Category: Books / Videos

Biblical Church by Beresford Job has become one of my favorite books and is highly recommended. This is the second excerpt from the book. The excerpt is a bit longer than my usual posts but I hope you take the time to read it. You can read the first excerpt here.

No! This is not about ‘perfect’ churches. It is rather about something as attainable as any other aspect of obedience to scripture, and that is bringing biblical churches into being.

But neither is it about advocating churches without problems. That would be as ridiculous as any notion of having ‘perfect’ ones. In a sinful world, and given that churches both exist in that world and are precisely comprised of redeemed sinners, problems are actually one of the things you can positively count on. So no, it’s not about being problem-free either! In fact, as someone who has practised church life as advocated in this book for three decades, the author can testify with some conviction that, as part of such a church, you will very possibly have more problems than you would in an unbiblical one. Yet what you can be assured of is that you will at least then be experiencing the problems you are meant to have, and which result from being true to scripture, rather than, as with unbiblical churches, having to give such considerable time and effort to dealing with problems and difficulties that arise precisely because of not being biblical; problems and difficulties which are, therefore, actually entirely unnecessary and completely avoidable. Just imagine never again having to give the slightest thought, or money, to buildings and infra-structure. Consider never having to give time or effort to the process of choosing your next Minister or Pastor, or giving thought to how much the church is going to have to pay him. Revel with me in the sheer delight and freedom of not having to bother with keeping up with what the ‘big cheeses’ higher up the church hierarchy are getting up to, or what they are expecting of you. Savour too the joy of being able to put family life first, and of being part of a church setup which positively encourages and enables the families in it to do just that.

The problems which do emerge though, and emerge they will, are those of significant ongoing relationships. How we love and serve one another, and how we grow in the Lord together! But of course those are the precisely the problems we are meant to have. They are the ones which sanctify us, which bring us into that ‘death to self’ we so desperately need to experience. They bring us to our knees, and therefore more and more in line with the teaching of scripture, and the knowledge and experience of Jesus living his life in and through us. It is hard; yes! And sometimes it is harder than you think you are able to bear; but it is life! It is real life and it is real discipleship! Through it we are able to share the sufferings of Jesus, become like him in His death and resurrection and, as a result, grow in grace, love and truth.

There is another misapprehension that needs to be addressed here, and it is any idea that I am contending that if only we get church structure right, if only we set up churches which function and operate according to the blueprint found in the New Testament, then all will be well. However, not only am I not contending that, I do not in any way believe it to be the case. It is perfectly possible for a group of believers to get together and form a church which observes the structure this book outlines down to the smallest detail. They could meet in absolute accordance with the format I am arguing for and they could go through the checklist and tick every box in my ‘irreducible minimum’ chapter, and then some. Yet they could nevertheless be cold, unloving, and virtually without anything of the grace and power of the Lord amongst them. Indeed, they could constitute quite the most unpleasant church on the face of the earth.

The issue, ultimately, is not that of just getting structure and format right at all. It is much deeper and far more profound than that. It is understanding that the structure and format is only as it is in scripture in order to enable and encourage something else entirely; the sharing of the life of Jesus together. Although the Lord used the picture in a slightly different context, we are nevertheless talking about the difference between wine and wineskins. It is not the wineskin which ultimately matters, but the wine which it contains. Yet if the wineskin is not the right sort, then as Jesus taught, the wine will escape and you are left with nothing but an empty wineskin. And whereas it is certainly the case that you could have a wineskin of the right shape and size, but with little or no actual wine in it, representing a spiritually dead and, therefore, useless and unpleasant biblical church; nevertheless, having an unbiblical church which is alive in the Lord though obviously much better than having a dead biblical one is still an ultimate compromise because it can just never fully experience what the Lord wants for it; or rather, for those individual believers who together comprise it. Precisely because it is an ultimately passive experience for the vast majority of believers in it, an unbiblical church can never fully hold the wine of the life of Jesus in the way an alive, biblical one can. The wine is what really matters and not the wineskin. Absolutely! Yet if the wineskin is wrong, then our experience of the wine will always be severely compromised and limited.

Think of it like hands and gloves. If we liken a church to a glove, then Jesus is the hand that goes inside it. Without the hand inside it is, of course, a dead thing; but when the hand is in it there is both life and movement. The glove then truly becomes that which the hand is lives and moves through. The issue then arises concerning the design of the glove. What, exactly, should it look like? What shape should it be? And of course the answer is that it should be the appropriate and correct shape for a hand to fit into it. The more correct and appropriate the shape of the glove, the more freedom of movement afforded to the hand inside the glove.

Unbiblical churches, because they are not based on the design and blueprint found in the New Testament, are like a glove that has, for example, two fingers and one thumb. Or maybe eight fingers and three thumbs. Whereas the hand can get in the glove, nevertheless, because the glove is the wrong shape for the hand to fit into properly, the movement of the hand inside the glove is compromised in varying and major ways. The life coming from the hand is truly there, but heavily restricted in what it can do.

As So what about biblical churches in this regard then? Well, what we can say with absolute certainly is that they are, at the very least, the right ‘shape’. They are the perfect design for the life that wants to fit inside them. Remaining with our picture we can say that they do indeed have the requisite four fingers and one thumb, and the hand can therefore fit inside with very little problem. However, even this is not sufficient on its own, and the reason I am making clear that you can have a spiritually lifeless and completely unappealing biblical church. Vital though it is to have the correct structure and format of church life, it is not of itself anything like enough. A glove, whilst being completely the correct shape, could nevertheless still be made of silk, or cast iron. It could be correct in ‘shape’ – that is, in structure and format – yet hard, unyielding and immoveable. You could quite easily have a group of believers who gather together on the basis of a mutual and completely correct understanding of what the Bible teaches about church structure and format, but who are, both as individuals and as a corporate church, nevertheless still completely missing the point: and that is the life, power and presence of Jesus lived out amongst them. If we were to take a certain amount of liberty with the well known saying about ‘an iron fist in a velvet glove’, then we might say that such a church, though fully biblical in its structure and format, would nevertheless be the equivalent of the velvet touch of the hand of the life of Jesus being pretty much completely constricted inside a hard and unyielding iron glove.

So let it be properly understood just what is, and is not, being said in this regard. If someone asked me what is best, a loving and spiritually alive unbiblical church, or a harsh, unloving, legalistically driven biblical one, I would unhesitatingly reply that it is the former. Yet that thinking is, ultimately, a false dichotomy. Why be limited to merely choosing between two such things when we can simply look to the Lord to enable us to form into loving, spiritually alive biblical churches? You might as well ask me whether I think you would do best to marry an unbeliever who is brilliant with children, or a believer who is not and who can’t stand them. My reply would be simple: Why not just trust the Lord and go all out for a spouse who loves the Lord and children, and who is good with them?

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I’m currently reading, Biblical Church by Beresford Job and came across this gem I wanted to share. I added a second excerpt from the book and you can read it here.

This is radical stuff! I don’t, however, mean in the sense of how the word gets used to describe something as being new or different, but rather its more accurate meaning of going to the root of a thing. When Jesus told the religious leaders of the day that the axe was being laid to the root of the tree, he meant that their fundamental problem, their plight at the foundational level, was the belief they held that they were right with God, and therefore Heaven-bound, simply by virtue of being Jews. However, believing what they did virtually guaranteed that they would reject their very own Messiah and end up with the opposite. Jesus confronted the root causes and, therefore, got right to the heart of the matter. It is also what we must do regarding the issue of church life.

It is, however, going to be somewhat of a rough ride. Whenever Christian thinking and practice is challenged at a fundamental level, church history sadly demonstrates that those believers who are unwilling to honestly look at whatever is being addressed will rather just seek to attack, vilify and discredit those doing the challenging. And of course this must not just be put down purely to failures of approach, lack of wisdom or graciousness, or anything else for that matter, on the part of the dissenters. Those issuing the challenge may, or may not, present their case well. They may, or may not, raise the necessary issues lovingly and humbly. Anyone swimming against the tide of Christian opinion does indeed need to greatly attend to the importance of so doing in a Christ-like manner and gracious spirit: but the truth of the matter is that there nevertheless does seem to be a principle at work in Christian history whereby believers in the last reformatory move of God strenuously resist those in any current such move quite irrespective of other factors.

The Reformation is itself a case in point, although one does need to bear in mind that those who did the resisting in that particular instance weren’t actually believers. However, the principle remains the same. So-called ‘Christian’ thinking was challenged at a fundamental level, the issue then being the very nature of salvation, and of course all hell soon broke loose against the challengers from those who wanted the existing status quo to prevail. Far more pertinent to us here, though, is that even the Reformers, who were undoubtedly genuine believers, persecuted other genuine Christians whose only crime was to want to go even further in the implementation of newly recovered biblical truth. The Anabaptists, for instance, taught that the baptism of infants was wrong and that only believers should be baptized. They further maintained that there should be a separation between church and state, and purity not just of doctrine, but of practice as well. In short, they wanted to live in accordance with the teaching of the New Testament somewhat more comprehensively than did the Reformers who, having understood that salvation is through faith in Jesus alone, were happy to leave things there and not go much further.

Another example would be the advent of Pentecostalism at the turn of the last century and the retrieval of the experience of the baptism with the Holy Spirit and the miraculous spiritual gifts. Again, Christian thinking was challenged at a fundamental level and, once more, all hell broke loose against genuine believers at the hands of other genuine believers who saw them as nothing more than dangerous tongues-speaking maniacs and deceivers. But now, keeping the strands of church history in dynamic motion, there are those of us who are saying that it is time to move on to the next area of biblical truth that has been lost and ignored down the ages: church practice! Acknowledging with great gratitude how the Reformers regained the truth of salvation (whilst mourning their treatment of those who wanted to go further), and how the Pentecostals rediscovered the power and ministry of the Holy Spirit, the cry is now going up that we need to go full circle and put in place what may well be the last piece of the Reformatory jigsaw puzzle: biblical church practice!

However, those who labor to teach and implement such truths and practices, far from being heralded as ‘prophets at the cutting edge of what the Holy Spirit is doing’, are rather more likely to be seen as subversive and divisive troublemakers of the first order. At the very least and I thank God that here in the West in the 21st Century we live in reasonably civilized times where public executions at the behest of established church authorities, such as befell the Anabaptists at the hands of the Reformers, cannot happen-we will be badly spoken of and rejected as being undesirable, weird, or even a new and dangerous cult. Even in the most promising of scenarios where brothers and sisters do take us seriously, we are nevertheless still going to be bombarded with both strident and deeply felt objections to what we are saying. However, this should not be seen as a negative problem, but rather something we should positively welcome. It isn’t easy, of course, but any opportunity to get this issue on the agenda with Christians must be considered a bonus.

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I certainly want to honor Larry and LaVerne Kreider as they have been modeling small relational gatherings since the early 1970’s. They have gained a wealth of experience over that time. The excerpt below is from Larry’s book, Micro Church Networks, published in 2020. The section below is about becoming effective spiritual fathers and mothers, something we desperately need today.

Before we can be effective spiritual fathers or mothers and see our posterity emerge, we must first check our motives. Spiritual parenting is a “behind the scenes” task. Probably no one will pat us on the back and say, “What a good job you are doing: keep up the good work.” Why? Because being a father or mother is not something we do, as much as it is something we are. I do not have to tell people that I am a father. They know it when they see my son and daughters.

Scripture warns us about giving ourselves an impressive title in an effort to gain the honor and respect of others: “Do not call anyone on earth your father; for One is your Father, He who is in heaven…but he who is greatest among you shall be your servant” (Matthew 23:9,11). A spiritual father or mother is not a title or position. It is a role of servanthood. A spiritual parent who is a small group leader or a micro church leader is always a servant first. No one can ever take the place of our heavenly Father. Spiritual fathers and mothers point their spiritual children to their heavenly Father.

Paul, the apostle, called himself a father several times in scripture, but he uses the word “father” to denote “not authority, but affection: therefore he calls them not his obliged, but his beloved, sons” (see 1 Corinthians 4:14). The measure of greatness of a spiritual parent is one’s level of servanthood and love, not one’s position.

Spiritual fathers and mothers could also be called mentors. The term mentor comes from a story in Greek mythology in which Odysseus asked his friend, Mentor, to look after his son while he went on a long journey. A spiritual mentor recognizes that people need to be developed through a caring and empathetic approach.

My favorite definition of a spiritual parent is this: A spiritual father or mother helps a spiritual son or daughter reach his or her God-given potential. It is that uncomplicated and yet profound. Bobb Biehl says it this way: “Mentoring is more about ‘how can I help you?’ than ‘what should I teach you?””

So how does a young man or woman become a spiritual parent? The only way is to have children-then be committed to helping them. This happens either by spiritual adoption (becoming a spiritual father or mother to someone who is already a believer but needs to be discipled) or by spiritual natural birth (becoming a spiritual father or mother to someone you have personally led to Christ). Paul became a spiritual father to Onesimus through “natural birth,” leading him to Christ when he was in prison (Philemon 10). Paul became a spiritual father to Timothy through “adoption” after meeting him in Ephesus (Acts 16:1-4).

The micro church and small group provide ideal opportunities for everyone to experience a spiritual family and eventually become spiritual parents themselves. When micro churches and small groups multiply, new spiritual parents have the opportunity to take responsibility and start a new spiritual family (micro church or small group) themselves.

A sweeping revival is just around the corner. God’s people need to be alert to accommodate the great harvest this will bring into the kingdom of God. Spiritual parents will need to be ready to obey His call and take these young Christians under their wings. God has called us to be spiritual parents. The Lord wants to give us a spiritual legacy. We may not feel ready; in fact, we may feel unprepared. Nevertheless, God’s call remains on our lives.

Although for the past 1,700 years much of the church of Jesus Christ has strayed from the truth of relational restoration between fathers and sons, the Lord is breathing a fresh word to His people. Rather than putting the focus on meetings and buildings which promote programs to encourage the spiritual growth of believers, He is calling us back to being His family and returning to the New Testament truth of building families.

Many believers are meeting house to house in small groups throughout the world because the Lord is restoring this sense of family to the body of Christ. Christians are again beginning to relive the book of Acts. They are seeing the importance of empowering and parenting the next generation.

Jesus wants His church to be restored to the New Testament pattern of family life. He ministered to the multitudes but focused on a few. These disciples changed the world!

True spiritual fathering and mothering was modeled by Jesus when he chose and trained his twelve disciples. Spiritual fathering and mothering and making disciples is basically one and the same. But when we understand spiritual fathering and mothering, we care about the persons we are mentoring while training them to make disciples at the same time. Persons we disciple are not our projects. They are people we love deeply and desire to see grow into their God-given destiny.

I believe the Lord is preparing to pour out His Spirit and bring revival to the church in these last days. The new wineskins, or church structures, of the early church were simple: people met from house to house. I believe our Lord’s strategy to prepare for the harvest is still the same-He wants to use common ordinary believers who have encountered an extraordinary God to meet together as spiritual families from house to house to disciple, train and prepare for the harvest.

Many Christians today are thirsting for this great influx of new wine-new believers pouring into His kingdom. God is placing a desire within spiritual fathers and mothers to welcome these believers into the kingdom and then train them as spiritual sons and daughters. Small groups of believers meeting together provide an ideal structure for this. The micro church is meant to be a spiritual family with the leaders and other spiritual moms and dads in the group taking responsibility to train the spiritual children. Micro churches produce mature Christians in a family-like setting.

Although micro churches and micro church networks are wonderful wineskins for spiritual parenting, in themselves they are not the answer. It is not the structure itself that is significant, but the relationships occurring within its perimeters. If the people in the micro churches do not practice spiritual parenting, their groups can quickly become as boring and lifeless as any other structure. The life comes from the Lord and from the active discipling relationships that are taking place.

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“Let it not make thee despair, neither yet discourage thee, O reader, that it is forbidden thee in pain of life and goods, or that it is made breaking of the king’s peace, or treason unto his highness, to read the Word of thy soul’s health-for if God be on our side, what matter maketh it who be against us, be they bishops, cardinals, popes.” William Tyndale

William Tyndale was born around 1494 in Gloucestershire, England, and he was executed by strangulation and burning at the stake on October 6, 1536, near Brussels, Belgium.

My good friend Buff sent me a link to this first New Testament, translated in English from the original tongue by William Tyndale in 1525-1526. I thought it important enough to include it on my Resources page. If you click here you can access the Tyndale Bible. There are important discussions of how and why certain words, especially “church”, found it’s way into the King James bible. If you search you can find lots of information about this. I have included a comparison below of just one verse, Hebrews 2:12.

Saying, I will declare thy name unto my brethren, in the midst of the church will I sing praise unto thee. KJV

I will declare thy name unto my brethren, and in the midst of the congregation will I praise thee. the Tyndale Bible

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The Servant Leader is a short book by Jason Anderson outlining principles of Kingdom leadership. Jesus really turned the world upside-down. Following is an excerpt about collaborating with others.

Corinth was one of the most important cities in Greece; prosperous and wealthy, it was the capital of the Roman province of Achaia. However, the Corinthian church had fallen into disputes and “disquieting irregularities in the conduct of the believers” that were challenging its very unity. Paul addressed these concerns through a series of letters and personal visits to Corinth where he discusses unity and diversity within the Church that produces a synergistic outcome greater than the individual parts could produce alone.

1 Corinthians 12:4-7
There are different spiritual gifts but the same Spirit; and there are different ministries and the same Lord; and there are different activities but the same God who produces all of them in everyone. A demonstration of the Spirit is given to each person for the common good.

Paul writes that the Holy Spirit is the originator of different kinds of spiritual gifts. The Greek word diaireseis expresses the idea of division of gifts, or distribution of the gifts all for the common good. Paul is building his case that we, especially servant leaders, must see the bigger picture to bring unity and collaboration in the Spirit as opposed to competition based on unique and diverse giftings. “All the gifts are to set forward the same great divine purpose.”

Later in the same chapter, Paul writes that the whole church is like a body (1 Cor 12:12). It is put together of many parts that are vital to life. There is no role that is too little, nor one that is too big. Instead, all parts are equally important and necessary. In other words, we need each other. We cannot do what God calls us to do in an atmosphere of competition but only in a spirit of collaboration. Thus, a servant leader understands that we need each other to succeed.

1 Corinthians 12:24-25
The parts of our body that are presentable don’t need this. But God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the part with less honor so that there won’t be division in the body and so the parts might have mutual concern for each other.

In these verses, Paul brings us to the understanding that there is no competition in the parts of the body, but rather a synergistically divine collaboration. “In the body all the members without distinction work for the good of the whole. No special care is lavished on one member to the detriment of other members.” The servant leader therefore does not view themselves as more important or significant than any other member of the team. Instead, all are equally necessary and must work together to succeed in God’s purposes. It is only the role that servant leaders fill which places them in a special area of trust.

A servant leader must then operate and build with the future in mind. “Servant-leadership, like stewardship, assumes first and foremost a commitment to serving the needs of others.” Servant leaders see the present role, task, or position as one that is entrusted to them for the benefit of others. This forward-looking approach to leading for others is vital in seeing our role as servant leaders.

When we begin to see that we are working for the benefit of others in a position of trust on God’s behalf, we can take a different approach to accomplishing tasks and goals. We stop seeing others as competition and obstacles. We quit working to advance ourselves and reap personal rewards and accolades, and we choose to focus on the success of others that leads to the success of the whole team. We truly begin to see how working together benefits everyone as we focus on the future gains for God’s Kingdom.

While humility, service, and collaboration are by no means the only practices, or spiritual disciplines, we must develop, I encourage you look for ways to practically apply them in your own life. Robert Foster, in his book Celebration of Discipline, writes, “[T]he Spiritual Disciplines are the means God uses to build in us an inner person that is characterized by peace and joy and freedom.” Development of our inner life is foundational for growing as a servant leader. Often understanding follows obedience as we discipline ourselves and apply what we learn as we journey with God. Allow Him to reveal ways to grow as a servant leader in humility, service, and collaboration.

To find out more about Jason click here.

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Triple Blessing! I get excited when new books are written, even more excited when I enjoy reading them and even more, more excited when they are written by someone I know. My good friend, Dion Williams, just released his new book Our Divine Right. At the current time, it is only available through his website https://ourdivineright.com/. The book is primarily written to encourage followers of Christ to understand their divine right to have a more integral part in His church. It is filled with scripture and lots of love. An excerpt from the book is below.

How can we edify one another if we don’t even care about each other? The church nowadays can be a lonely and seemingly unloving place. Driven by various programs or external ministries that keep the church busy and mostly imparting personal development through sermons alone, it can be impersonal and distancing to never really be part of the lives of others. This does not resemble the original intent of what church was meant to be. I am not saying this simply because I have an axe to grind, but I have scripture to prove that we are deficient in what was to be ours in Christ Jesus’s body. If true, this deficiency has to be addressed biblically and corporately.

The systemization of the church’s abuse of believers’ rights is astounding. How the leaders have embarked on such an overarching rule is one thing. How the church has allowed these leaders such power is another thing all together.

Even “good churches” are tainted by this pastoral exclusivity. When the church departed from mutual edification, the pastoral ministry mentality gave way to creating a business-like atmosphere which has become foundational to the modern church structure. Pastors serve their customers in a business style transaction. The parking spots, secretaries, business cards, large buildings with overhead and even child care solidifies the faculty driven service.

This is not what Paul taught, he pictured a family mindset where elders, brothers, sisters and children were all together loving and serving one another in different capacities. Figuratively, where the immature child-like believers sat at the table and were allowed to eat with the more mature adult believers. However, they are expected to behave maturely in due time. Learning to share and not be selfish as they grow up. Sometimes dinner does not run smoothly but that is the ultimate goal; children becoming adults through trial and error. Rebukes and praises of love are given. If we first teach our family how to love each other then they will be able to reach a lost world. In principle, it all starts at home.

Peter was not educated and made many mistakes even though he had been given the royal title of an Apostle of Jesus Christ. His example is the believer’s example that God has called even the lowliest to share in the meeting. Peter would be discouraged from any participation today where a Seminary education is considered a prerequisite to be part of the ministry to the body.

To the contrary, the gospel is the reason and motivation for our obedience and taking up the privilege of responsibility toward one another! We love him because He first loved us. Jesus’s love accomplished for us what we could not do for ourselves. He forgives our sin but that doesn’t mean we should sin. Why hate somebody who loves you? Instead, His desire to love and willingness to forgive should drive us to love Him in return!

Romans 6:1-2 What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? (2) By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? ESV

This is enormous! Paul based our motive to share and edify one another on the work of Christ on our behalf. Our motive to speak and be vulnerable to one another is based on the fact that Jesus loved us and died for us. Despite our sins, He cared to lift us up and we are to lift up others. This is why when he completes chapter 12-14 to the church, he then concludes with chapter 15, where he tells us the Gospel.

1 Corinthians 15:1-4 Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, (2) and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you-unless you believed in vain. (3) For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, (4) that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, ESV

Paul not only grounds the duty of each Christian to participate in the motive of love but he grounds it in the gospel example set by Christ. Why seek to edify others? Why not let the more ambitious members take my responsibility, when they seem so good at it? Because God gives each member the responsibility. If He wanted only a certain class of men to do it He would have never put in the “each of you” passages. This passing of the buck also fails in its motivation. Why? Because Christ died for you that’s why! He loved outside of His comfort realm and even died for others when he didn’t have to.

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I’m not recommending the book Micro-Church Revolution! by Rick Vincent. I’m not sure who would benefit from this book. For an added fee, you can go online and purchase 49 templates including; Purchase Statement Worksheet, Fundraising Strategy Worksheet, Meal Planner Template and a slew of others that all seem unnecessary and overly time consuming. It doesn’t appear this book was birthed from actually doing life together.

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It is so important for the Ekklesia to model true community, but how do we get there? The Servant Community by Art Mealer helps guide us in the right direction. I’m so encouraged as this work acts as a bridge, moving from the structural dos and don’ts to the inner motivations of our hearts and spirits. The excerpt below examines how we should love one another.

“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another [notice, not love the lost, but love the saints]: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know [including the lost] that you are my disciples if you have love for one another.” -John 13:34-35

This new command will not bring us life-Jesus brings us life-but it will bring us freedom. Jesus previously explained that all the commandments hang on loving God (as detailed in the first four commandments) and loving our neighbor (as presented in the following six commandments). These tell us about God’s values and personality. “Loving others as he loves us” emphasizes not another law, nor a quantitative “love as much as Jesus loved,” but a qualitatively new kind of love. The love Jesus has been exercising was generated by His determined choice apart from the worthiness of its object. Jesus manifests a love unconstrained by eligibility requirements, showing us a new way of loving each other.

In beginning and maintaining relationships, we do not ask the prudent and self-protective question, “Does this person deserve my love?” We look at Jesus, and the apostle John redirects our position,“Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.” -I John 4:11

Our question becomes, “Do I owe this person my love?” and that question is forever answered, “Yes.” Yes, if I am to love as Jesus loved. We are freed from assessing the worthiness of another. Love’s
privilege and obligation stand apart from such evaluations. We follow the example of the one whose love without boundaries willingly led him to the shame and suffering of that awful cross. On our behalf. We like the benefit, but not the cost. And we learn love costs. So, in practice, we can be a petty people. We forgive, but just so far-we keep count.

However, as forgiveness stands without measure in Christ’s community, we needfully extend each other a “seven-times-seventy” love. Why? Because that is how he loves us. Because as members of His community, we are to live in relationally close quarters. Nowhere to hide and nurse our petulant pride. Choosing to do so, we move beyond superficial politeness to where inevitable irritations and provocations expose our own imperfections. Rather than eroding our care for one another, these interpersonal abrasions train us to love beyond natural love. It is necessary to develop a kind and patient love that endures and “covers a multitude of sins.” Finding we are loved when we are unlovely is the humbling power of the new love Jesus commanded. The old love, based on merit, breeds pride in ourselves and leads us to find fault in others; fault found, we indulge our tendency for self-protection and self-promotion. Discord ensues. But now we are freed from that trap; what wounds come to us we endure with grace; our love grows, and what failings others may or may not have become irrelevant.

The apostle Paul needfully advises us in his letter to the Ephesians, “Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and perpetual animosity, resentment, strife, fault-finding and slander be put away from you, along with every kind of spitefulness, verbal abuse, and malevolence.” -Ephesians 1:31, (Amplified Version).

If we dwell on how badly we believe someone has behaved towards us, we will struggle to love and forgive as Christ commanded. We do, on occasion, deeply wound each other. Sometimes we falsely imagine wounds or fail to acknowledge they were unintended. The resultant feelings of hurt and betrayal can be overwhelming. And there lies another qualitative difference in loving as Jesus loves us. A recipient of God’s grace ought to be gracious to others.

This new love instructs us to turn our mental rehearsals away from how we were treated and toward how God has treated us. His graciousness is our meditation through each day, where he lifts from us each mistake, each failure, each opening sin finds for our affection. We are aware of God’s forgiveness, which demands forgiveness of our trespassers, just as God’s love demands we love others. Recounting the privilege we enjoy, enfolded as we are in undeserved love and unbounded forgiveness, we find our wounds are not so deep. Like waking from a bad dream and realizing nothing was real, our tightly held injury fades like an illusion. Left in its place is the unique joy of freedom from demanding justice.

But If circumstances require it, the love of Jesus further invites us to put ourselves to death-the very opposite of our instinct for self- protection. Whatever happens, we become free to follow him in loving others as he has loved us: accepting, welcoming, and forgiving one another. Paul continues, “Be kind and helpful to one another, tender-hearted, compassionate, understanding, forgiving one another readily and freely, just as God in Christ also forgave you.” -Ephesians 1:32 (Amplified Version)

Isn’t this a grace none of us are worthy of receiving, but we all desperately need, not only from God but from each other?

Jesus assures us that our love for one another-in the way Jesus loved us-is the clear and unmistakable hallmark of our being His disciples. The resulting unity and harmony confirm that Jesus came from the Father. This living proof, written in the epistles of our hearts, reaches across national and cultural boundaries to everyone in every language as people see God manifested in His people.

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Strange Religion by Nijay K. Gupta, is an excellent book, well documented and insightful. It gives you a glimpse of how unique and strange our Christian faith was (and is), as it influenced Roman and Jewish culture. Although not specifically about house church, I would highly recommend this work. This is the second excerpt concerning family.

We noted already that Caecilius, the critic of Christianity, mentioned how weird it was that Christians called each other “brother” and “sister” and shared ritual kisses at night in the privacy of houses. You can see how rumors might spread, and people would naturally ask questions. But this tells us a lot about how Christians thought of each other-namely, as family. In the Roman world, family was the most important building block for society. As the family thrived, so did the whole empire. And the opposite was true: if the family was disorderly and chaotic, this would shake the very foundation of society. Many viewed the household as a microcosm of the empire and the empire as a macro-version of the household. This is well stated by ancient Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria: “A household is a city on a small and contracted scale, and the management of a household is a contracted kind of polity; so that a city may be called a large house, and the government of a city a widely spread [household] economy…The manager of a household and the governor of a state are identical, though the multitude and magnitude of the things committed to their charge are different” (On the Life of Joseph 1.38, 39).

The earliest Christians were intentionally deconstructing a Romanized approach to family and constructing a new family and household. This was dangerous business, fiddling with the building blocks of civilization, but this became the primary way Christians saw their relationship to one another. Now, that didn’t mean they broke away from blood ties and abandoned their spouses. But their family in Christ was meant to take priority in shaping their identity, and this way of thinking started with Jesus.

We can begin with Jesus’s own question about family in the Gospel of Matthew. Someone tells Jesus while he is teaching that his mother and brothers are trying to get closer to him. Jesus takes this simple remark and opens up a big can of worms about who counts as family: “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?…Here are my mother and my brothers!” (12:48-49). Jesus is pointing to his disciples and explaining that “whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother” (12:50). In the Gospel of John, a similar kind of family-shifting statement is made by Jesus after he has been resurrected. When Mary Magdalene realizes she is talking to Jesus, she wants to cling to him, but he tells her, “Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God”” (John 20:17). Jesus the Son has a natural connection to the heavenly Father that he wants to share with all who follow him, who abide in the Son.

Since Jesus talked about forming a new family, it was natural for the early churches to gather in homes and treat each other as family. This family-type behavior is reinforced in many early Christian texts in several ways. One of the titles most used of God is “Father,” signaling the protective and caregiving nature of God and also the idea that all these people are equal children of one Father. Jesus is God’s one true Son, and all believers find their place in this new family through the sonship of Christ. Paul uses this imagery when writing to the Roman churches: “For those whom [God] foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn within a large family” (Rom. 8:29).

Jesus the Son is the living spiritual DNA link between believers and God the Father. He graciously opens up his sonship to include a massive new family. In Roman families, while there was a natural sense of care and concern for one another, there was also a tiered structure that involved different levels of importance for different members. Generally speaking, men were more important than women, older more important than younger, pure blood more privileged than half siblings, let alone slaves. Slaves were counted within households, but they did not “count” as people. They had no family name, no honor, no inheritance, no future; basically, they were living forms of property, much like cattle. But Christian writers like Paul ascribed dignity and honor to all within the household of faith, including slaves. The redemption made possible by Jesus the Son enables everyone to be included in God’s family, with the same welcome status as Jesus himself, no more, no less; just as Jesus the true Son cried, “Abba! Father!” so any child of God can say the same through Jesus’s privilege and the Spirit’s power (Gal. 4:1-7). This is the context for Paul’s famous equality statement: “As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heir according to the promise” (3:28-29).

The social effect that this would have had on the Christian communities is massive. Joseph Hellerman explains that in the ancient world households held to certain standards and embodied a special ethos. First, there was a strong sense of commitment. Families were there for each other through thick and thin. Second, they worked together as a team. Often, families were like small businesses, everyone having to play their part for the benefit of the whole. This would complement Paul’s member/body language and imagery. Family members exercised their gifts and skills to support the whole household. Third, families shared resources and possessions. Real brothers and sisters would often share clothes, tools, furniture, and money, among other things. This is precisely the vision that is cast in the book of Acts about the way of the church, a sharing community where everyone pooled material resources for the common good (Acts 4:32-35). Finally, families loved each other. Sharing and working together was hard work, but it was not just business. It began, ended, and was carried out because of mutual affection and real concern for one another. Precisely when Paul detects that the Philippian church is showing fractures in their community, he prays for love (Phil. 1:9-11), which is what family is meant to reflect.

It may not have happened right away, but pretty quickly in the development of early Christianity, believers saw each other as family, and they met in homes to worship together and model generous community, worshiping the true God of home and world.

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Strange Religion by Nijay K. Gupta, is an excellent book, well documented and insightful. It gives you a glimpse of how unique and strange our Christian faith was (and is), as it influenced Roman and Jewish culture. Although not specifically about house church, I would highly recommend this work. I’ll post two excerpts; this is the first one concerning eating together.

A common tradition in Roman society was holding dinner parties, based on the Greek symposium, which brought together not only family but also neighbors and various friends and associates. While this event involved food and drink, it would be a mistake to consider eating to be the focus. Rather, it was a social event that reflected the host’s social values and reminded those present (and absent) where they sat on the spectrum of importance. Warren Carter explains that these meals “underlined social stratification. Guests were seated according to different quantities and qualities of food in different quality tableware.” The ancient philosopher Plutarch explains that the goal of investing in one of these often lavish dinner parties is not just to eat and drink but to be seen eating and drinking with certain people.

In the house’s triclinium (dining room), the most privileged guests would recline closest to the food. Less important guests would be seated further away, and women and children, if present, would be positioned even further from the food. Plutarch describes these house-party banquets as “a spectacle and a show,” with more important guests being given closer viewing of the entertainment (like singers, musicians, and dancers), proximity to the delicious smells, and service that would ensure the food was still warm. Sometimes the privileges were so formalized that certain special seats were permanently reserved for guests of honor. While this tiered experience was most overt and noticeable among the elite,” it was also the norm among commoners. This reflects the essence of Romanness, a constant reinforcement of social values in Roman culture: social life was set up as a pyramid of power. There were a precious few “haves” and a lot of “have-nots,” and there was no use in pretending that everyone was equal.

Jesus did things quite differently and paved the way for a new social ethos, which could and had to be demonstrated at the dinner table. In fact, it was a common criticism of Jesus by his contemporaries that he openly shared the social table with “tax collectors and sinners” (Matt. 9:11; Mark 2:16; see also Luke 15:2). Luke tells the story of Jesus offending a Pharisee who hosts him for dinner. A stranger, a woman, makes her way into the house and washes Jesus’s feet with her tears and covers them in expensive ointment. With even a basic understanding of Roman dinner etiquette, it is clear that this woman breaks major social boundaries. Not only does Jesus ignore this infringement, but he commends her for her love and care for him. And then Jesus turns the tables on Simon, his host: “I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet, but she has bathed my feet with her tears and dried them with her hair. You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment” (Luke 7:44-47). When I heard this story as a teenager, I just assumed that Simon, in his excitement about having Jesus over, forgot these hospitality gestures. But the more I learn about how these dinners sent signals of status and importance, I can’t help but think Simon was purposefully putting Jesus in his place as an inferior. Jesus cuts through the social games and says in effect, “This woman wants to be a caring host, but you (Simon) want to be an important host.”

The point Jesus is making to Simon the Pharisee is reinforced in Jesus’s parable of the dinner party. A certain man, Jesus teaches, plans a big party and invites his friends and associates. A slave goes out with personal invitations. One by one, each guest makes some excuse for why they can’t be there. Let’s say he invites eight couples, and each one thinks they are too good for this man; they want to remind him he is not that important to them. So, what does he do? He tells his slave to forget the invitations and go out to the streets and bring in the poor, the blind, and the lame-the people at the very bottom of society. And rather than host just a dozen of his supposed friends, he tells his slave to fill up his whole house with anyone and everyone who wants to taste his fine cuisine (Luke 14:15-24).

It’s hard for us to appreciate just how unusual a decision this would be. In order to “translate” Jesus’s parable into Western society, we might think of it as a fancy fundraiser dinner event. You make lots of preparations, decorate the house, make elaborate and expensive invitations, and then you invite all your friends and associates. And imagine that every single one of them sends you the signal that they are too busy and important to come to your little gathering. So what do you do then? You take all those fancy cupcakes and the chocolate-fondue fountain and the cedar-plank salmon and the champagne, and you go out into the streets and hand these delicacies to any stranger nearby, including a child riding a tricycle, some homeless people, and an immigrant street vendor. What an odd thing to do, right?

Jesus’s parable is a response to his anger at how guests at a dinner he is attending fought over the seats of honor (Luke 14:7). He turns this occasion into a teaching moment, saying in essence, “Don’t push and shove your way into the spotlight, but choose the lowest place, because God’s kingdom works differently than mortal kingdoms, ‘For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted’” (14:10-11).

But old habits die hard, and we find in some Christian churches of the first century that Jesus’s message was difficult to swallow. We find a clear case in the Corinthian church. Paul chastises them for turning the sacred Lord’s Supper meal into a competitive dinner party: “When you come together, it is not really to eat the Lord’s supper. For when the time comes to eat, each of you goes ahead with your own supper, and one goes hungry and another becomes drunk. What! Do you not have homes to eat and drink in? Or do you show contempt for the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing?” (1 Cor. 11:20-22).

Paul warns them that they must learn how to discern “the body,” the church as a living organism that must live in unity rather than rivalry (1 Cor. 11:29). “So then, my brothers and sisters, when you come together to eat, wait for one another. If you are hungry, eat at home, so that when you come together, it will not be for your condemnation” (11:33-34). It is no coincidence that he calls them “brothers and sisters” here. Paul is reinforcing the family identity of this community. Family shares. Family participates for the sake of the whole.

The Corinthian church is evidence that not all churches lived out Jesus’s vision of status indifference. Not all churches let their new family identity take root. But the ideal was that those who willingly entered this community would join a special household of God. This would be unlike any other kind of household they knew. No one was of more importance or lesser importance in this family. Because of the invitation of Jesus the Son, each participant was simply “brother” or “sister.” That cast a bold vision that would have been powerfully compelling, especially to “the least of these” (Matt. 25:40).

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