Letters to Peter, 7

(My friend Peter has set me a challenge for 2024: each month he is going to ask me a question for me to answer. I want my answer to come from the heart, so I will try not use books, except the Bible. And I will try keep it to around 500 words. Thanks for the challenge Peter. I hope others find it helpful too.)

In a time of busyness with increased family, community break down and loneliness etc what is the model for a loving, supportive local church exhibiting authentic and meaningful fellowship? It appears in the NT that people lived and shared together more closely than we do today, is this just a cultural difference that we accept or do we challenge the norms of today, and if so how?

In the OT, the Israelite nation was supposed to be like a loving family, God’s people, worshipping him and living communally under his lordship. They were meant to be a light to the surrounding nations so that the nations would be attracted to the worship of the true God.

In the NT, there is a marked change: As a result of Pentecost, the people of God no longer constitute a political entity.

They are a minority within a hegemonic political entity – the Roman Empire.

Luke gives us two fascinating glimpses into the communal life of the early church (Acts 2:42-47 and 4:32:37).

There is a high level of unity of heart and mind, and a strong inner compulsion to share possessions with each other.

Over the centuries some have taken that as evidence that Christians should not own personal possessions. That is a false position, for two reasons: 

1.        It is clear that possession in themselves are not considered a problem (Acts 5:4);

2.        As with the whole book of Acts, these passages are an account of what happened, not a prescription for what should happen. So they need to be interpret carefully, not unthinkingly used as ammo for a particular lifestyle choice.

Nevertheless, it would be wrong to dismiss what those lovely early believers did as having no relevance for us today.

Paul, I think, lays down a principle in his letter to the Galatians that is surely relevant to all believers at all times:

Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers. (Gal 6:9-10)

We are to do good. And we are to watch out for weariness in the doing, and resist the temptation to give up.

And those good works are to be particularly oriented towards fellow believers. Why? Because we are family.

Paul also says that if we don’t give up, there will be a harvest. I think that is what was happening in the early church there in Jerusalem:

And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved. (Acts 2:47)

A loving community is God’s plan for attracting people to Christ. In that way, the people of God after Pentecost are to function no differently to the people of God who lived before it.

 

 

Letter to Peter, 6

Considering current trends of how people receive information and access media, changes in levels of concentration, literacy, etc., how should the teachings of the Bible be best communicated in a local church setting, especially during a weekly Sunday service? Is the 30-40min sermon at all relevant today, effective or of value, and if not what should take its place (maybe more an 8 minute TED talk)?

I saw recently that the Pope has instructed priests to preach no longer than 8 minutes, which is uncannily the same length of time you quote for a TED talk. The reason, he said, is that you cannot hold people’s attention for any longer and they fall asleep. 

Does the Pope have a point? Should we limit our preaching to short talks? Are our congregations unable to concentrate for longer periods?

Here are some thoughts that I hope will be helpful:

Attention Deficit

The internet in general, and especially mediated through smart phones, clearly is having an impact on the way people think. Although there are nay-sayers, it seems to me to be incontrovertible. (See this article outlining the recent book by American psychologist Jonathan Haidt –, and a related article here.

While being devastating to children it is also, surely, changing the way the population at large thinks. I, for one, find my attention span seems so much shorter than it used to be, although that might be age!

This phenomenon demands that we work hard to help our people to develop healthy habits of reading and listening. We need ourselves to push back against the algorithms that demand we move on to the next thing without thinking.

Literacy

As a response to the increasing hold smart phones have on the wealthy (thinking globally), it has been observed that there has been an emergence of what people are calling a post-literate culture.

Clearly, if people do not read much, they will find it more difficult to follow a text in their Bible or on the screen. (This is compounded if they are reading on their phone, and a notification suddenly pops up, but that is a different problem really.)

Lack of literacy, however, is not a new problem for the church. This blog post by Michael Kruger suggests that literacy rates in the early church were never more than 10-15%.

This is surely a big driver of Paul’s instruction to Timothy: “Until I come, give yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to preaching and to teaching” (1 Tim 4:13).

I have been in church gatherings in which there was very little reading of Scripture. An unhealthy church culture is the inevitable result.

Why We Gather

Something very significant happens when we gather. I found this article helpful.

And preaching, in my mind, is the high point of the gathering of God’s people. We have been singing the Lord’s praises, listened to the public reading of the Scriptures, prayed together for the life of the church, and for the extension of the gospel to those who are outside of God’s grace.

Now we get to sit under the proclamation of the Word of God.

And God speaks to us! This never ceases to amaze me. And it never ceases to weigh on me when I am asked to preach. It is a burden, so I need to plead to the Holy Spirit for his help to enable me to preach in such a way that lives are changed. This recent article by Craig Thompson says it well.

Preaching was never meant to be the simple transmission of information to a congregation. To treat it as such is to demean the event hugely. If it were this, then we might want to communicate that information in another way.

But the Lord Jesus himself said, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” Everyone was listening, but only those who had ears to hear really heard. And that depended on the operation of the Holy Spirit in and through the preaching.

So let us not dumb down the preaching of God’s Word. Let us seek the Lord, that he would meet with us in a tangible way. And let us pray for our preachers to be given a double portion of the Spirit to equip them for this vital work.