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Editorial | “Yes, straight away”
(2 Pet. 2:15); again using this same word for
“immediate”. Immediate response is the only
right way. Even if we are left with egg on our
faces, fools for Christ’s sake, in our late night
reflections on our choices clutching on to the
promise that “We can do nothing against the
truth, but only for the truth” (2 Cor. 13:8).
If only we would live in this spirit. Our quick
response leads to the Lord’s further response,
and the dialogue of our lives with Him
progresses quicker. God is in dialogue with
man. And it can progress at the speed of light,
if we allow it to. For that dialogue, that rela-
tionship, is mediated by His Spirit. There were
eleven days’ journey from Egypt to Canaan
(Dt. 1:2). It took Israel a lifetime. And that
journey from Red Sea baptism to the promised
land is our journey in Christ.
Our delayed response is connected to the
conservatism deep within us, the predilection
to carry on just as we are and have done. We
don’t want the new wine, “for he says [deep
within himself], The old is better” (Lk. 5:39).
The Lord here accepts the basic conservatism
of human nature- that we will not make the
change immediately. In seeking to make the
total transformation, we ourselves must
realize that however progressive, liberal, flex-
ible, open to new ideas we think we are- when
it comes to spiritual change, we are terribly
conservative. And it is such unbridled conser-
vatism which stops people changing and
accepting the new wine. There is the assump-
tion in many Christian groups and minds that
conservative = righteous, and change is likely
to be for the worst. And yet the Lord is
teaching that it is our native conservatism
which stops the vital, transforming change
which is necessary to avoid the shattering of
life and personality now, and final destruction
at judgment day. We all find change hard; new
wineskins are able to be stretched.
But the Lord knows our nature. He saw that
our spiritual growth would be an agonizingly
slow business; as slow as a tiny mustard seed
growing into a tree, as slow as a man digging
a foundation in rock, or a seed growing
and bringing forth fruit. Such growth
is very slow from a human perspective. But
He saw the possibility of His blood being
wasted if men didn’t change from old to new
wineskins. The implication is that we shed His
blood afresh if we won’t change, if we allow
the conservatism of our natures to have an
iron grip upon us we not only destroy
ourselves, but waste the blood of the Son of
God.
| Duncan Heaster
Love in Our Lives (1 Cor 13)
T
here are a huge amount of reasons we
could have come to believe in God. We
may have been brought up with a believing
family, we may have seen God in creation,
we may have felt there was something more
to life, been convinced of the truth of the
Bible, been astounded by prophecy, had a
good friend who was a Christian, been
convicted by the death and resurrection of
Jesus, or believed because of a miracle,
healing or answer to prayer.
While it may have been any of those things
that brought us to Christ, they should no
longer remain our primary focus. Each one
of the things we first believed points us in
some way toward love: the love of God to
us, and the love we should show to each
other.
In Corinth people were arguing about which
spiritual gifts were the best. None of them
were the best, but each of them was a
single aspect of love. In the end love is what
it’s all about. “Love never fails. But where
there are prophecies, they will cease;
where there is knowledge, it will pass
away.” (1 Cor 13:8).
In the end it’s not how well we know
prophecy or can argue creation or who our
friends were, or how many miracles we have
seen that will count. It’s whether all these
things have translated into love in our lives.
Let’s develop love. Love is what the gospel
and the kingdom of God are all about.