When I was young I spent some time with the Navigators. They were very big on self discipline and self control. I started to wonder about if this was indeed legalism — for there came a tendency to treat all issues as technique as if the correct formula would get God working like a slot machine.
This was wrong, this is wrong. But throwing discipline out is also wrong. I’m thinking of what it is like if you miss gym for a few weeks. You go back in, your back is hurting, you are feeling physically awful, and… and it really hurts. You cannot do the numbers that you were using in circuits a few weeks ago, let alone run.
This morning my son said he was told the motto of the procrastinator is “too dark, too late, too cold”. They are not prepared to get up before the sun. They are not prepared to put the hours in to the task at hand. and suddenly, there is no time, and it is too late.
Peter says that love comes from Christ, and it is something we choose to do. It is not a feeling. Feelings change. In Christ we are able to love sincerely. But that requires that we aim to act, not sit around and emote.
1 PETER 1:13-25
13Therefore prepare your minds for action; discipline yourselves; set all your hope on the grace that Jesus Christ will bring you when he is revealed. 14Like obedient children, do not be conformed to the desires that you formerly had in ignorance. 15Instead, as he who called you is holy, be holy yourselves in all your conduct; 16for it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”
17If you invoke as Father the one who judges all people impartially according to their deeds, live in reverent fear during the time of your exile. 18You know that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your ancestors, not with perishable things like silver or gold, 19but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without defect or blemish. 20He was destined before the foundation of the world, but was revealed at the end of the ages for your sake. 21Through him you have come to trust in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are set on God.
22Now that you have purified your souls by your obedience to the truth so that you have genuine mutual love, love one another deeply from the heart. 23You have been born anew, not of perishable but of imperishable seed, through the living and enduring word of God. 24For “All flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls, 25but the word of the Lord endures forever.” That word is the good news that was announced to you.
Now, there are issues around love and truth. If we love, we will have to speak the truth, be it telling our beloved that their sweater is inside out (easily done) or that their drinking needs to stop. Or that one should not live in sin. Discipline is not merely for a person, but for a congregation. And there is a local example of this (Hat tip Ele Ludemaan)
The Calvin Community Church, a Presbyterian church in Gore, has revoked the membership of one of its long-term members because her relationship with a man she lives with was “at variance with what is expected of a member of Calvin Community Church”.
The woman said she was told “out of the blue” she had to either marry her long-term partner, leave him, or no longer be a church member. She was still able to attend the church, but she has declined to do so because “they have discussed my private life around the table”.
“I was shocked. I was very upset at the way it was put to me, someone just phoned me out of the blue and I was told I had to either marry him or I can’t be a member of the church.”
“This is 2014, not the 1950s, times have changed.”
The woman and her partner, who have both been married previously, have been together for eight years and have been living together in Gore for three years. As a Christian, she said she would prefer to be married to align with her beliefs. But her partner was not ready and it was not anyone’s place to force someone into marriage, she said.
One has to have some sympathy for this woman, but not that much: she is a bit like Jenny Erikson, but a few decades older, and like Jenny, this account is useful as a warning. Firstly, it is good to see a church using church discipline, knowing that it will hurt, but most kinds of discipline are not pleasant. (The blogger stretches. His arms complain after the previous days upper body circuit).
But the teaching of the church on this issue has not changed — so the argument that ‘it is not the 1950s’ is a nonsense. The 1950s had their own problems.
The second error is thinking that you have a right to membership of any organization for a period of time. Again, this blogger thinks of the bill for his fellowship, his continuing education log, and the fact that he can be struck off if he is in error. There is no “grandmother” clause in my profession: instead as one ages one comes under closer scrutiny to ensure that one is still safe to be a doctor, a psychiatrist.
And the third error this woman has made is living with him. And this is not just the fornication. It is that her partner would already have married her if it was in his will. He is not going to take that step — it would have significant legal and financial implications, not all of them good — and so her argument that “I would like to be married but in the meantime I will live in sin and wait” is also a nonsense.
But I fully expect the haters to descend on the church with fire and sword. Which is something us reformed are used to. The elders at Calvin should not fold.
For discipline is not of use unless it is applied when times are difficult, and we are being challenged.