Things I've been learning...
In housechurch, we're going through the DVD series, In the Dust of the Rabii. The first couple were a little slow for me... or maybe I was a little off my game and unwilling to give them merit. At any rate, a couple of things that God had been showing me ended up being front and center in the last two that we watched. It seems that I'm supposed to be paying more attention to the importance of "community" right now... more deeply, how our existence as a loving community really does more to extend the message of the gospel than, say, dogma or theological conversations (not that they're without merit).
There's a verse in Scripture that says "you are the temple". According to the man leading the study on the DVD, the "you" is plural and the "temple" is singular. That was a pretty big deal to me. In a world (even Christian world) where people are told that the individual is the most important, Scripture is telling us that the COLLECTIVE body is His temple... and his BRIDE is the most important.
In the early church, living in a Greek/Roman world of many gods, they had to be counter-cultural in almost every area of their lives. You couldn't sell wares in many market places unless you first paid homage to the god of that venue... you couldn't be on city-council unless you sprinkled incence over the alter of this particular collection of gods... when it got cold and you're fire went out, you couldn't go get fire from the perpetual flame in the center of town because it was an alter to a godess, and it required you to aknowledge that she was the one providing you with what you needed to live.
So what do you do when you can't sell your wares, serve on the decision making boards, provide other necessities for life? The early church lived communally. Not always in the sense that WE know the word "communal living". But that they served each other and loved each other and met each others need. I mean, we all know this from Acts 2, but it became a bigger deal to me once I was shown the things that they COULDN'T do outside of their own "house churches".
What this man suggested was that the REASON the early church grew so fast, is BECAUSE they were set apart... BECAUSE they were counter-cultural. People saw something incredibly unique about their sect, if you will. The level of commitment was different... the level of care was different... the level of everything was different. Tack on the story of Christ as the reason behind your chosen life and it was a pretty big deal.
It got me thinking... are we REALLY set apart today? Do WE live counter-culturally? Or are we constantly looking for way to be more like the world so that we can be inticing, or so that they won't discredit our God simply because we look or act differently. At times, I think we lose sight of what "holy" really means... and as a result, we lose out on God.
The other thing he talked about was the church being unified. How easy we fall into grumbling and complaining. How easily we allow other people to hurt our feelings or make us angry. How we take for granted that their weaknesses may be different from our own, but we all still have them. If we were truly living as one Body... one Temple... then we'd be thinking differently about each other. We have to look at each brother and sister for who they are in Christ... and realize that, as part of the Bride, they need the same amount of love and respect as the person that doesn't get on our nerves. And when we begin to stay in that mindset, not only do we become stronger together... but we become a brighter light to the outside world.
There's a verse in Scripture that says "you are the temple". According to the man leading the study on the DVD, the "you" is plural and the "temple" is singular. That was a pretty big deal to me. In a world (even Christian world) where people are told that the individual is the most important, Scripture is telling us that the COLLECTIVE body is His temple... and his BRIDE is the most important.
In the early church, living in a Greek/Roman world of many gods, they had to be counter-cultural in almost every area of their lives. You couldn't sell wares in many market places unless you first paid homage to the god of that venue... you couldn't be on city-council unless you sprinkled incence over the alter of this particular collection of gods... when it got cold and you're fire went out, you couldn't go get fire from the perpetual flame in the center of town because it was an alter to a godess, and it required you to aknowledge that she was the one providing you with what you needed to live.
So what do you do when you can't sell your wares, serve on the decision making boards, provide other necessities for life? The early church lived communally. Not always in the sense that WE know the word "communal living". But that they served each other and loved each other and met each others need. I mean, we all know this from Acts 2, but it became a bigger deal to me once I was shown the things that they COULDN'T do outside of their own "house churches".
What this man suggested was that the REASON the early church grew so fast, is BECAUSE they were set apart... BECAUSE they were counter-cultural. People saw something incredibly unique about their sect, if you will. The level of commitment was different... the level of care was different... the level of everything was different. Tack on the story of Christ as the reason behind your chosen life and it was a pretty big deal.
It got me thinking... are we REALLY set apart today? Do WE live counter-culturally? Or are we constantly looking for way to be more like the world so that we can be inticing, or so that they won't discredit our God simply because we look or act differently. At times, I think we lose sight of what "holy" really means... and as a result, we lose out on God.
The other thing he talked about was the church being unified. How easy we fall into grumbling and complaining. How easily we allow other people to hurt our feelings or make us angry. How we take for granted that their weaknesses may be different from our own, but we all still have them. If we were truly living as one Body... one Temple... then we'd be thinking differently about each other. We have to look at each brother and sister for who they are in Christ... and realize that, as part of the Bride, they need the same amount of love and respect as the person that doesn't get on our nerves. And when we begin to stay in that mindset, not only do we become stronger together... but we become a brighter light to the outside world.