Church as Relationship

Posted on January 9, 2020 by Don Merritt

Church began with relationship, the relationship between Jesus and His disciples. Each of the disciples knew Jesus; in fact they knew Him pretty well, at least in human terms. They spent three years together travelling, eating, talking, laughing, crying and learning; they were close friends. Over time, the disciples came to love and trust Jesus.

We also have relationships with Jesus, although that relationship is somewhat different than the disciples had with Him when He walked the earth. The relationship that we have with Him is of the type the disciples had with Him after Pentecost; it is a spiritual relationship. Yet, we mustn’t allow ourselves to be fooled into thinking that a spiritual relationship is any less personal or intimate than being close friends in the physical realm would be, for the opposite is actually the case.

Most of the posts on this blog deal with our personal relationships with Christ. Some of them are written to encourage you to delve deeper into that relationship, others are written to remind you to spend time with Him, and still others are there as an exhortation not to neglect your relationship… for this is the key relationship in our lives, or at least it should be. Many other blogs I enjoy reading tell the story of their author’s journey in relationship with Jesus… you see, it isn’t just me.

As wonderful as this relationship can be, it brings with it a danger. The danger is that we might forget that Jesus died for all, and not just for me. In those cases, it might seem like John said:

For God so loved me that He gave His one and only Son, that if I believe in Him I will not perish, but have eternal life.

John 3:16 (?)

Isn’t that a nice thought? The only problem is that I have misquoted John.

Our personal relationships with Jesus are wonderful, and yes, it is for you and me to enjoy with Him, but this personal relationship is only a beginning step from which greater and more wonderful things emerge for the benefit of others. Here, I’ll put this another way: I get all I need from my relationship with Jesus, but to be completely honest with you, I get more than I need from my relationship with Jesus, and He gives me the extra to share with others. If I decide to horde that extra for myself, I am just like the servant who buried the talent the Master gave him, and like that servant, I will have much to answer for.

I mentioned in the first of these posts that the Kingdom Jesus preached was a movement. Wherever Jesus went, things happened when He preached the Kingdom. People were healed, they regained their sight, they were made whole again, they were made clean again, and more were drawn to Jesus as a result. In the early church, many of the Apostles experienced the same thing as they preached Jesus to ever larger crowds; the church became a place of salvation, healing, sight, wholeness, cleansing, love, justice and unity as they shared of the excess Jesus had given them in their relationships with Him, and that is what church should be today: A movement that brings with it salvation, healing, wholeness, sight, cleansing, love, justice and unity.

In the past, I have had occasion to study political movements throughout history and in doing so, I noticed a trend; every movement has a catalyst. In a political movement, the catalyst is either an ideal of some sort or a major event, usually a bad one. Every movement also has a method of communicating that catalyst to others. The church has a catalyst, a method, and something extra, for it is powered not by force of arms or human determination, but by an indestructible life- the Holy Spirit. Our catalyst is fairly obvious; it is the Gospel. Our method should also be obvious; we make disciples by sharing what we have received from our Lord in our relationships with Him with others in our relationships with them. All of this is done by the Holy Spirit in and through us. Thus, we can say that the movement that is the Body of Christ is the movement of the Holy Spirit as He works in and through each of us.

You need not be a rocket scientist to see that an institutionalized church can make this difficult to accomplish, particularly in an institutional environment that only wants the “professionals” to share. Likewise, if we have been influenced with a high priority on how we “do church” once we reach the point, as we inevitably will, where “doing church” gets off track or obsolete, we can never recover, for recovery isn’t how we have always done things.

Dear reader, I want to be respectful of your time, and having just checked my word count, I think I’ll beg your indulgence for one more post to wrap up this thought. In the meantime, I hope we can all consider these things… and I’ll see you next time.

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Working in the Fields

Posted on January 9, 2020 by Don Merritt

Ruth 2:1-17

Chapter 2 begins with a statement:

Now Naomi had a relative on her husband’s side, a man of standing from the clan of Elimelek, whose name was Boaz. (2:1)

This verse seems to come out of left field; it interrupts the narrative, yet it is used to set up what will shortly come into the story. His name means in him is strength, and he is a man of standing, meaning that he was mighty in wealth and in godliness, a rare combination.

Ruth asks Naomi if it would be all right if she went out to glean; Naomi consents. Gleaning was something that only the poor and destitute would usually do, and it was very hard work. A large farmer would allow poor and desperate people to follow behind his harvesters and pick up whatever the harvesters missed in the harvest. Sometimes they would leave the corners of a field unharvested so that the poor might have something to eat, and this is what Ruth was asking to do. Notice in verse 2 that Ruth was not approaching this as some kind of an entitlement, but rather that she was hoping to find favor that she might be allowed to do this back-breaking work to keep her mother in law and herself from starving; she was demonstrating in this a level of humility that might seem foreign to us today.

In verse three she heads off. Remember that she is a stranger to this land and would have no idea which farmer owned which field, yet somehow, she finds herself in the field of Boaz.

Coincidence?

While Ruth is toiling, Boaz returns from town and greets his workers, and then asks the boss if he knows who this woman was who was gleaning. Some commentators suggest that Boaz was curious about her because of her great beauty, but if our text has mentioned her being beautiful, I missed it; probably he just didn’t recognize her. The overseer tells him who she was, and from there forward, our text records the kindness Boaz affords Ruth. Boaz, it seems, views Ruth as a part of his extended family and recognizes that he has a responsibility to care for her in some way. Now let’s be clear about that; Boaz has no legal responsibility for Ruth because her husband was dead, and she is free to marry anyone who will have her. In addition, she is a Moabite, and in that case, he would have no responsibility for her at all, yet because of the loyalty that she has shown to Naomi, Boaz goes out of his way to help her.

Notice that Boaz orders his men to leave her alone, that he gives her a seat at the table with the rest of the household (a household in the OT would include the servants) and that he arranges for her to receive considerably more grain than she would have received just from gleaning. Also, please take note of Ruth’s attitude of humility; even now she assumes no rights or entitlements.

These are two very unusual people!

Yesterday, I called Boaz a “man’s man” and here you begin to see what I mean by that. A “man” at least in the old-fashioned sense, was not a grown up child, he was someone with character and integrity who would do the right thing toward others even when it wasn’t convenient or advantageous… but because it was right. He would take care of his own and treat others with respect; I might add that he was a person most notable for his restraint, so to be succinct, Boaz was not working an angle or with any ulterior motive.

By the time she was finished with her work, Ruth carried home about 30 pounds of grain, plus her leftovers from the meal that Boaz had provided her with, an impressive haul to say the least. I have a hunch that Naomi will take notice when she finds out what has taken place…

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The Body of Christ and How we “Do Church”

Posted on January 8, 2020 by Don Merritt

Is church a list of programs, or a set of traditions, ceremonies and pageantry? Does it really matter what style of music you have, or whether or not the preacher (by whatever name) wears robes, a suit or jeans? Is it possible to worship without candles or a certain type of décor? Do we choose a church because of its youth group, its seniors’ ministry or its bowling league?

That is what I mean by how we “do church”.

Ah yes, the most powerful force in the modern church: The way we’ve always done it.

As I pointed out in the last post, church as a movement changes lives for Christ while the church as an institution maintains the status quo.

Many of the things in this category are matters of personal preference. When I am at home, what I may prefer gets some attention, but in the Body of Christ, we have a much higher calling than “self”. Our traditions are usually good; they are often the great ideas of an earlier time, but the real question we should ask is whether or not they still contribute to the building of God’s Kingdom. If they do, that’s great. If they don’t, they are obsolete and out they go.

Programs are all well and good if they help build the Kingdom, but if they don’t, we need to try something else. To put it another way, we may have many excellent ministries that meet the needs of our community and bring healing and hope for many, and this is a very good thing. We also might have ministries that either never connected with the needs of the community, or that no longer reach the needs of the community, and we mustn’t keep them around for old time’s sake, for that is how a movement begins to stagnate and turn into an institution.

No doubt you can think of many other examples of how “the way we’ve always done things” has held our great movement back. I’m reminded of what John wrote:

Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first.  Consider how far you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place.

Revelation 2:4-5

That should be enough to think about for now, next time let’s take a look at relationships.

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Hardship and an Uncertain Future

Posted on January 8, 2020 by Don Merritt

Ruth 1:6-22

We pick up the story in the midst of calamity for Naomi and her two daughters in law. All of their husbands have died and they have no way to earn a living in Moab without them and something must be done− and done quickly. Naomi resolves to return to Bethlehem, since she has heard that the famine has passed and the fields are once again producing in abundance. She announces to Orpah and Ruth that she intends to return home, and urges them to return to their families, in the hope that they will be taken in, but they protest. The text does not tell us exactly why they protested so much; what Naomi has urged upon them makes all the sense in the world; their only chance is to be reunited with their extended families… but will they have them back? Maybe Orpah and Ruth have just become so attached to Naomi that they can’t bear to part and would prefer to take their chances back in Bethlehem, where there are certainly no guarantees that they will be accepted, since they are not Israelites.

Naomi’s thinking is pretty simple; she is too old to marry again, and even if she did she may be past childbearing. Even so, if she could bear more sons, and found a man who would take her as a wife in his old age, Orpah and Ruth can’t wait around for years on end while the sons grew up. No, their only hope would be to return to their families and hope for another chance. Orpah finally sees reason and heads back to her clan, but Ruth, well that is another matter.

For whatever reason, Ruth declares her unyielding intention to stick by Naomi, to worship the God of Israel and to go where ever Naomi goes and to share her fate. Seeing Ruth’s determination, Naomi gives in and lets her travel with Naomi to Bethlehem and an uncertain fate.

What will happen to them when they return? Will the family take Naomi in after all these years of living among the Moabites? Without a doubt, many families would turn their backs on her at this point, particularly with a gentile in tow. When they arrive, the people in Bethlehem are amazed to see them.  Naomi tells the women (for men did not normally speak to unattached women) that they should call her Mara from now on, which means bitter, for God had turned against her.

Interesting isn’t it? From Naomi, which means amiable or pleasant, to Mara which means bitter because of all the family calamity she had suffered. The chapter ends with the notice that they had arrived just as the barley harvest was beginning.

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Church as an Institution

Posted on January 7, 2020 by Don Merritt

Note:  As I promised yesterday, we begin our look at Christ and religion today with a short series of posts from several years ago as an introduction. This is the first in that short series…

 

Since I am in one of those periods in between series of posts, there is something I’ve been thinking about writing, that doesn’t exactly fit neatly into a study of a particular book of the Bible, yet they all seem to have passages that come back to my topic in one way or another. The topic I feel compelled to write about really goes to the very nature of what “church” is all about, and as a result, it goes to the very heart of following Christ. It really boils down to this: What exactly is “church”?

As I thought about it, I came to realize that there are three things I want to address briefly in this discussion, so I’ll break this into three posts, the first of which will talk about Church as an Institution, the second about “Doing” Church, and the third about relationships and community.

This is by no means an exhaustive study; it’s some thoughts. It is not a theological discussion; just some observations… got it?

Is the church an institution? Before you answer, I mean the New Testament church that we see in Scripture as it exists today, you know, the Body of Christ, the Kingdom of Heaven… is it an institution?

Let’s see, an institution might have a CEO and a board of directors, some vice presidents of this and that, regional supervisors who oversee some district managers who oversee some store managers, who oversee assistant managers who deal with employees and the public. There might be annual shareholder meetings, a headquarters, a headquarters staff, and a policy manual. Without question there will be financial reports, traffic counts, an advertising budget and a certain way of doing things. Of course, everything would be subject to the directives that come from the legal department…

Is this what the Body of Christ is? Is this what “The Church” really is?

No, of course not, for I didn’t use the right job titles.

If I had used the right job titles, would you agree that is an accurate description of the Kingdom of Heaven? Is that what Jesus was talking about?

I doubt it. It might describe a denominational structure, however, but a denomination is not “The Church”. To be fair, this is not to say that there is anything wrong with a denominational structure, nor is it to say that denominations might not be doing great work, but any given denomination in and of itself is hardly the point: The high officials of any denomination would surely be the first to point this out, don’t you think?

The church of our Lord is so much more significant than an organization made by men, so much more than a building or a name or a procedure manual; it is the very purpose of God in action. Yet, in this world, such an organization might well prove to be expedient; a useful tool: Fine and dandy.

Yet no denomination or brotherhood of believers that I have ever heard of has any legitimate reason to claim to be the only group of Christ-followers. The church is so much more than that.

Of course, you are free to disagree, but in my view, we must train ourselves to stop thinking of church as some kind of an institution, for the reality is that church is not an institution at all− it is movement. When our Lord went through the countryside preaching the Kingdom, He spoke Truth to the people; He healed the sick, gave sight to the blind, made the lame walk and drove out demons. The word of what was happening spread like wildfire and the crowds became larger and larger. People came from miles around to hear the Truth, to be healed, to gain sight, to walk, and to be spiritually cleansed; it was a movement that even the authorities could not stop. After His resurrection, He passed the mantle to His disciples, and they did the same, even under persecution, and the movement grew, precisely because it was God’s purpose in action to save humanity from sin and death.

We might wonder why we don’t see such a movement today, a movement that changes hearts and minds for Christ, and that is a fair question for us to ask. The answer I propose is this: Movements change hearts and minds, the movement, the Way, that was the church, changed hearts and minds for Christ until, like all other movements, it stagnated and became an institution that must maintain the status quo.

This is why we need a whole new way of thinking about church today; we must begin to see that church is not an institution, but a movement, a movement that changes lives for Christ.

Next time let’s get back together and talk a bit about another one of our attitudes that might need a little work…

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Ruth and Boaz, a Story for all Time

Posted on January 7, 2020 by Don Merritt

Are you ready for a little adventure? Good, so am I!

The Old Testament book of Ruth is often used as a women’s Bible study, and I can see why when it shows the amazing faith of a young widow named Ruth. Yet, I think it is even better as a study for men, since the male lead is a real man’s man: Boaz. Both characters show what faith looks like in action, both main characters demonstrate godly humility, devotion and service, and as I see it, the take away from the story is one that each one of us can learn from. What does a godly woman look like? Take a look at Ruth.  What does a godly man look like? Take a look at Boaz… and guess what guys; Boaz didn’t have to turn in his “man card” to faithfully follow God.

Ruth 1:1-5

The story begins in the days of the Judges, when God was the only King in Israel. While the text doesn’t say which one of the judges was in office at the time, scholars tend to think that it must have been early in that period, since our text does not say “when there was no king” (Ruth 1:1). In any case, it seems that there was a famine in the land that should have been flowing with milk and honey.

It is important for us to bear in mind that famines were not supposed to happen, and that if one did occur, there were more problems in the land than just a famine. In the Law, God linked His statutes with blessings and curses; there would be blessings when the people obeyed the Law, curses when they did not, and one of those curses was famine (Lev. 26:19). That there was a famine in the land is indicative of disobedience afoot. It would seem that the situation became so bad that people were leaving Bethlehem, headed for more favorable areas where they could find food.

In our story, we find a man named Elimelech, his wife Naomi and their sons Mahlon and Kilion. As most of you know, it is always a good idea to find out what Bible names mean, and this is especially true in the Old Testament, so let’s see…  Elimelech means my God a King, Naomi means amiable or pleasant, and their sons’ names mean sickness and consumption. Perhaps the boys were sickly children, unlikely to live long lives; certainly, if I wanted to go “old school” with you, I’d say that the lesson is that out of an amiable and pleasant life comes sickness and consumption (the old name for tuberculosis) but when do I ever go “old school” here?

Off they go to Moab, the land of the Moabites just across the Jordan River, which isn’t really very far from Bethlehem, at least in terms of highway miles. Even so, it must have been night and day when it comes to the availability of food. Understand that for a Jew to leave the Promised Land to live among the gentile Moabites was a very big deal, and this family must have been very desperate to do this.

The family lived in Moab for 10 years. During this time, Elimelech died, and then the two sons married local Moabite women, and in turn each of the sons died leaving Naomi alone with her two daughters in law. No reasons are given for the deaths of the men, but one thing is very clear: These events were disastrous.  For a woman, or three women, to be left alone in the world without a man or an extended family in those days meant that one of three things would very shortly happen: The woman would find a man to marry, she would become a prostitute, or she would starve. Thus Naomi, Orpah and Ruth were in very deep trouble as our passage draws to a close. What will they do?

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Coming Up Next on TLP

Posted on January 6, 2020 by Don Merritt

We have finished 2019, and here on TLP we’ve completed our study of Matthew, so it’s time for all things to be more or less new here…

My plan goes something like this:

Since it’s been quite some time since I’ve posted a study from the Old Testament, let’s take a tour through the Book of Ruth, a magnificent adventure of courage, resilience and of decency and righteousness in action.

That will be my first post of the day Tuesday through Friday.

For my second post there is something I’ve been wanting to do for a rather long time now, and in a way, I’ve posted all around the subject without actually hitting it head on. Believe it or not, one of the reasons I’ve never done it before is that I can’t seem to come up with a name for the topic, at least not without “borrowing” one. The best I’ve managed to come up with is “Christ Versus Religion” but I really don’t want to use it… for two reasons. First, it’s the name of a book I read several decades ago, so it isn’t mine anyway. Second is that the title would probably put people off since it kind of sounds like I’ll be setting off on a rampage to insult everyone, which is very far from the truth.

Yet, it is a very accurate description of Jesus and His relationship with the religious authorities of His day: They we so much at odds that they just simply had to kill Him.

I guess the real point of the series will be to answer this question: Is following Christ the same thing as being “religious” (whatever that means).

Many of you know that a little over 2 years ago I was brought into a struggling church to try to revitalize its people. In my mind, I allowed the group 2 years to begin to show progress forward in their faith, for they were in the process of dying spiritually. There was progress over that time… BUT.

The Leadership of the group saw change as repeating the same things they had always done, but with a new result.

You’ve probably heard of churches firing their Pastors, but in this case, the Pastor fired the church, recommending that they lock their doors permanently, for the good of the Kingdom. Yes, I’ll be telling you about this adventure, names and places changed for discretion’s sake of course. Mostly, we’ll search the Scriptures to find out about the nature of things- the nature of worship, of church, of relationship, of tradition, custom and spiritual practice.

I think this will be quite a ride for all of us.

Are we going to be bashing, name calling or finger pointing…?

Come on, we’ve been here for quite a number of years now- have I ever done that?

Everyone is welcome, everyone is safe, and hopefully, everyone will have something to think about: What you decide about it is entirely up to you.

So, our new adventure begins tomorrow in my second post at 11:30 Eastern time (US). I’ll begin with a short series on the institutional church that I posted here about 5 years ago, see you then!

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Here We Go…

Posted on January 6, 2020 by Don Merritt

It’s a brand new year; what will we do with it?

The slate for this new year is clean.  Maybe I should switch metaphors right now and say the canvas is empty and ready to be painted-  what will we paint?  I think the picture we paint this year should be one that shows us working to build the Body of Christ.  That will be a picture that shows God at work through us, one in which the lives of people around us are changed by God working in their lives, a picture in which old relationships are repaired, new relationships are formed and in which God’s glory shines above and throughout the entire scene. In this great canvas there will be no selfishness, there will be no loneliness; only a community of faith with God working in and through all of His people.  This will be a scene that shows God’s people living with purpose, in unity and in that certain hope of eternal life.

So, grab your brush and let’s get started!  Let’s encourage one another, empower one another and be willing to step up and lead.  Let’s not be so concerned with the past, its failures and slip-ups.  Rather, let’s press on for the goal that our Lord has set before us, the goal for which we all strive, and that is that on the great day when we meet our Savior face to face, that we hear the words our souls long to hear, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

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All the Best to You and Yours

Posted on January 1, 2020 by Don Merritt

I’ll be taking the rest of this week off from blogging, but before I go I just wanted to take a moment to wish all of you a blessed and joyous New Year.

Can you believe it’s 2020? Seems like Y2K was just last week with all of those silly dire predictions of doom… Yes, it’s pretty funny looking back.

Anyway, all the best to you in the coming year, may it be your best ever, and I’ll see you bright and early Monday morning.

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The Torch is Passed

Posted on December 31, 2019 by Don Merritt

 

So much has been written, taught and debated concerning these few verses; I have done all of the above myself. For the purposes of this study of Matthew, I think it best to approach this strictly within its context in Matthew’s narrative.

Throughout his narrative, Matthew has been very careful to demonstrate Jesus as proclaiming the Kingdom. He shows Jesus’ proclamation, he shows Jesus teaching what it means to be a citizen of the Kingdom, and then Jesus going out and demonstrating the power of the Kingdom. After that, Matthew shows how Jesus shifts His emphasis to revealing to the disciples just who He was, and what His mission was so that they might come to understand the means by which His Kingdom would be established. All of this was done for the purpose of preparing the disciples to carry on the Kingdom work of Jesus.

At this point in Matthew’s narrative, Jesus has completed His messianic mission precisely according to plan. The redemptive work has been completed so that humans might receive God’s grace and enter this new Kingdom relationship. Thus, the risen Lord is now passing the Kingdom torch to the disciples and from here on, it will be up to them to proclaim the Kingdom and make disciples as Jesus had done with them.

They have graduated from disciple, to makers of disciples.

Luke tells us that after this Jesus told the disciples to return to Jerusalem and wait for the Holy Spirit to come upon them, and of course we know that this took place a short time later at Pentecost, where the Kingdom kicked off with the disciples, now Apostles in the vanguard. We also know that the Holy Spirit comes upon each one of us when we receive Christ and rise from the waters of baptism, and thus, the torch passes down through all generations until Jesus returns.

I think it is fair to say that this is the legacy of love, for God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that none should perish but have eternal life. Jesus accepted this mission willingly, and so He willingly sacrificed Himself in the greatest single act of love ever recorded. After that, He commissioned His followers to share that love by making disciples, and in our time, the greatest act of love that we could possibly undertake, is to join in the sharing of His love by making disciples who, in turn, share that love.

And so, Matthew’s narrative has come to its conclusion, and the rest is in our hands: Will we pass that torch on, or will we take an easier road through this life?

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