The Gospel Union: Moving the ball upfield

Thursday, April 14, 2005

Moving the ball upfield

I’m not a big sports fan, but as Paul was fond of using analogies from the popular sports of his day, so it might be helpful for us to use them as well. Let me suggest that if our individual Christianity is a lot like running a race, I think our Christian relationships are a lot like moving the ball upfield in football (or rugby, for you European readers).

How so?

In football, the team on offense is trying to move the ball in one direction, toward the goal line, while the opposing team is doing what they can to stop or impede progress. In our Christian relationships, we have a duty to mutually edify one another in love. Isn't this like moving each person a little closer to the finish line? Shouldn't we try to leave each person we meet in a better place than we found them, spiritually speaking? Shouldn't we also likewise try to avoid "sidelining" someone who is sincere in his desire to get to the goal line?

Please don't confuse this with the soft-pedaled pop-Christian notion of "accepting people where they are." It is one thing to accept a person where he is, it is another to help him forward from where he is. God knows we all need some help forward from where we are, or God wouldn't have ordained this idea of the entire body, from the least to the greatest, mutually edifying itself in love.

Every sincere believer in our Lord Jesus Christ has something to offer in the way of edifying the body. The knowledgeable can share their knowledge, the compassionate their compassion, the loving their love, the zealous their zeal. Let's strive to make every word and every deed advantageous to moving the ball upfield as we seek each other's well being in the grace of God.

It is true that this analogy breaks down at some point, however. After all, some people haven't even found the playing field yet. And we just can't pick someone up and put him where we want him to be, in the time frame we want him to be there. Fortunately, we can't kick him upfield either. But Christians would never try that, right?

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Choice scriptures:

Romans 15:1-7 - "We who are strong ought to bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves. Each of us should please his neighbor for his good, to build him up...May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you a spirit of unity among yourselves as you follow Christ Jesus, so that with one heart and mouth you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God."
(NIV)

2 Thessalonians 3:1 - "Finally, brothers, pray for us that the message of the Lord may spread rapidly and be honored, just as it was with you."
(NIV)

Romans 1:16 - "I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile."
(NIV)

John 17:20-21 - "My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me."
(NIV)

Choice quotes:

Alexander Campbell - "We will not hearken to those questions which gender strife, nor discuss them at all. If a person says such is his private opinion, let him have it as his private opinion; but lay no stress upon it; and if it be a wrong private opinion, it will die a natural death much sooner than if you attempt to kill it."

Alexander Campbell - "But men cannot give up their opinions, and therefore, they can never unite, says one. We do not ask them to give up their opinions--we ask them only not to impose them upon others. Let them hold their opinions, but let them hold them as private property. The faith is public property; opinions are, and always have been private property. Men have foolishly attempted to make the deductions of some great minds the common measure of all Christians. Hence the deductions of a Luther, and a Calvin, and a Wesley, have been the rule and measure of all who coalesce under the names of these leaders. It is cruel to excommunicate a man because of the imbecility of his intellect."

Alexander Campbell - "Dear sir, this plan of making our own nest, and fluttering over our own brood; of building our own tent, and of confining all goodness and grace to our noble selves and the "elect few" who are like us, is the quintessence of sublimated pharisaism. The old Pharisees were but babes in comparison to the modern: and the longer I live, and the more I reflect upon God and man--heaven and earth--the Bible and the world--the Redeemer and his church--the more I am assured that all sectarianism is the offspring of hell; and that all differences about words, and names, and opinions, hatched in Egypt, or Rome, or Edinburgh, are like the frolics of drunken men; and that where there is a new creature, or a society of them, with all their imperfections and frailties, and errors in sentiment, in views, and opinions, they ought to receive one another, and the strong to support the weak, and not to please themselves. To lock ourselves up in the bandbox of our own little circle; to associate with a few units, tens, or hundreds, as the pure church, as the elect, is real Protestant monkery, it is evangelical pharisaism."

Alexander Campbell - "I have tried the pharisaic plan, and the monastic. I was once so straight, that, like the Indian's tree, I leaned a little the other way. And however much I may be slandered now as seeking "popularity" or a popular course, I have to rejoice that to my own satisfaction, as well as to others, I proved that truth, and not popularity, was my object; for I was once so strict a Separatist that I would neither pray nor sing praises with any one who was not as perfect as I supposed myself. In this most unpopular course I persisted until I discovered the mistake, and saw that on the principle embraced in my conduct, there never could be a congregation or church upon the earth."

Alexander Campbell - "I have no idea of adding to the catalogue of new sects. I labor to see sectarianism abolished and all Christians of every name united upon the one foundation upon which the apostolic church was founded."

The Gospel Union

Thursday, April 14, 2005

Moving the ball upfield

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