Questions and Answers

 

As Christians, what should we be concerned with?

Q. I recently went to a conference to hear a Christian speaker.  It was interesting.  He was talking about what was happening in the world. 

I walked away thinking and praying - Lord, what do you want me to do?  Am I supposed to spend more time praying about America, about Israel, and the nations?  If so, what should I be praying? What should I be doing?

A. In the New Testament you don't see a focus in prayer and ministry that's so broad.  It is much simpler and more profitable to stay restricted by what we know God is after.  We know that God desires to build up the church as the testimony and expression of Christ.

 

This is a practical, local work.  I don't fully understand what's happening in the nations, but I know that I am in St. Louis.  God has chosen for me to stand here, and I know that He desires a testimony here. If I keep myself limited to what I know, I will not be tossed about wondering what to do.

 

 

What does it mean "to stand" for the Lord?

Q. I hear what you're saying. I do agree that it is simpler to do what you know and continue to stand for the Lord in this location and do what He is leading you to do, no question there. But what does "stand" mean?

 

A. I don't consider myself to be doing something.  However I do consider myself to be standing.  I am just standing here.  Yet in my view my stand is my testimony. 

 

People see me year after year. and what am I doing?  Not much, seemingly. But inside I'm going through all kinds of things with the Lord.   He continues to operate in me to make me whatever He wants me to be.   Meanwhile, I just continue to stand here, and there are people who know what I believe and who I am in the Lord.   It's like a lamp stand with the light.  It just stands there but people know what it is. 

 

 

What about God's plan for the individual?

Q. I appreciate what you're saying. But I struggle with this the idea that we are to do nothing. It is hard for me to digest the idea that we simply let God operate on us and we do absolutely nothing (just stand there).

What about the idea that God has a plan for you as an individual?  My pastor talks about God having a plan for me to fulfill and good works to walk in as an individual.  I feel inspired by the messages but I also worry that I'm not doing what I'm supposed to be doing.

I enjoy reading books that you gave me about the Church and enjoying Christ.  However it also seems like they're saying we're not supposed to actually do anything but enjoy God's grace.  Where do the good works in books like Ephesians fall into all this?  It seems like you could fall into a passive pattern of thinking that  "whatever will, be will be".  How do you avoid being passive and thinking that you don't have any spiritual responsibility to do anything because God is in control?

A. In Paul's New Testament letters, do you get the sense that Paul is writing to an individual, or to a group of people? 

 

Those messages were given, not to individuals, but to groups of people (churches) who already had a very active situation.   They speak to a situation that is not passive, but very busy and full of activity. However, it is not the activity centered on an individual's goals to achieve something for God.  The goal is the goal for the group, which is God's family. All the activity is about taking care of that family. 

 

This may sound strange to our  "Western ears".  However, many cultures are very family centered. The whole family, including all the aunts, uncles, cousins, brothers and sisters, grandparents and grandchildren, stick together.  They run businesses and do various things, but these also are for the family.

 

In a healthy family, the concern is to ensure that everyone is taken care of.  Everyone needs to be comforted in heart, knit together in love, and established in the identity of the family.  In the Church, this family identity is Christ.

 

So when I say I am standing, I am standing not alone, but with a group of people. While it often seems like we're not "doing anything", there is in fact very much activity.  We just don't think of it in terms of "doing something" or even "doing good works."  We are doing what the situation calls for.   This is all very natural. 

 

This is the context for the good works described in the New Testament.  The good works should be just a natural part of the living of this family as it struggles to stay together.   It is in this practical family aspect of the church life that you have transformation.  It is here that we have to bear one another in love and deny ourselves.  The goal is not to "do something" or "be something" but to keep everyone together in a healthy atmosphere of love.

 

In the natural world, sometimes a family is dysfunctional or has a lot of problems.  Then the members of the family feel the need to find meaning outside of the family. This is individualism.  Western culture is very individualistic.  We feel very strange about this concept of family.

 

Western Christianity is also full of a kind of spiritual individualism and the church life described in the New Testament also seems strange to us.  In Christianity there are a lot of people, but so many are standing as individuals to hear a message that is tailored primarily to the individual.  It sounds right.  It sounds just like the Bible.  But it is actually out of context.

 

It has been said the highest revelation of the church is the lamp stands in revelation which are the local churches.  Those churches had all kinds of different situations, some positive and some negative.  But this didn't change what they were. The lampstands were the practical expression of the church on the earth.  Any concept of good works that does not does not include this practical context is theoretical and not applicable.

 

The Church is where the genuine spiritual "function" comes out. It might not look very impressive to the outsider or even to the insider. Yet it is full of God's operation, and is according to His economy (His household arrangement through which takes care of His family through the operation of all the members.)  This builds up the Body and produces His testimony on the earth.

 

 

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