was perfect, what a Christian man should be. I wanted to emulate him in every way.

Only four years with this man shaped the rest of my life to this very day. And we wonder sometimes, what effect our own lives have on the people around us. To be a Christ-bearer in the world, what possibilities, if only we live in the light of the risen Christ! In only a moment, Christ in us can change the world, forever.

Then, there is the reason behind this all. The reason being the Divine Word, through Whom the world was made, and in Whom we live and move and have our being. Though He is God, He entered into our time and assumed our flesh, living secretly, that is, unknown to the world, just as we live. No one will remember us after we’ve left this world, at least not for long, but the world remembers Him. The world doesn’t remember Him for anything He did in the first thirty years of His earthly life, or at least not much, but for what He did in the last three.

Only three years was all it took for the world to remember Him, and not only to remember Him, but to be changed forever. No other time period in all of human history has had as great and lasting an impact on the rest of time as those three years. Yet, at the time they were happening, very few noticed those years at all, in terms of the world’s population. Only a few thousand people at most, and in a land which, though it has become the center of the world’s attention from time to time, is still just a small spit of rocky soil between empires.

Only three years of one man’s life, and billions of other men’s lives are changed forever, even the lives of those who don’t know Him, who don’t ask themselves the question, ‘Who is that man?’ If that isn’t power, then I don’t know what is, and only one could have that power, the Lord Almighty, who is alive and present with us at this very moment, the risen Christ.