There is a formulation which came in a Dalrock comment thread that I think wes first said by John. It related to “servant leadership”, and went something like this. “If intelligent Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant, Reformed and Anabaptist laymen cannot find a justification for this in scripture it does not exist”
It is not that we disagree. We do disagree. Frequently. But we return to scripture, and how we apply it in our lives. On some things there is no tolerance within the church: to make the point clear we don’t tolerate murder, or theft, or adultery, or swearing falsely.
What we get instead are weak arguments around cultural changes, or speaking into what is silent. This is dealt with in the main passage, which gives us a way of living together with our different languages and traditions. But this liberty within faith has been abused by those false teachers to either over regulate us, or to take freedom and make it not merely tolerance of sin (which should not exist) but frank approval of the same (may that never happen — but it has). Which is why today’s Psalm applies.
We do not see our signs; there is no longer any prophet, and there is none among us who knows how long.
How long, O God, is the foe to scoff? Is the enemy to revile your name forever? Why do you hold back your hand, your right hand? Take it from the fold of your garment and destroy them!
Yet God my King is from of old, working salvation in the midst of the earth.
On the text: I’m reformed. I really don’t care about the calendar of the church. I do blog the lectionary — it started to fit in with my local congregation, which does follow the calendar, but now I’m following an Anglican lectionary: the Sunday readings remain the same but the texts between vary.
It does not matter. For in these issues we have tolerance, and need to be gentle with each other. For many, the symbols of the church are greatly meaningful. As one of those who does not mind, I have to put up with those who want icons and saints and Messiaen — and those who want slideshows and an amplified band and Hillsong.
And it is for these reasons that the Roman Catholic Church has both Eastern and Western Rites, the Orthodox have national churches, and among the Presbyterians we have high church, low church, and the Celtic orders of service from Iona.
If our worship is to the LORD, it matters not how the music is arranged or the language.
As for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not to quarrel over opinions. One person believes he may eat anything, while the weak person eats only vegetables. Let not the one who eats despise the one who abstains, and let not the one who abstains pass judgment on the one who eats, for God has welcomed him. Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls. And he will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make him stand.
One person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. The one who observes the day, observes it in honor of the Lord. The one who eats, eats in honor of the Lord, since he gives thanks to God, while the one who abstains, abstains in honor of the Lord and gives thanks to God. For none of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself. For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s. For to this end Christ died and lived again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living.
Why do you pass judgment on your brother? Or you, why do you despise your brother? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God; for it is written,
“As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me,
and every tongue shall confess to God.”So then each of us will give an account of himself to God.
On this issue, however, we can learn from the Anabaptists, and by that I mean the older orders of Mennonites. For they take this liberty and move collectively. They do not change their orders of worship or ways of life overmuch, but take a critical stance with new things.
The risk here is that they become quaint, irrelevant, fossilized: as the Papal costume started as that of Roman nobles (and froze) and monastic dress was that of the medieval peasant or worked (and froze), then academic dress was a secular version of the monastic (and froze) we can freeze on a form of doing things that make us a tourist attraction and not part of society.
But we need to work collectively on these issues. It matters less on the dress than on modesty: and we may have difficulty with cases, but we know immodesty, regardless of culture and context, when we see it.
So I will not criticize those who restrict their diet: at present I am doing this for my health. I will not criticize those who use the sacraments within the Roman or Orthodox formulation: I have theological differences with the magisterium, but I will honour their faithfulness to the faith as they have been taught.
At the end. we will all have our errors corrected. At the end, the church will be one. At the moment we are divided, and the enemy wants to shatter us further, and then build a false church on the ruins.
But where two or three believers meet, there Christ is. So let us not stop meeting, tolerate each other’s theological quirks, discuss where we disagree, but then encourage each other to be steadfast in the faith, do good work, and make no room for evil. For the church we are part of is not in this world for us, but to do the work of Christ: to bear witness against this generation of folly, and rescue many from the gentle lies of perdition.
