The mission of the church should follow naturally from God’s mission. The word church traces to the Old English cirice, derived from the Greek kuriakē, meaning “of (or belonging to) the Lord.” Church is that which belongs to God and exists as an extension of God’s purposes and identity.
Why is it so difficult to acknowledge a gift as gift? Here is the reason. When I admit that something is a gift, I admit my dependence on the giver. This may not sound that difficult, but there is something within us that bristles at the idea of dependence. We want to get along by ourselves.
I remember the wild northern shores from which these stories come; gray rocks; dark little forests; restless, changeful seas. There is no introduction to that land, no guide book, no cicerone. Sailing over the sombre blue of waves that never quite forget the fierce cold of winter, you approach the sheer and silent coast, tranquil, reserved, impassive alike to roaring wind and caressing sunlight.
In the last few years, I have found myself repeatedly noting that the term “economy” itself is in its origins simply the word for housekeeping. And if this is the root or the core of its sense, we ought to be able to learn something about where the whole discourse belongs by thinking through what housekeeping actually is.
In attempting an estimate of Dr. Muhlenberg’s character, we must go a little into detail, and speak more fully of him in his private and public capacity, particularly as an earnest Christian and a faithful minister of the gospel. He was a man of clear, vigorous intellect, and of varied and extensive learning.
Doubtless, like as all nations in the diversity of speeches may know one God in the unity of faith, and be one in love; even so may divers translations understand one another, and that in the head articles and ground of our most blessed faith, though they use sundry words. Wherefore methink we have great occasion to give thanks unto God, that he hath opened unto his church the gift of interpretation and of printing, and that there are now at this time so many, which with such diligence and faithfulness interpret the scripture,
Among Christian men, love maketh all things common; every man is other’s debtor, and every man is bound to minister to his neighbour, and to supply his neighbour’s lack of that wherewith God hath endowed him. . . . Alms is a Greek word, and signifieth mercy. One Christian is debtor to another at his need, of all that he is able to do for him, until his need be sufficed. Every Christian man ought to have Christ always before his eyes, as an ensample to counterfeit and follow, and to do to his neighbour as Christ hath done to him.
We should never desire to be above others, but ought rather to be servants and subject “to every human creature for God’s sake.” And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon all those who do these things and who shall persevere to the end, and He shall make His abode and dwelling in them, and they shall be children of the heavenly Father whose works they do, and they are the spouses, brothers and mothers of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Since the apostles understood that the source of all the gospel virtues was faith, the faith that the Lord so carefully required in the doing of miracles, that he so often praised in many, even non-Jews, that always receives what it asks for, and that they themselves had used in dispelling illness and driving out demons, . . . they said to the Lord, “Lord, since we have nothing good except from you, we ask that you increase our faith.”
Never have there been such extensive and such convincing evidences of the poverty and inadequacy of human means and agencies for furthering the welfare of humanity; never has there been such a widespread sense of the need of superhuman help; never have there been such challenges to Christians to undertake deeds requiring Divine cooperation; never has there been such a manifest desire to discover the secret of the hiding and of the releasing of God’s power. Interest in prayer is world-wide.