Father Chip Johnson at The South Dakota Anglican recently posted The Know Nothings , a very worthwhile meditation on St. Paul's words: "For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified." (I Corinthians 2.2)
If our Anglican witness is to avoid unhelpful whining and grousing about old, dead church stuff, we need to lock onto this single issue as our positive reason for existence. A healthy focus is good for the Body of Christ on earth; as we showed here, most of us are coming out of a "church" that is undoing itself over an unhealthy, unbiblical single issue obsession. (This has been confirmed by a South Dakota Lutheran pastor who emailed us and by item #7 here. )
As the preface to the 1549 Book of Common Prayer tells us, Anglicanism has a purpose:
"For they so ordred the matter, that all the whole Bible (or the greater parte thereof)
should be read ouer once in the yeare,
intendyng thereby, that the Cleargie, and specially
suche as were Ministers of the congregacion, should (by often readyng and
meditacion of Gods worde) be stirred vp to godlines themselfes, and be more
able also to exhorte other by wholsome doctrine, and to confute them that were
aduersaries to the trueth. And further, that the people (by daily hearyng of
holy scripture read in the Churche) should continuallye profite more and
more in the knowledge of God, and bee the more inflamed with the loue of his
true religion."
Our single issue, informing all else we might do, is to help people know and live from the Biblical message of Jesus Christ crucified.
2 comments:
I would just add St. Paul's words following v.2... "I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling." I believe Fr. Chip would agree that the manner and place in which we live out our resolve to "know nothing... only Jesus Christ and Him crucifed" is as important as the actual "knowing" and preaching of this.
Paul goes on to say "Yet we do speak wisdom among those who are mature; a wisdom, however, not of this age nor of the rulers of this age, who are passing away; but we speak God's wisdom in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God predestined before the ages to our glory; the wisdom which none of the rulers of this age has understood; for if they had understood it they would not have crucified the Lord of glory."
So it seems to me we also need to be prepared to speak wisely of God's previously hidden, but now revealed, Grand Plan of Redemption and Restoration of His Creation (including "this old world") in Christ Jesus... at the appropriate times and places, with "those who are mature".
We don't want to truncate the Gospel into "how God wants us to be all we can be", which I see much of the so called Mainline church doing.
My thoughts... for what their worth... which very well could be what you have had to pay for them ;-)
TK of RC
tk of rc, thanks for amplifying the message so wonderfully with the rest of the Scripture. The church has been entrusted with stewardship of the mysteries of God. We need to have a ministry that shares the truth of Jesus Christ, with love and power.
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