Biblical Moorings
Being a Christian means being one who belongs to Christ, who has given allegiance to him and become his bond slave (cf. margin Romans 1:1; 2 Peter. 1:1; Jude 1). The Christian life then consists not merely in an acceptance of the teachings and ethics of philosophy of Jesus as an ideal and pattern by which to live; not in the performance of certain rites of outward forms that pertain to the Christian life; it means yielding myself with all I am and all I possess to belong to Christ Jesus. It means living a Christ-centered life, letting him be all in all to me. It was such a life that Paul lived, a life in which every thought and deed was made captive to serve the Lord Jesus (1 Thessalonians 1:9; 1 Corinthians 10:5). The Christian life means that I possess Christ, and he possesses me.
Leonard J. Larson (1894-1973), “The Christian Life–What It Is”
From Christian Doctrines (1936-37), p. 6.
...If you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved (Romans 10:9).
Background to these words are those of Moses quoted by Paul in the preceding verse. Salvation is imminent, so close at hand. One need not travel the long and futile road of the law (v.5), seeking to establish personal righteousness as the unbelieving Israelites (v. 2). One need not wander hither and thither acting out the questions “Who shall ascend into heaven? ... Who shall descend into the abyss?” to gain Christ. No, “the word is near you.” It is the Word of faith whereby there is salvation.
An earmark of saving faith is this: one becomes a friend of Jesus. There is the willing confession of Christ out of the fullness of the heart. The friend and confessor of Jesus seeks to advance his Kingdom. A saving faith is an exercising faith. One desires to speak about Jesus for he is the heart's greatest treasure. This faith conceives within the heart a love-impelled zeal for the salvation of souls. Confession of faith comes from the heart, not only from the lips. Here are exemplified the words of Jesus, “Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks” (Matthew 12:34).
C. O. Rosenius (1816-1868), Romans: A Devotional Commentary, J. Elmer Dahlgren and Royal F. Peterson, translators (1978), p. 135.
What does it mean to be in Christ? Paul nowhere gives a precise definition, but through a multitude of passages in which the phrase is central, he makes it clear that he is pointing to the one relationship by which the Christian is able to live a new life. The source of our experience as Christians is ‘in Christ.” Not only does the new life begin there: it is sustained “in Christ;” it is structured “in Christ;” it grows “in Christ;” it will be glorified “in Christ.” To be in him is to be incorporated into a new order of existence. It is to take one’s place within the environment of Christ, to be in the sphere of his Lordship and under his rule. It is to live within his “power-field,” dependent in everything we do upon his creative and life-giving activity.
In short, faith means that we no longer live from within ourselves but that we live from a new center. This is not to say that self-centeredness is eradicated and that sin has no power over us; it is to say that there is a greater power available in authentic Christian life.
Donald C. Frisk (1911- ), Covenant Affirmations: This We Believe (1981), p. 6.
A Christian life means a “Christ-life,” and those who enter into this way of life become in their own eyes bond servants, or “slaves” of Christ (cf. Romans 1:1; Colossians 4:12). The term Christian (Gr. christianos) was first insultingly applied to the believers in Antioch (Acts 11:26), but they accepted it with joy and made it a badge of honor. Thus from the beginning, being a Christian implied a personal relationship to Christ and not just the acceptance of certain moral and ethical standards.
Leonard J. Larson (1894-1973), “The Christian Life–What It Means”
From Covenant Graded Lessons, Special Unit, 1949, p. 81.
Historical Influences
[In 1675 Philipp Jakob] Spener published his best-known work, Pia Desideria (Pious Wishes). After a critical evaluation of the state of the church, Spener presents in six points his program for a renewal of spiritual life. In this connection it is well to note that although the conventicles in Spener's church, with their clear appeal to the personally pious, were implicitly separatistic, Spener at no time intended separation from the established church. In Germany as well as in Sweden, Spenerian Pietism remained a spiritual movement within the established church. Nevertheless, the explosive character of Spener's proposals as outlined in Part III of his Pia Desideria is clear. Spener may not have intended separation, but his principles laid the fuse for it. His pious wishes for his church were:
1. An intensive study of the whole Bible. The amount of scriptural truth presented in the texts of the church year (the pericopes) is insufficient. Hence preaching must be supplemented by conventicles where the whole Bible is studied.
2.. The spiritual priesthood of all believers. The laity must be given status as well as responsibility within the church. The whole church, and not merely the ministers, are responsible for the life of the church.
3. The practice of Christianity, not merely its doctrine.
4. The limitation of doctrinal polemics. The renewal of spiritual life is a better guarantee for orthodoxy than theological disputation.
5. An emphasis upon practical piety in theological education.
6. Simplicity and directness in preaching. The emphasis in preaching must be on edifying the listener. Ostentatious eloquence must be avoided.
Neither Spener nor his colleagues in the German church understood the full implications of these principles. But logically developed and applied, they posed a great threat for the established church. They meant, in effect, the transference of spiritual authority from the clergy to the converted laity and from the establishment to the conventicle.
Karl A. Olsson (1913-1996), By One Spirit (1962), pp. 12,13.
This leads us...to the matter of faith. What is it? To perhaps oversimplify a bit, let us say that for Lutheran orthodoxy faith was a noun, something (a body of propositions) with which one agreed. For [August Hermann] Francke (1663-1727) faith was a verb, a way of being which was the necessary outworking of intellectual and emotional assent to the claim that Jesus is Savior. It is in this area of faith and life that Francke's own thought is most clearly seen. While Spener stressed Wiedergeburt (rebirth), Francke without de-emphasizing conversion stressed the Christian life. Francke's faith tended toward a dialectic of deep spirituality and practical concern for the everyday care of one's soul and the well-being of others. Faith is in fact a living relationship with Jesus Christ and means illumination and responsibility for the believer. It is the intentional yielding of one's entire being to God in Christ, acknowledging one's sinfulness and need of constant renewal, and accepting the “spilling of the blood of Jesus Christ” as the way to forgiveness, to unity with God the Father “in eternal, inseparable love,” and to empowerment for the new way of being. Faith and life are inseparable, and faith must be manifested in the life and thought of the believer if it is genuine.
Francke frequently used the analogy of a tree and its fruit. Of his pre-conversion days he wrote that “for twenty-four years I was not much better than a fruitless tree which to be sure had much foliage but bore mostly bad fruit.” In his mercy, however, God “prunes me like a branch that I may bring forth more and more fruit.” Should the believer be found lacking in outward manifestations of faith he or she must begin again with sincere repentance until assurance of salvation (presumably through a sense of peace and evidence of spiritual fruit) is achieved.
Gary R. Sattler (19 - ), God’s Glory, Neighbor’s Good (1982), p. 105.
It is true that the Mission Friends came to faith–corporately and historically–through personal, communal, and devotional study of the Scriptures. In their twentieth-century offspring, The Evangelical Covenant Church, these friends have continued to give fairly consistent programming emphasis to corporate Bible study, and officially describe the Bible as “the only perfect rule for faith, doctrine, and conduct.” At the same time they value the Bible, however, Friends/Covenanters seem to have agreed to work in confidence that rests beyond the text of the Word, in God who dwells spiritually in the believer by faith. Delight in experience, even surpassing their profound respect for the written word, is richly expressed in some of the hymns emerging from the early days of the Mission Friends, where a primary title or descriptor of God is “Friend.” Nils Frykman wrote two of these that are translated in The Covenant Hymnal of 1973. In number 283, his hymn about the power of the Word in Scripture, he begins: “The highest joy that can be known / By those who heav’nward wend, / It is the Word of life to own / And God to have as friend...” (Emphasis mine). The highest joy is not knowledge of Scripture, or even the assurance of salvation from sin and death, but rather “owning”–presumably, making the Word part of oneself–and personally knowing God as friend.
Similarly, in hymn 416, praise that traces Jesus’ atoning action on behalf of humankind, Frykman writes: “I have a friend who loveth me, / He gave his life on Calvary; /Upon the cross my sins he bore, / and I am saved forevermore. / O hallelujah, he’s my friend!...” Of course, the friend one meets is the friend introduced in Scripture as having died for one’s sins. But the joy lies not merely in that scriptural deliverance (as in Anna B. Warner’s text, hymn 612, “Jesus loves me! This I know, / for the Bible tells me so”) but in the experienced, present reality of walking with the friend, an experience in principle available to everyone.
Jean C. Lambert (1940-2008 ), “Befriending in God’s Name.” From Amicus Dei: Essays on Faith and Friendship Philip J. Anderson, ed.. (1988), pp. 39,40.
The Abiding Center
Man has perennial difficulty in finding and keeping an abiding center for his life. Periodically he breaks out of his bondage. Then he proceeds to build himself into another bondage. He creates an order of life, destroys it, and builds another. In all of this is seen the hunger of man’s spirit for authentic life, something that actually moves him beyond what the settled order proposes as being designed for his real welfare.
This, in part, is also the history of the religious quest. No sooner has a creative insight been born and given tangibility in group life than it begins to be embattled and even changed by pressures from within and without. There is often rejection but more often subtraction and addition which, in time, tend to obscure the treasure.
Our Rosenian forebears found this treasure in the Jesus of the Word. In him they found not only acceptance with God but a new spirit of freedom and joy apart from any mediating facts other than the Word of God and the sacraments. They saw this grace as wonderful, calling to them to “Come, just as you are.” It was good news to them because they had learned that they were sinners and continued to learn it even more as they walked with Jesus. It is doubtful if any generation has been more certain of the centrality of grace since the disciples walked in the physical presence of Jesus.
Eric G. Hawkinson (1896-1984), Images in Covenant Beginnings (1968), pp. 26,27.
Life is primary and fundamental in everything which concerns us as human beings. Without life there can be no knowledge, no values, either spiritual or material, and no joy. But on the foundation of life, everything else can be built up.
Christianity is not doctrine but life. Other religions may be constituted by doctrine or by law, with knowledge or duty as the decisive elements. Christianity goes back to the root itself–to life. It goes back to life in its innermost nature, life in faith in God’s Son.
Axel Andersson 1879-1959, President of Mission Covenant Church in Sweden, 1934.
Quoted in Donald C. Frisk, The New Life in Christ (1969), p. xi.
It would be unfair to see the movement of the Mission Friends in the 1870s and 80s as primarily reaction. The more powerful force was the positive work of the Holy Spirit in history and in the church.... What happened was liberation or perhaps an awakening.
The metaphor of sleep has been used to describe the torpor in the western world lived in the earlier decades of the nineteenth century. In Scandinavia it was the torpor of ignorance, illiteracy, drunken guilt, despair. Even more profoundly it was the torpor of a missing identity. People did not know who they were; they were like figures in a dream. Because of the lack of identity, they had few meaningful relationships. The community was made up of families and tribes locked into simple but formalized rituals which took care of relationship except on those occasions when drink made everything easier. But under the controlled facade of everyday life there seethed feelings of hostility, envy, malice, lust, greed.
Then almost at once came the opportunities to read (the literacy law), to travel (the steam train), to leave the rural scene (urbanization, industrialization, emigration), to be a new person in Christ (the revivals). The change was startling. Untutored people found that life had a new zest. Grace, which had been a term in the catechism and a word heard frequently in sermons, was now a life style. Old guilt was cleansed. Forgiveness was sought and given. The future, formerly foreboding with its suggestion of death and judgment, became "a future light and long." Feelings of hostility were transformed into loving and caring. There are countless stories of hardened sinners, living under a shell of suppressed rage and bitterness, who were transformed by the shy love of forgiven people.
The new security in Christ--I am loved, I am accepted--led to a new security in one's identity and a new awareness of one's own gifts and the gifts of others. Peasants, cobblers, tailors, fisherman, country school teachers found themselves leading conventicles, sitting on mission boards, becoming leaders of masses of people. Some even found that they could think systematically and express their ideas in forceful, though unschooled prose. This was all part of the revival.
Karl A. Olsson (1913-1996), “Similarities and Differences in the Churches of the Federation–America, ” pp. 4,5, from Awake and Free, The International Federation of Free Evangelical Churches (1971).
If I gained the world but lost the Savior, were my life worth living for a day?
Could my yearning heart find rest and comfort in the things that soon must pass away? If I gained the world, but lost the Savior, would my gain be worth the life-long strife? Are all earthly moments worth comparing for a moment with a Christ-filled life?
Had I wealth and love in fullest measure, and a name revered both far and near,
yet no hope beyond, no harbor waiting where my storm-tossed vessel I could steer–
If I gained the world, but lost the Savior, who endured the cross and died for me,
could then all the world provide a refuge, whither in my anguish I might flee?
O what emptiness without the Savior mid the sins and sorrows here below!
And eternity, how dark without him–only night and tears and endless woe!
What though I might live without the Savior, when come to die, how would it be?
O to face the valley’s gloom without him! And without him all eternity!
O the joy of having all in Jesus! What a balm the broken heart to heal!
Ne’er a sin so great but he’ll forgive it, nor a sorrow that he does not feel!
If I have but Jesus, only Jesus, nothing else in all the world beside,
O then everything is mine in Jesus–for my needs and more he will provide.
Anna Ölander (1861-1939), “If I Gained the World,” tr. composite, from The Covenant Hymnal (1973), No. 441.
A Gracious Pilgrimage
There is more to being a Christian than being nice. It is becoming a new person altogether. Jesus once described it as being “born from above” (John 3:3, JB). Others in the New Testament speak of being “saved” or “redeemed” or “converted” or “justified by faith.” What these words suggest is more than niceness; it is radical newness....
Something radical has happened to change the way a person thinks, feels, sees, speaks, works, walks. It is more than being nice or even being religious. It can only be described as being born all over again....might call it “the blessed disorder of grace.”
...If we cannot limit this birthing to one pattern, we can begin to trace some similarities in those who have been made new. Just as there are stages in facing death or in grieving the loss of a loved one, so are there in the process of being made over into a new person in Christ. Earlier Pietists spoke of “an order of grace” by which they meant there are stages common to all in the faith journey, such as God calls, gathers, enlightens, converts, sanctifies....
Stage One: God Calls. Like the new birth itself, this calling takes place in many different ways. What is necessary in all cases, however, is an understanding of who Jesus is, what he asks and promises when he says, “Follow me.” This is why sharing in some form of Bible study whether in Sunday school, small groups, or confirmation classes is helpful. Likewise in worship, conversation, and fellowship with other Christians, one becomes receptive to God's call to faith and new life in Christ.
Stage Two: Conversion. This means turning consciously from a self-centered existence to the God who calls, personally accepting what God has done for us in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. This turning may be a sudden, dramatic happening. Most likely, however, it will be a low, gradual process in which rebirth occurs almost unconsciously. In any event, conversion marks a new beginning through a personal meeting with God.
Stage Three: Discipleship and Growth in a Holy Life. Another word for disciple is “apprentice.” An apprentice learns not by sitting in a classroom, but by working alongside a master artisan. We learn to know who Jesus is by following him and doing works of love and justice with him. Likewise, a holy life involves being set apart for service to the world, being behind “the wilderness” of our own goals and self-seeking, and “leaning on the Lord” we enter into a new world where “the old order has gone, and a new order has already begun” (2 Corinthians 5:17, NEB).
Are we nice people or new? A Lina Sandell hymn often sung in the early days of the Covenant puts the question like this:
Pray that Jesus may awaken
Spirit-life forever new.
Pray that sin may be forsaken
Which breeds only death in you!
Ask yourself each day he gives,
“Do I live?”
Glen V. Wiberg (1925- ), “Nice People or New?” (Covenant Press Tract, 1992).
We are richer in words than in power. We are, praise God, rich in spiritual erudition, in word and understanding. We have more religious knowledge than the great saints formerly had. One can truthfully say with Bishop Pontoppidan, “As I look at our [forebears], I think that they did more than they knew; we, on the other hand, know more that we do.”
...Be this thought far from us which some have had...that we have had enough of the preaching of faith. What is lacking, they say, is the preaching of sanctification; the former is enough and sufficiently preached. What we need now, if the deficiencies in Christendom are to be healed, is primarily the preaching of law and sanctification....
No, the fact still stands firm that only the despised “foolishness of preaching,” the preaching of faith, gives the Spirit (Galatians 3:2). This gives life and power and truth in sanctification. Where the power of godliness and evidence is absent, there faith and life in Christ is absent. The fault consists in this, that we do not lay the Word on our hearts and immediately apply, use, and implement it in our lives. We only gather it in our reason to order our concepts and clarify doctrine. In other words, the time is used to hammer weapons, to polish and arrange, and still let the enemy possess the land without using the weapons against him. The attention is turned only to doctrine and concepts, whereas the actual business urged by the Word, repentance of the heart, faith and sanctification, the true trust of the heart, joy, life, love and knowledge of God in Christ, these out of which actual sanctification flows, these are forgotten. And note, in this way we never get doctrine really clear or pure. In this way we are in danger of losing even doctrine, the genuine true doctrine. At least in this way we miss the real matter, God’s kingdom in us, which does not consist in words but in power.
C. O. Rosenius (1816-1868), “For the Kingdom of God Does Not Consist in Talk but in Power.” From Eric G. Hawkinson, Images in Covenant Beginnings (1968), pp. 56,57.
Dying to Self
Those today who say that they are not “good enough” to be Christians really mean that they haven't the resolution which they mistakenly believe Christianity requires. Since resolution is the best the world offers, they assume that it is part of Christianity. But the resolution of the disciples only served to humble them. Their problem wasn't so much their inadequacy--which Jesus understood and accepted--as their arrogance, which led them to a commitment they couldn't keep.
The courage of Jesus, by comparison, has no arrogance at all. He doesn't hide his human feelings, or try to deny them; he simply refuses to operate on them. Therein lies his courage. In a schematic but not literal way it is even possible to say that Judas operated on his feelings (though with premeditation), the other disciples denied their feelings, but Jesus acknowledged his feelings without allowing them to control his behavior. How he felt would not determine what he did.
This honesty about his feelings continues in his prayer for deliverance from the cross. He did not seek death gladly. He looked for any honorable escape, even while he knew that there wasn't any. Even as he prayed he affirmed his commitment to the divine will. If he failed to acknowledge his lack of zeal, he would be pretending to an attitude he did not feel; if he failed to acknowledge the divine will, he would be retreating from the very purpose of his life. The issue is resignation, not resolution. The decision finally and firmly made in accordance with the will of God is a resignation, not a resolution, of the self--to accept what comes without regard to one's ability to “take it.”
Everett L. Wilson (1936- ), Christ Died for Me (1980), p. 27.
When churches call pastors, they might think they have called a model pastor. And pastors could assume they have found the church made in heaven. Even if the honeymoon lasts a year, which it usually doesn't, parishioners begin to complain that the sermons are too long or above their heads, and that the pastor didn't call on Uncle Benjamin last month. His shirt is wrinkled or he forgot the Lord's Prayer. Pastors on the other hand wonder where all that initial affirmation went, feel put down by the subtle criticism of some members, or complain that the salary increase came nowhere near the rise in cost of living. Three years into the ministry he or she may be disillusioned enough to look around for a more perfect church. Hence, a number of ministers move frequently. What if we considered disillusionment par and used that period as an opportunity for finding out more about ourselves as pastors! That would be a time of growth, not a time to go!
It is this impatience with a fallen paradise which moves us away from our more creative, spiritual resources. Going blind spiritually can be the best thing that happens to us. It may be the only way to really see.
Why is this so? Because we are reliving within, re-enacting concurrently, the dying and the rising of our Savior, Jesus Christ, on the cross. The situation is this: we live in a fallen Eden, we have sinned, we have destroyed our innocence and there is no turning back the moral clock. Christ died for us. The situation is not one of renewed innocence, but of forgiveness, and all things made new. One unique act. But the Apostle Paul also caught it when he said that we die with Christ that we might be raised with him. And that doesn't necessarily occur in dramatic, religious ways. More often in earthy, practical ways. For example, the point of dying may come in an argument with your wife. Or when you blew it on the job. Or when you know something is inwardly wrong but you don't know why. This crisis is the matrix in which we experience dying with Christ, and rising with him.
Arthur W. Anderson (1920- ), “The Glory of Being Disillusioned”
From Grace and Glory: a festschrift on preaching in honor of Eric G. Hawkinson, The Covenant Quarterly, 1981-82, p. 114.
A recent discovery for me has been that wholeness always takes place within community. This is an emphasis by some leaders of the small group movement; it also is a biblical truth and a Reformation principle. Martin Luther put it his way, “Be a little Christ to your neighbor.” The faith community is to be a caring and loving fellowship where acceptance and forgiveness with each other prevail. Wherever there is this climate and environment healing and wholeness may take place.
Active and expectant faith is necessary for wholeness. Whenever someone trusts in Christ something happens mentally, physically, and spiritually. The woman who touched the hem of his garment heard Jesus say, “Your faith has made you well.” The man carried by the four men and lowered through the roof heard Jesus say, “Your faith has made you well.”
The creative energies and healing power of God flow freely when there is expectant faith. Jesus' question is, “What do you want me to do for you?” When we are aware of our need and can trust in his power, Jesus can do for us what we need and cannot do for ourselves.
William L. Peterson, Jr., (1930- ), “Prescription for Wholeness”
An unpublished sermon on Luke 18:35-43.
“God is light and in him is no darkness at all.” Those who become acquainted with him experience a great deal of both trembling and joy. He tries the heart and the mind. As God has witnessed about us in his Word, so are we. For he knows our frame, he remembers that we are dust. He made known his ways to Moses, his acts to the people of Israel. He continues to let the children of men know that he loves them. He calls the world from the rising of the sun to its setting. See what light he wants to give you in your darkness....
Dear Friends! When we are with the Lord and live through experiences that are repugnant to us, we are ready to ask, “If the Lord is for us, why does this happen to us?” As the answer, the words of Moses to Israel are fitting, “Thy light and thy truth be near.” Commend to the Lord your way. He will do all things well. Hope in him always, you people, pour out your hearts to him. God is our hope. The distresses you have had and those to come the Lord has taken upon himself until you are free. There are many, but they are consumed. The distresses do not thrive in the light. They have no room there. In the light the Lord’s redeemed shall dwell and be glad with unutterable joy.
J. M. Sanngren, Mission Meeting Sermon, Red Wing, Minnesota, February 23-28, 1878. From Eric G. Hawkinson, Images in Covenant Beginnings, pp. 63,65.
O let your soul now be filled with gladness, your heart redeemed, rejoice indeed!
O may the thought banish all your sadness that in his blood you have been freed,
that God’s unfailing love is yours, that you the only Son were given,
that by his death he has opened heaven, that you are ransomed as you are.
If you seem empty of any feeling, rejoice–you are his ransomed bride!
If those you cherish seem not to love you, and dark assails from ev’ry side,
still yours the promise, come what may, in loss and triumph, in laughter, crying,
in want and riches, in living, dying, that you are purchase as you are.
It is a good ev’ry good transcending that Christ has died for you and me!
It is a gladness that has no ending therein God’s wondrous love to see!
Praise be to you, O spotless lamb, who through the desert my soul are leading
to that fair city of joy exceeding, for which you bought me as I am.
Peter Jonsson Aschan (1726-1813), “O Let Your Soul Be Filled with Gladness,” tr.Karl A. Olsson (1913-1996), from The Covenant Hymnal: a Worshipbook (1996), No. 494.
The command of Jesus “to preach the kingdom of God and to heal” (Luke 9:2) has never been rescinded. Christians have usually understood preaching to be proclamation of the good news, but have not understood healing to be saving or making a person whole. Most churches have been faithful in a preaching and teaching ministry and have ignored a healing ministry.
...The healing ministry is to be a normal, ongoing and regular ministry in and by the church and not something dramatic, once-in-awhile, special or unique. The healing ministry is to be central, along with worship and music, education and evangelism, caring and fellowship, and mission and service.
William L. Peterson, Jr. (1930- ), “Healing Reclaimed. From We Serve, Christ Heals: the Faith Community as Healer (Unpublished manuscript), Chapter 2.
Tested Wherever We Are
The underlying characteristic of a church that recognizes the lordship of the risen Christ is that it is alive, and its life expresses itself by relating to the total life of its members. The division between the religious and secular aspects of life breaks down, and Christ becomes the Lord of all of life. The church responsibilities of the members are not separated from other activities but become a unifying influence which relates all the activities of life to the lordship of Christ. For example: the communion table is respected, but the dinner table is also respected because the risen Christ is just as concerned about what happens around the dinner table as he is about what happens around the communion table. The pulpit and the hymnbook are respected, but the workbench and the schoolbook are also respected because the pulpit and the hymnbook have a great deal to do with the workbench and the schoolbook.
Wesley W. Nelson (1910- ), Salvation and Secularity (1968), p. 88.
There are many wrong ideas people have about work, but there is none more common than that only ministers, missionaries, and full-time church workers have a calling from God. Long, long ago it was thought that a “calling” meant that one left the ordinary activities of the world and devoted himself only to religion. He became a monk or a priest and felt that he had a holy calling.
Of course even monks in a monastery had to do some kind of ordinary work, such as tilling fields, making shoes, and preparing meals. You may have heard your minister speak about a monk named Brother Lawrence whose job was washing pots and pans. He was a deeply spiritual man. While he worked in the kitchen he would remind himself that Christ was there at his side. He called this “Practicing the presence of Christ.” It helped him become a remarkably helpful Christian.
Another monk, whose name was Martin Luther, came to see that if he could wash pots and pans to the glory of God within a monastery, it should be possible to do the same thing outside the monastery. This truth became vital in the Protestant Reformation and is equally important today. There is no line to be drawn between sacred and secular work, for all honest, needed work is sacred. Every calling is a divine calling if carried out in the spirit of Christ. Some...will become doctors or nurses; some will become farmers or clerks or secretaries; perhaps some will become ministers or missionaries. If God calls you into the ministry you should be grateful, for it is a very great calling. But whatever your job may be, it is a divine calling in which you can serve God, if you think of it in that way.
Clifford W. Bjorklund (1921-1986), Harry J. Ekstam (1918- ), Karl A. Olsson (1913-1996), and Donald C. Frisk (1911- ), According to Thy Word (1954, 1955), pp. 412,413.
The most conclusive credentials of Jesus...[are] not what we read or hear about, but what we see with our own eyes, in practical daily life, and what we experience of his power in our own lives. Wherever you see a Christ-like life, a human soul who is imbued with the true spirit of Jesus, earnestly striving to follow in his footsteps, and humbly confessing him as the inspiration and joy of life, there you see a letter of introduction to Jesus. And when you have, yourself, met the Master and have like Paul, been “laid hold of” by him, when you have experienced the transforming and life-giving power of Christ in your own life, like so many thousands have done, then you realize that mere technical credentials are no longer vital to you. With Thomas you exclaim: “My Lord and my God.” You say, as the neighbors of the Samaritan woman said to her: “Now we believe, not because of [your] speaking, for we have heard for ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Savior of the world" (John 4:42).
Hjalmar Sundquist (1869-1949), The Credentials of Jesus (1930), p. 76.
Let's not be deceived. When carrying the name “Christian” can have so little bearing on the stuff and shape of daily living, when it has ceased to generate distinctive motivations, when it no longer issues in behavior patterns that are creatively and convincingly different from those of society in general, then Christianity, in the measure in which this is true, has gone cultic. No longer a life-force, it has become a residual form. It is more of an escape from reality than an engagement with reality.
What is true at the broad level of Christian practice is similarly true in the narrower field of doctrinal orthodoxy. Necessary and useful is zeal for the theological “purity of the Church.” “The faith once delivered to the saints” is not to be left to the small mercy of the innovators and the deviators. It must have defenders.
Here enters the peril. Saying the right words, repeating the proper phrases, clinging to the correct formulas, becomes the magical key to acceptance in orthodox circles. But the orthodoxy that believes soundly without the orthopraxy that behaves soundly is “sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal.” It may be, in particular circumstances, a graver offense to the Almighty than creedal error.
Paul S. Rees (1900-1991), Don’t Sleep Through the Revolution (Word Books, 1969), pp. 102,103.
When you plant, I take it for granted that you fertilize. You do not douse the plants in a disinfectant like Lysol. Lysol may be very nice in the bathroom, though I doubt it. But on a field where young plants are nourished, everyone would agree--no Lysol. If our ethic is to be essentially in the interests of purity, it then cannot be an ethic essentially in the interests of life. Because life requires manure. If the purpose of Christ's death on the cross and his lordship over us is essentially about purity, then I have read the New Testament wrongly. The purpose of Christ's death on the cross for me was essentially for my abundant life--the growth of the plant. I have nothing against purity. I think it is associated with healthy living. But first of all is life. The fence must not be built in such a way as to fence out for the purposes of preserving the purity of what is inside. This only ensures a hothouse fellowship incapable of dealing with life's real issues and pressures, as experienced by real people where they are really living. Then the gospel cannot be a saving word of good news. It need not be that way. The purpose of fencing is the plant. The purpose of the plant is nourishment. The purpose of nourishment is life, abundant life. And it ties the pilgrim to the goodness of God, and therefore to the possibility of participation in the usefulness of the pilgrimage.
Zenos E. Hawkinson (1925-1997), “Fencing” (1978). From Anatomy of the Pilgrim Experience: Reflections on Being a Covenanter, Edited by Philip J. Anderson and David E. Hawkinson (2000), p. 46.
One of the fundamental principles of free evangelical churches is a special emphasis laid upon a genuine Christian life of each individual believer. Christianity is not a theoretical religious conception of the world and man's life; it is a concrete style of life.... We have to play our roles in the life of society in which we live. In our confused world we make our home.... Legalism is not our way.... We have to take up a stand and say something to all the big affairs of world politics; we have to react to many painful social and economic problems: racism, social injustices, starvation, to the world armament race, to world peace efforts, to the danger of pollution, to the starving children in the world. We may not be silent. Otherwise, we are either blind or disobedient to the gospel.... There is something sound and biblical in the longing for a freedom and simplicity of life ... the internal freedom of a believer, that is, freedom from power, freedom from welfare, freedom from different demands and from being pretentious. Here we have our program for tomorrow.
Karl Barth [said to] Hungarian theologians and pastors, “You cannot proclaim a crusade against communism. You only can go and bring the word of the cross to the communists in your country, and preach the gospel tidings to them.” In order to be able to do that you urgently need internal freedom. If I should emigrate from my own country because of difficulties in my Christian life ... it would be an escape from my Christian responsibility ... in internal freedom.... I only ask what is the will of God to which I shall be obedient.
Jan Urban (1920-2000), “A Theology for the Federation,” from Walter Persson, Free and United: The Story of The International Federation of Free Evangelical Churches (1998), pp. 150,151.
Power to Change
The gospel...not only diagnoses the human condition and convicts us of our desperate need. It brings a message of hope and restoration. At the cross God did something about it definitely and conclusively. “God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself.” The core of the Good News is that Christ died for our sins and rose for our justification. It has been well said that after Calvary it can never be midnight again. The Christ of the cross died not with the clenched fist of a modern agitator, but with the open, bleeding hand of the Savior.
The fact is that Christ does change human lives. In his redeeming grace he touches and purifies the very springs of our being. “If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!” That transformation is real and unmistakable. The great leader of the Protestant Reformation said, “If anyone came and knocked at the door of my heart and asked who lived there, the answer would not be Martin Luther, but Jesus Christ.”
Theodore W. Anderson (1889-1972), “The Great Certainty”
From The Covenant Pulpit, G. F. Hedstrand, ed. (1954), p. 14.
I BELIEVE
I believe
This is the uniqueness of my faith--
In particular the Christian faith--
Any event
God can
I can
God can through me
Make something new.
I see it
I feel it.
Newness.
Adaline Bjorkman (1916- ), While It Was Still Dark: One Person’s Pilgrimage Through Grief (1978,1993), p. 130.
The words of Christians are like nails in the hearts of unbelievers and their deeds like hammer blows on the nails. If one has the most beautiful confession in one’s mouth but denies it in one’s life, one has accomplished nothing. One has only sacrificed the power and missed the salt. There can be great freedom with the gospel on the tongue but a complete contradiction in life. This is to bring shame to God’s name and sneering toward the gospel. Sanctification one must have before men; before God, only grace. The most important ingredient of savor of salt is love.
C. O. Rosenius (1816-1868), quoted in a Mission Meeting, Salina, Kansas, 1873
From Eric G. Hawkinson, Images in Covenant Beginnings (1968), p. 93.
Nothing creates the desire to live like the presence of life itself.
Milton B. Engebretson (1920-1996)
Quoted in Karl A. Olsson, A Family of Faith (1975), p. 142.
