One of the things that happens in the lectionary is that you read the same passages every year. You read the psalms even more frequently: and these are good things. Because I have considered this passage before: here Pal predicts church history. For the history of the church has been one of stumbling from one error to another.
The wolves have attempted to deceive the flock of Christ, and they have at times got close to succeeding. There have been periods of great passion and great errors: there have been times when the church has not merely been neglected, but opposed. And the heresiarchs have one use: they remind us of errors that return.
Among the learned, these things have names: often of authors who wrote in the first couple of centuries after Christ. The wolves are now turning against all those of faith.
But the gospel has not changed. There is no new word, there is no new way to salvation. We can be tricked, when driven by our guilt and shame, into looking for a deeper way, a higher spirituality, as if we are not born between piss and shit.
Now from Miletus he sent to Ephesus and called the elders of the church to come to him. And when they came to him, he said to them: “You yourselves know how I lived among you the whole time from the first day that I set foot in Asia, serving the Lord with all humility and with tears and with trials that happened to me through the plots of the Jews; how I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable, and teaching you in public and from house to house, testifying both to Jews and to Greeks of repentance toward God and of faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. And now, behold, I am going to Jerusalem, constrained by the Spirit, not knowing what will happen to me there, except that the Holy Spirit testifies to me in every city that imprisonment and afflictions await me. But I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God. And now, behold, I know that none of you among whom I have gone about proclaiming the kingdom will see my face again. Therefore I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all, for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God. Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood. I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things, to draw away the disciples after them. Therefore be alert, remembering that for three years I did not cease night or day to admonish every one with tears. And now I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified. I coveted no one's silver or gold or apparel. You yourselves know that these hands ministered to my necessities and to those who were with me. In all things I have shown you that by working hard in this way we must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’” And when he had said these things, he knelt down and prayed with them all. And there was much weeping on the part of all; they embraced Paul and kissed him, being sorrowful most of all because of the word he had spoken, that they would not see his face again. And they accompanied him to the ship. (Acts 20:17-38 ESV)
I will leave the heresies of the Catholics and Orthodox to my friends who belong to those groups, but among the reformed there is a tendency to aim for collective purity. The reformation slides all too quickly into Anabaptism. The Diggers (and yes, there are two diggers songs today) were one of those groups: the Bible does not include communism.
However, the idea that our God is one of freedom and social progress is a vile heresy. For when one teaches morality, or natural law, or the law of Moses, which are our school masters, and lead to the gospel. The church is being told to change, to tolerate sin, to be part of the socialist cause. Billy Bragg and the UK left show this — and their gospel is false.
If we oppose them, and preach against them, as Luther and Calvin did (and the counter-reformation did) we will be called scabs, enemies of progress.
If that is to be, let it be. Let us be called scabs. It is but a word. And the left went past Barking a long time ago. The truth is not merely ignored, it is preached against.
It is more important that us who blog on scripture and on the matters of the spirit do not fall prey to the wolves. As my Papist brother says:
I blog, my dear reader, also for your prayers, of which I am in need. Do not think for a second that just because I write a blog I am less of a sinner than most others are, or less in need of prayers than everyone else is. My being a sinner is, in fact, a main motivation for me to write. If I were to be surprised by death tomorrow, knocked down by the new (and very beautiful) London bus, the around 1060 blog post already written would, I hope, be of some help, and so would the prayers you have hopefully said for me. Please, dear reader, if you like this blog do not deny me a short Hail Mary every now and then.
Pray for us. We are the black gang, shoveling coal into the boilers of a steam-powered church in an age where we are both seen as hopelessly old-fashioned and fined because of our carbon emissions. But let the truth be preached. So that all those of Christ will be called to him.
