By Shawn McMullen
This issue of Christian Standard focuses on the church. It includes results and analyses from our annual church survey and offers insights into our present state and future hope.
Some years ago, as editor of The Lookout, I wrote an essay about the church, about why it’s important that we love the church and present it in a positive light to the world around us. I’ve adapted that essay for this editorial.
John, the apostle of love, wrote a series of letters to Christians, encouraging them to remain faithful to their calling in Christ. He instructed his readers to “love one another” (1 John 4:7, New International Version). He reminded them of Jesus’ command to “walk in love” (2 John 6). He commended his friend Gaius for his loving reputation (3 John 6).
I’d like to think also that John wanted believers to love each other because in doing so, they pointed a watching world to Christ by loving what he loves—his bride, the church.
You may hear people say, “I love Jesus, but I don’t love the church.” I can understand why someone might feel this way, but it doesn’t work like that. If you said to someone, “I really like you, but I think your mate is a jerk and I want nothing to do with them,” your expression of affection would mean little. When we love people, we want to love the things they love. It seems strange to think we could love Jesus without loving that which is most precious to him, the very thing “Christ loved . . . and gave himself up for” (Ephesians 5:25).
Many people who say they love Christ but not the church have personal reasons for spurning his bride, reasons that have made the church unattractive to them. They may have been hurt or misunderstood by the church. They may feel the church let them down in a time of need. They may see the church as irrelevant and ineffective. But no matter how weak—or unattractive—the church may appear in someone’s eyes, she remains the precious bride of her adoring husband, Jesus Christ. She is always beautiful to him.
He loved her when he died for her, he loves her as she makes her way through this world, and he will continue to love her as “the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband” (Revelation 21:2). Despite her flaws, the church is a beautiful bride—and worthy of our love—simply because she is loved by Christ. Professing our love for Jesus means professing our love for the church. Loving the church means loving the people who make up the church and loving the church as ordained by God and precious to his Son.
Build Up Christ’s Church
What we say about the church matters. When people who claim to love Christ are quick to criticize his church, broadcasting its faults and weaknesses, offering play-by-play accounts of even the smallest quarrel or conflict, the world’s view of the church—and perhaps its hope of finding grace—is significantly diminished. That’s not to say we gloss over the church’s faults and pretend they don’t exist. Sin must be exposed, and failures must be admitted. Openly. But not every weakness within the church (or should I say within the lives of those who make up the church, those imperfect people who are striving to please God amid their imperfections) needs to be broadcast to the world.
On the positive side, speaking well of the church pleases the Lord who loves the church and presents the church as attractive to outsiders.
Honor Christ’s Church
The apostle Paul chastised believers in Corinth, “Do you despise the church of God by humiliating those who have nothing?” (1 Corinthians 11:22). Far from honoring the church, the selfish and condescending attitudes some Christians display toward other members of the body of Christ prove that they despise the church. We honor the church when we respect church members and church leaders.
Protect Christ’s Church
We protect the church by guarding against division. Paul expressed his frustration with the Christians in Corinth with a rhetorical question: “Is Christ divided?” (1:13). The answer is “no,” and neither is his church. Sometimes those within the church are a greater threat to its welfare than those on the outside. The Bible commands unity (Ephesians 4:1-16), and we protect Christ’s church when we preserve it.
Another way we protect the church is by guarding against doctrinal error. Paul encouraged Timothy to “stay there in Ephesus so that you may command certain people not to teach false doctrines any longer” (1 Timothy 1:3). Later he challenged him, “Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers” (4:16). Holding fast to the inspired Word of God shows our love for Christ and his church.
Satan doesn’t rest, and until the Lord returns, the church will face opposition from detractors on the outside. But as it is protected from within by those who belong to Christ, the church has added strength and resolve to withstand all the enemy’s advances.
Serve Christ’s Church
“Serve one another humbly in love” (Galatians 5:13), Paul wrote. When we put the needs of others in the body of Christ above our own, when we show respect and deference to others in the church, when we replace authority and prestige with a basin and towel, we demonstrate our love for Christ and the church he cherishes.
It requires devotion, humility, purity, and determination to love Christ consistently by loving his church. But when we consider what he has done for us, and what he has prepared for us, loving the church, Christ’s bride, becomes second nature—and pure joy.
Author: Christian Standard
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