Old Lutheran Quote of the Day

(Okay, okay, a little LONG for a quote - but it was too juicy. I'd forgotten all about it, but Pastor Robert Schaibley handed it out again this week. Good stuff from Pastor Henry Hamann!)

What we see in the New Testament is a church which meets here or there, in this city or that town or village, for worship and prayer and mutual edification in the faith. The first day of the week is the chief time for this meeting, and the celebration of the Lord's Supper is the culminating act of faith and worship. Certain men, with a special ability to teach and instruct and comfort and advise, play the leading role in such gatherings of the faithful. There are, besides such pastors and overseers, others in the church who devote their lives, wholly or in large measure, to works of mercy for their fellow-Christians, as they help the poor, the sick, the needy. By putting together Acts 2:42-47; 6; 20:7-11; 1 Cor 11; 14; 16:2; Hebrews 10:25; 1 Timothy 2:1-8; 3:1-7;4:9-10; Titus 1:5-9; 2:3-5; James 5:14 and passages like Ephesians 4:11-12 and other passages speaking of the ministry, such as Acts 20:28; Hebrews 13:17; 1 Peter 4:11 and 5:1-4, you get something very like the picture just sketched.

Apart from the church in assembly, we see these same Christians going about their daily affairs and business, doing their work as wives and mother or father and husbands, some of the women looking after their homes, some of the men working in their jobs, some them slaves obediently doing what their masters direct. In these various and sundry occupations in and outside the home they are urged to lead beautiful lives, doing beautiful works (kala erga), as in Matt. 5:16; 1 Peter 2:11-12; 3:1. By these lives of good works they attract the unbelievers to teh faith which they hold and confess and of which they speak as opportunity arises: "...that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven" (Matt 5:16); "...that they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation" (1 Pet 2:12); "...so that some, though they do not obey the word, may be won without a word by the behavior of their wives" (1 Pet 3:1)

This is evangelization, church growth New Testament style. If a pastor aims at a congregation whose members live by faith active in love - which is the only thing that finally counts in Christ Jesus (Gal 5:6), and if he were sure that all his flock were doing just that, there would be no need for any further organization in his congregation beyond the barest minimum for the sake of order. There would be no stewardship and evangelism committees, no frantic searching and scratching of heads, so that every member in the congregation would have something to do, no elaborate programs to show that everybody keeps busy in some spiritual activity. But there would be a mighty spiritual, churchly movement, as all the members of the congregation would live their free lives of faith, loving their fellowmen and serving them in freedom, heedless of self, as the whole body of Christ would grow and build itself up in love, each part doing its work. And that mighty spiritual movement would exert a tremendous attraction on the unbelieving world, as the Holy Spirit would, through it and the preached Word of the Gospel, add to the church daily those who were being saved.

--Henry Hamann, *The Translation of Ephesians 4:12 - A Necessary Revision* - CJ January 1988, pp. 48-49

[And wasn't that very long quote entirely worth it?]