Matthew Archives - Page 15 of 19

Palm Sunday 2015: The Crowds of Palm Sunday

Joe Harby on March 29, 2015

Introduction

A commonplace in Christian circles understands the events surrounding the first Palm Sunday to be a clear demonstration of the “fickleness of crowds.” But there are good reasons for questioning this common assumption.

The Text

On the next day much people that were come to the feast, when they heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, Took branches of palm trees, and went forth to meet him, and cried, Hosanna: Blessed is the King of Israel that cometh in the name of the Lord (John 12:12-13).

But the chief priests and elders persuaded the multitude that they should ask Barabbas, and destroy Jesus. The governor answered and said unto them, Whether of the twain will ye that I release unto you? They said, Barabbas. Pilate saith unto them, What shall I do then with Jesus which is called Christ? They all say unto him, Let him be crucified. And the governor said, Why, what evil hath he done? But they cried out the more, saying, Let him be crucified (Matt. 27:20-23).

Overview

When Jesus entered into Jerusalem riding on a donkey, in fulfillment of prophecy, a great multitude gathered around and received Him as their king, as one who was coming in the name of the Lord. There is nothing in the account to suggest that the acclaim and joy were not genuine.

And yet, a very short time later, a multitude before Pilate was persuaded by the chief priests and elders to clamor for the destruction of Jesus. There is nothing in this to suggest that the composition of the crowd was largely the same as before, or that the crucifixion of Jesus was the result of everybody suddenly changing their minds. Rather, the facts recorded for us appear to suggest that Jerusalem was divided over the identity of Christ, and that those who loved Him were (temporarily) out-maneuvered.

Jesus was arrested at night, and was examined by Annas in a secret proceeding at night, in full contradiction to Jewish law. By the time they showed up before Pilate, it was still early (John 18:28). From the time of the Lord’s arrest to the time when the first nails went in, about nine hours elapsed. The whole thing was an iniquitous rush job. For about half that time, while all this was going on, the godly from the Triumphal Entry, those yearning for the redemption of Israel, were sound asleep in their beds.

Fidelity and the Appearances

We have a marked tendency to go on the basis of appearances. Even Elijah once fell victim to this mistake. “God hath not cast away his people which he foreknew. Wot ye not what the scripture saith of Elias? how he maketh intercession to God against Israel, saying, Lord, they have killed thy prophets, and digged down thine altars; and I am left alone, and they seek my life. But what saith the answer of God unto him? I have reserved to myself seven thousand men, who have not bowed the knee to the image of Baal. Even so then at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of
grace” (Rom. 11:2-5).

Momentum is truly a mysterious thing. Ability to speak and to be heard is also mysterious, and often has little to do with actual numbers. This means that it is often the case that things can look far worse than they actually are.

The Good Purposes of God

The crowds on Palm Sunday were not silent in their reception of Christ. They dutifully responded just as they ought to have done, and if they had not, the stones would have cried out. But their joy was short-lived and was replaced by black despair when Jesus was arrested, tried and executed. But their faithfulness was still a seed which bore fruit soon enough.

God gave to His faithful a moment of great glory when they received Christ in His triumphal entry. But this glory was still early, and not near glorious enough. It was premature by design, a proleptic glory. Hopes were raised high, just to be dashed to earth again. But this was a necessary part of God’s good purposes. “For of a truth against thy holy child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed, both Herod, and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles, and the people of Israel, were gathered together, For to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done” (Acts 4:27-28).

The plan of God involved far more than a parade into Jerusalem, a parade to warm the heart. God’s purpose was the redemption of the cosmos, the creation of a new heaven and a new earth. This means that sometimes the ungodly appear to outnumber the godly because God wants to make it apparent that the power is His, and not ours. We serve a God who raises the dead.

Sins of Silence

At the same time, 6,999 faithful but silent ones can indicate a separate set of problems. It may not be utter and complete faithlessness—as it appeared to be to Elijah—but among the faithful we still might find a distinct range of problems. One of the most common is ungodly silence. As with all things, this sin can be used by the hand of God, but we are still responsible for it.

Remember the antithesis—there were two crowds in the Jerusalem of that day. Because of God’s purposes in the world, there are always two crowds—the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent. Where is your allegiance?

Remember your loyalties—the saints received Christ into Jerusalem loudly. Have you ever stood by silent when others were not being shy about their allegiances at all?

Remember God’s priorities—the general consensus was that the Messiah would come to Jerusalem and kick out the Romans. What He actually did was come to Jerusalem and kick out the moneychangers. Sometimes we are “silent” because we showed up at the wrong place.

Conclusion

Jesus set His face in order to go to Jerusalem. He did this because He set His mind on the joy that was set before Him. His entry into Jerusalem was an early step—and we have yet come close to completely the journey that He began. We are still in the shallows of that joy.

The Politics of Sodomy II: Not Whether, But Which

Joe Harby on January 25, 2015

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Introduction

In many respects, we are like a man who lives in a house that is increasingly cluttered and trashed. When the day finally arrives when it becomes obvious that he must do something, it is equally obvious at the same time, that he has no idea what to do, or where to start. He is overwhelmed at the magnitude of the problem. It is the same with us as we consider the politics of sodomy. We want to put things right. Where do we go to begin? Do we go back to the sixties? The New Deal? The War Between the States? The Enlightenment? And the answer is yes.

The Text

“And Jesus knew their thoughts, and said unto them, Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand: And if Satan cast out Satan, he is divided against himself; how shall then his kingdom stand? And if I by Beelzebub cast out devils, by whom do your children cast them out? therefore they shall be your judges. But if I cast out devils by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God is come unto you. Or else how can one enter into a strong man’s house, and spoil his goods, except he first bind the strong man? and then he will spoil his house. He that is not with me is against me; and he that gathereth not with me scattereth abroad” (Matt. 12:25-30).

Background

Jesus is speaking in the first place about the kingdoms of God and Satan respectively. He had been accused of fighting Satan even though His accusers said He was really on Satan’s side. Jesus responds by saying that a house divided cannot stand, and so Satan would not be so foolish as to do that (vv.25-26). Jesus goes on to say if His power over Beelzebub was a demonic power, then what power was being used by His adversaries’ children (v. 27)? But if Jesus was empowered by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God really had come to them (v. 28). And, continuing the argument, if the kingdom of God has come, why should anyone be surprised that the strong man’s house was being pillaged? The strong man was bound, wasn’t he? And then Jesus says what we all need to hear—one who is not with Christ is against Christ. One who does not gather with Christ is attempting to scatter (v. 30).

No Middle Ground

The claims of Christ are therefore total. There is no way to read through the New Testament and miss this. The claims of Christ are total. He is the King of kings, and the Lord of lords. He has been given all authority in heaven and on earth, and over any creature that can be named. Christ is King. Jesus is Lord. This is the basic Christian confession (Rom. 10:9-10). And here, if you are not with Him, you are therefore against Him. There is no spiritual equivalent of Switzerland. In the cosmic war between in light and darkness, there are no neutral parties, and there is no third way. There are only two activities in every realm of human existence, and those two activities are obedient gathering and disobedient scattering. Only two.

Hidden Assumptions

Obviously, these total claims on the part of Christ won’t do. We need to have our personal space. We need to protect our favorite forms of autonomy. But at the same time, those of us who are religious, particularly in the Christian Lite Community of Faith, need to give some sort of lip service to the language of totality that comes up so often in Scripture. We should want to bringevery thought captive, the apostle Paul says (2 Cor. 10: 5).

Obviously, we have to figure out a way to use this kind of total language while ensuring that it remains partial in effect. God calls this sort of thing by the name of hypocrisy.

What We Call It

We have developed various intellectual tricks for doing this, and we may describe these tricks as forms of American individualism, gnosticism, constitutionalism, or rationalism. A man can pick one of the following, or mix up his own combinations. Disobedience can take many forms.

Individualism: in this view, Jesus is Lord of my heart, and not that which is outside the realm of my heart. This is not thought of as partialism because the heart is what counts, right? But Jesus is Lord of your toes as well as your heart, and your world as well as your toes.

Gnosticism: in this perspective, Jesus is Lord of spiritual things, not thought of as the Lord over foreign policy, sewage disposal, botany, law, and weed control. But Jesus is Lord of both heaven and earth, and every manifestation of culture.

Constitutionalism: this excuse points to the non-establishment clause of the First Amendment, misunderstanding that amendment in a grotesque fashion. But Jesus is the King of the United States.

Rationalism: this is the approach that appeals to natural law, but to a natural law that is sure to exclude the revelation of God in Christ. But natural law is fulfilled in Christ.

Not Whether, But Which

All culture is religious, and the only question to consider is whether it is faithfully religious or idolatrously religious. It has been said that all culture is religion externalized, but even this helpful insight can be interpreted in too weak a fashion. All culture is religion. Turning Henry Van Til’s insight around, we should say that all religion is culture internalized.

So the question is not whether our culture has a god, but rather which god it has.

The question is not whether we will impose morality, but rather which morality it will be. The question is not whether we will restrict blasphemy, but rather which blasphemy.

And it is not whether we will embrace sexual politics, but rather which sexual polis it will be.

Surveying the Text: Matthew

Joe Harby on October 19, 2014

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Introduction

We are now continuing with our plan to work through the Bible, a book at a time. We have considered the first five books of the Scriptures, the Pentateuch, and have now come to the first four books of the New Testament, the Gospels. Let us begin, as seems normal, with Matthew.

The Text

“And seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain: and when he was set, his disciples came unto him: And he opened his mouth, and taught them, saying…” (Matt. 5:1–2).

Background to the Gospels

As you know perfectly well, there are four gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Matthew and John were the only two gospel writers who were themselves apostles. Mark got his information (according to early church tradition) from Peter, while Luke tells us that he functioned as a researching historian, getting his information from different eyewitnesses and sources.

The early fathers said that Matthew was the first gospel, while modern scholarship generally thinks that Mark was. A good deal of scholarly consternation has been expended on what is known as the synoptic problem. The first three gospels share many similarities, which is why they are grouped together as the “synoptics.” The word refers to them sharing a “common view” of the life of Christ, with John’s account being very different. But the synoptics are also different from one another in very striking ways. The modern notion is that short means early (and Mark is short), and that Matthew and Luke quarried some material from Mark, and some other material from a source called Q (material that Matthew and Luke share, but which Mark does not). Some folks have even written commentaries on Q, a document that cannot actually be said to exist. Scholarship can be a marvelous thing.

Overview of the Text

The theme of Matthew is the royalty of Jesus Christ; He is a teacher/king. He is repeatedly described as sitting while he teaches (Matt. 5:1; 13:2; 15:29; 21:7; 24:3; 25:31), a prerogative of royalty. The kingdom of God is the kingdom of Jesus (Matt. 13:41). The Lord is given royal titles, like Messiah (Matt. 16:13-20) and Son of David (Matt. 1:1-18; 9:27). The son of man is one who will sit on a throne in order to judge the nations (Matt. 19:28; 25:31). The Lord comes into His reign as the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies, and His regal status is attested by the worship of the magi at the very beginning of the book.

The authority of this royal figure is well-established in the course of the book, and so it is nothing short of astonishing to see how the book culminates in His crucifixion. That is not what we would have expected, given the build-up. But more on this shortly.
The structure of Matthew is straightforward, consisting of an alternating pattern of narrative and discourse, making up five paired sections in all. Each section has narrative followed by a discourse, and each one ends with the phrase “when Jesus had finished these sayings.” The first section is the early years (1-4) and the Sermon on the Mount (5-7). The second is traveling miracles (8-9) and instruction to the disciples on how to behave during itinerant ministry (10). The third section tells us how Jesus collided with the Jews (11-12) and concludes with His parables about the kingdom (13). The fourth gives us a collection of events (14-17) and instruction on life together in community (18). The last section following this pattern is the journey to Jerusalem (19-23) followed by an apocalyptic description of Jerusalem’s end and the end of the world (24-25). The conclusion of the gospel is a separate description of the Lord’s passion and resurrection (26-28).

Christ as Israel

Matthew presents the Lord as the true king of the true Israel, coming into His own as the true Israel. Matthew quotes the last part of Hosea 11:1—out of Egypt I called my son (Matt. 2:15). But that entire verse says this: “When Israel was a child, then I loved him, And called my son out of Egypt.” (Hos. 11:1). Christ escaped from Egypt just as Israel had, but the Pharaoh He escaped from was Herod, and He escaped to the old Egypt from a place that had become the new Egypt. And after that, He was baptized in the Jordan (Matt. 3:13), just as Israel was baptized in the cloud and sea (1 Cor. 10:1-2). After His baptism He spent 40 days in the wilderness being tempted—just as Israel had spent forty years being tempted. When His days in the wilderness were completed, He invaded Canaan in order to cast out the new Canaanites—demons.

That generation is described as occupied country. A man who has demons cast out of him is described this way: “Then goeth he, and taketh with himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there: and the last state of that man is worse than the first.Even so shall it be also unto this wicked generation” (Matt. 12:45). The men in the tombs were possessed by devils (Matt. 8:28), and Mark tells us they were named Legion—a name applied to occupation forces of the Romans. And Mary Magdalene, a type of both the old Israel and the new, had seven devils cast out of her (Mark 16:9).

Stark Contrasts

The Lord’s famous sermon at the beginning of the book is marked by contrasts—wide gates and narrow ones, true prophets and false prophets, and foolish builders and wise ones. Everything always comes down to a point. Believe or don’t. Repent or don’t. Go left or go right. There are no third options.

The Lord comes to earth at the beginning of the book and leaves for Heaven at the end of it. The nativity happened at night, and the whole place was lit up. The crucifixion happens at midday and the sky is darkened. Jesus was worshipped by nobles from a foreign land as an infant in swaddling clothes and mocked by nobles from His own nation as a crucified man stripped naked.

The King as Suffering Servant

Jesus teaches with complete authority, and is in full command of all the circumstances He encounters. He—literally—walked on water. So then, how are we to account for the way the book ends? If that kind of crash happened to anyone else, we would say it was because he got above himself. But that is not possible here, and so something else is going on. This is the deepest wisdom possible.

We are astonished by the end of Matthew to find that Christ was crucified, but when we come to understand that His blood was the blood of the new covenant, we have already learned that it is royal blood. It was also innocent blood. More than all that, it was conquering blood—not conquered blood.

The Lord came down from a royal throne in Heaven in order to live and die here, but He also comes down from various mountains within the gospel itself in order to be stripped naked, flogged, and nailed to a cross. That is true royalty. That is how a king lives and dies—for His people. And because it was true wisdom, the same king lives for His people, down to the present day.

Three Chains I: Fear

Joe Harby on September 21, 2014

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Introduction

Over the course of the next few weeks, we are going to be considering three chains that the enemy of our souls wants to use in order to keep us in bondage. But in Christ, we have been set free, and set free means set free from each of these chains, and from all of them. The three chains are fear, guilt, and shame. All three are common to the human frame, but different cultures can develop different emphases. The Western world is concerned with righteousness, and is therefore afflicted with guilt. The Eastern world is very concerned about honor, and is therefore afflicted with shame. The Southern world is concerned about survival and safety, and is afflicted with fear. The North generally does okay because it is cold and no one lives up there.

The Text

“And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell” (Matt.10:28).

Summary of the Text

In this part of Matthew, Jesus is telling His disciples that He is sending them out as sheep among wolves. We need to be shrewd therefore (Matt. 10:16). We need to beware of men, because they will in fact persecute (Matt. 10:17-18). Even when we are delivered up, we need to trust God for the words we must use (Matt. 10:19). The persecutions will be both intensive and extensive, and if they treated Jesus this way, we cannot be surprised when they treat us in the same way (Matt. 10:20-25). Do not fear them, the Lord says, because everything is going to be revealed (Matt. 10:26). The entire story will eventually be told. Be bold (Matt. 10:27). Do not fear men, who can only kill the body and not the soul. Rather, fear the one who can wreck both body and soul in Gehenna (Matt. 10:28). We are told not to fear for two reasons. The first is that God will tell the whole story one day, and the second is that they can only kill the body, which means that all they can do is help you escape from them.

The Basic Issue

The devil is always a counterfeiter. He cannot create anything ex nihilo, not even sins. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, which means the fear of man is the beginning of folly. This means that the point of biblical wisdom is not to say that fear is bad so we should stop fearing. No, the ethical choice is always between fear of this and fear of that. If you are paralyzed by fear, this means that you do not fear someone else enough. What is the whole duty of man? It is to fear God (Ecc. 12:13).

The First Chain

Death is an enemy. It is natural to fear it. Death has been given dominion and power over a guilty world—and the sting of death is found in the law. It is not that we are subject to death. The problem is that we deserve to be subject to death.

“Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; And deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage” (Heb. 2:14–15).

Notice that this fear of death is a lifetime fear. As Augustine noted, in this world the dead are replaced by the dying. Death brings in a bondage that extends throughout our lives. Jesus struck off that chain by dying for us. He destroyed the devil through His death, and the devil was the one who had the power of death. With him removed from that position of authority, we are released from our fear of death. If we have received the Spirit of adoption, this means that we have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear (Rom. 8:15).

Now it follows from this that we are in principle liberated from lesser fears as well. To reverse Jeremiah’s image, if we can run with horses, we can run with men also. Women, you become daughters of Sarah if you honor your husbands and do not give way to fear (1 Pet. 3:6). In particular you women should remember that anxiety is the wrong kind of fear in seed form. It is by fear of God that we are enabled to turn from evil (Prov. 16:6). Knowing the fear of God is what enables us to persuade men to turn to the Lord (2 Cor. 5:11).

Being Careful with the Word

We are supposed to fear God, which is not the same thing as being afraid of God. There is a kind of fear that is craven, crawling . . . and we are not to have that kind of fear, not even in the presence of God. So we are not to have a particular kind of fear toward God because perfect love casts out fear, because fear has to do with punishment (1 John 4:18). We need not fear this punishment from God, not because it is not fearful, but because it is not ours (Rom. 8:1). We are supposed to approach the throne of grace with boldness, it says, and we are to come boldly looking for mercy(Heb. 4:16). This is not possible apart from a robust doctrine of justification, where God declares us to be righteous in the righteousness of His Son (2 Cor. 5:20-21).

We are not supposed to “fear man” in any way that puts man in the place of God, and we are not to fear God in any way that puts Him in the place of executioner. We must fear Him as Judge, but if we do this rightly, we repent before we come before Him as executioner. When the Lord Jesus, the same one who bled and died for sinners, says “Depart from me, I never knew you” (Matt. 7:23), this will be a moment of absolute and abject terror in one sense, but a final and defiant refusal to fearin another. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom (Ps. 111:10). Terror is not the beginning of anything other than an everlasting and hellish downward spiral. Terror does not fear Godenough.

Jesus and True Fear

A story is told in Acts of some itinerant exorcists, some sons of Sceva, who tried to cast out demons in the name of the “Jesus that Paul preaches.” The demon replied appropriately by beating them up. And then Luke says this: “And this was known to all the Jews and Greeks also dwelling at Ephesus; and fear fell on them all, and the name of the Lord Jesus was magnified” (Acts 19:17). There is a kind of fear that is attracted to holiness, to the glory of God, to the numinous, to the wonderful. It is a fear that is filled to the top with an exquisite ache. “Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit,perfecting holiness in the fear of God” (2 Cor. 7:1).

“Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, That the everlasting God, the Lord, The Creator of the ends of the earth, Fainteth not, neither is weary? There is no searching of his understanding” (Is. 40:28).

“Sanctify the Lord of hosts himself; And let him be your fear, and let him be your dread” (Isaiah 8:13).

But how are we to do this? Remember that we are Christians, and what we need to learn how to do we may learn by imitating Jesus. Jesus was a God-fearing man—He had to be. He was a true man, the ultimate man, a wise man. But the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. This was no less true in the case of Jesus.

But we do not need to rely on an inference. The Bible tells us explicitly in several places that Jesus feared God.
“And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, The spirit of wisdom and understanding, The spirit of counsel and might, The spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord” (Is. 11:2).

And the New Testament tells us the same thing:

“Who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared; Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered” (Heb. 5:7–8).

Bedrock Discipleship V: Relationships

Joe Harby on April 13, 2014

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Introduction

On Palm Sunday, we remember the Lord’s entry into Jerusalem shortly before He was betrayed, condemned, and executed. As we reflect on this moment in His mission, we should take care to remember what that mission was. His mission was not just to save people, it was also to save a people.

The Text

“And the multitudes that went before, and that followed, cried, saying, Hosanna to the Son of David: Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord; Hosanna in the highest” (Matt. 21:9).

Summary of the Text

There are many things that can be drawn out of this story, but this morning, we are just going to focus on one of them. When Jesus arrived in Jerusalem—where He was to be lifted up and draw all men to Himself—He was greeted by multitudes. Contrary to the popular assumption that the Triumphal Entry crowd and the “crucify Him” crowd were the same people, we have no reason for identifying them. These people who greeted Him were doing so sincerely. Jesus was approaching Jerusalem in order to save multitudes, and He was greeted there by multitudes. Their central cry was Hosanna, which means “Save, we pray.” In other words, we are praying that You would save us. “Yes,” He answered.

Two Questions

Back in the seventies, the great question was what is truth? Today the pressing question is where is community? Some might make this kind of observation in order to set the questions against one another, but rightly understood they are complementary questions. Truth is foundational to any true community, and community is the only appropriate response to the truth. “If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth” (1 John 1:6). Fellowship exults in the truth, and truth generates fellowship.

Koinonia

The biblical word for fellowship is koinonia, and here is how the idea connects to our text. To welcome Christ into Jerusalem you have to go down to the street He is on. When you do so, you are not just praising Him as He travels by. You also have a necessary relationship to those people on your right and left who are also praising Him. Christ was welcomed to the week of His passion by a crowd, and not by the last true believer. Save us, they cried, and that is what He did.

But the crowd had to come to Christ. They could not have gone two blocks over, turned and faced each other, and establish a little koinonia by themselves. It never works.

In modern church parlance, fellowship means coffee and donuts. But in the biblical world, fellowship meant mutual partaking and indwelling. Fellowship is what we have in the body together, as we are being knit together in love.

One Another

A body is what we are. We do not act in a particular way in order to become a body, we are to act that way because we are a body and desire to be a well-functioning one. “So we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another” (Rom. 12:5).

Receive

When it comes to life in the body, there are all kinds of offenses. There are business offenses. There are family offenses. There is petty rudeness in the parking lot, and there is glaring sin within a marriage. What in the world are we to do with other people? “Wherefore receive ye one another, as Christ also received us to the glory of God” (Rom. 15:7).

It glorified God when Christ received us, and it glorifies Him when we receive one another. When we receive a brother or sister, we are not promising to “look the other way.” That is not biblical receiving. We are promising to let love cover it, when that is appropriate, and to confront it, when that is appropriate. We are promising tonot complain about it to others. We either cover it or confront it, and this principled communion is why it is possible to excommunicate in love.

Love

Of course the center of this is love. When we look at the “one anothers” of Scripture, this has a central place. “A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another” (John 13:34). “By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to
another” (John 13:35). “This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you” (John 15:12). “These things I command you, that ye love one another” (John 15:17). “Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law” (Rom. 13:8).

We can only love because we have been loved. And we can only know that we have been loved if we grasp— through a living faith—the glories of the gospel. Christ died and was buried, Christ was buried and rose, and He did it so that you might be put right with God. You are ushered into the fellowship of love that He offers, and this is what makes it possible for you to love your neighbor.

Strive

But it is very tempting for us to conceive of love as a generic disposition to “be nice.” But love rolls up its sleeves, and gets into the dirty work. If all we had to do was sit around and radiate love rays at one another, I am sure we would all be up to the task. But what about all those provocations that come from . . . you know, other people?

We begin by making sure that we do not rise to the provocations. We need to have peace with one another. One of the characteristics of the band that traveled with Jesus is that He had to caution them to preserve the peace with each other. “Salt is good: but if the salt have lost his saltness, wherewith will ye season it? Have salt in yourselves, and have peace one with another” (Mark 9:50).

We should labor to think alike. We noted earlier that truth is the foundation of community, and the more we share in the truth, and walk in it, the greater will be our unity. “Now the God of patience and consolation grant you to be likeminded one toward another according to Christ Jesus” (Rom. 15:5). Our modern temptation is that of simply “agreeing to disagree,” which is fine as a temporary measure—but it is not the ultimate goal that Scripture sets out for us.

But the “one anothers” we pursue should not be limited to staying out of fights. “Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love; in honour preferring one another” (Rom. 12:10). Scripture tells us to point the honor away from ourselves, and toward the other.

Conclusion

As the people of God, we are being gathered. But we cannot be gathered without being gathered together. And once we are gathered together, we face the glorious calling of life together. But in order to maintain this, we have to keep emphasizing the basics—gospel, love, forgiveness, truth.