I want to write a brief article today because I don’t have time to write the book(s?) that the topic deserves. But even so, brevity takes its time, too. So here’s a thesis statement aimed at giving you hope that reading this short article is worth your time:
THESIS STATEMENT
I believe that God had an amazing design for the fellowship of believers―and for the lives of the individual people who were those believers. In the great casualness of modern churchery, however, I believe that this design is missed more often than not as we read and study the Bible for other purposes than to discern and live out God’s design for things. In short, I believe his design for the fellowship is at once more amazing than most would ever notice, and more demanding than most would ever tolerate. And that’s what’s got me sitting in my chair early this morning to write about this amazing thing, knowing full well I could not get the whole of it written out in 100 mornings.
A Long Note About Why Brevity Is So Difficult
My regular readers know I have a hard time keeping things brief. This is due in part to at least three factors, which I list right here:
- Just about every verse in the Bible is “hyperlinked” to other verses―intentionally bringing to mind (for the well-read believer) other passages. (See the image above.) There are just so many wonderful and useful connections to be made that it’s painful to abridge them.
- And it’s partly due to the phenomenon being observed by the writer of this quote: “I didn’t have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.” (This is commonly attributed to Mark Twain, though I cannot find in a four-minute search, an exact source for it.) But my point here is that writing (well) short often requires writing long first, and then paring it down.
- And finally, it’s partly due to the fact that I’m the kind of guy who avoids just slapping Mark Twain’s name on the quote above, and letting it fly without vetting it (as so many others have done). Ours is such a sloppy world, and I’m trying hard to swim against that tide. I catch myself in such errors pretty much every day―and still I know that I do not catch them all!
- And finally-er, there’s editing, which takes time, and often begs for further clarification, which means more words in many cases, such as you are reading here in this fourth of three points.
- And on further thought, brevity is hard because my writing is as much an exercise in my own sense-making of this world as it is in writing for you. So if I think of something that seems (to me) worth including, more often than not, it’s going to get included. And soze ya know, I don’t lay awake at night fretting about the difficulty of brevity, nor the necessity of it.
God’s Amazing Design for the Fellowship (The brief version.)
Go read the Bible and tell me how often it talks about how God’s people are to treat one another. I’ve never counted it up, but I’m pretty sure that there are a great many passages telling of such things. And go count up all the passages that detail how they were to conduct themselves in their daily routines. And go count up all the passages that talk about how they were to “see to it” that the others among them also well-behaved, well-educated, and well-encouraged. Go look all this up right now.
This study involves reading about 807,361 words, arranged in about 31,103 verses, found in 1,189 chapters, covering roughly 1,100 pages in some Bibles―and that’s just the “Protestant” collection, which doesn’t include many of the other writings that are also worthy of our study. So anyway, go read all that, and then spend a few years reflecting on it all, while also noticing the relatively dysfunctional routines of so many of today’s churches
If you were to come over today and ask me for just two examples of some amazing design points, I’d give you these two, taught by Jesus and one of his authorized apostles or prophets―and I’d point out in advance that these are rarely obeyed by the churches, and that it might make you mad to have that pointed out.
Design Characteristic #1
“If your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over.”
Jesus. Matthew 18:15. NIV.
Every believer was supposed to do this. Every. Single. One. Not just the leaders. Not just the “bold” ones. Not just the older ones. Every. Single. Believer.
If you stand back and look at this design, imagining how it would work―thinking through the “big picture” of it like a Process Engineer or a System Designer might―you see that every part of the “machine”, if you will, or the “body” (to use a more “biblical” metaphor) is involved in the process of “Quality Control”. Every single part. Not one is left out by design. Even so, many leave themselves out of this because they are afraid or morally lazy, or are just ignorant that God even has a design for the fellowship and for their own lives!
Design Characteristic #2
But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called “Today,” so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.
Hebrews 3:13. NIV.
Design Characteristic #1 above was about being sure that the fellowship-wrecking sins get taken care of. In contrast, this one is about being sure that the sins don’t get dug in in the first place! Think about the design of such a system in which every part is to see to it that the other parts stay encouraged to keep on doing the right thing all the time! To me, that’s an amazing design! (And I’m stopping here to pat myself on the back for not stopping here to go look up any of the several other passages that are barking in my memory, wanting to be acknowledged on this same topic.)
Anyway, I’ve been thinking about this encouragement a lot lately, as you can see in my recent piece: Even the Strong Need Encouragement.
I Told You I Would Be Brief!
If you’re like me, you’re dying to get into more, but I told you I would be brief, so this is all you’re going to get in this article. Meanwhile, just so you understand my own mania, I’m dying to stop everything else I do, and to go through the entirety of scripture, tracking down any and all passages that relate to this subject of design, and including them all in a master study, probably in book form, or possibly on a dedicated website. But I don’t have the time or money to make that happen―and certainly not while also practicing due diligence in tending to my own health concerns.
And this is one of the biggest frustrations in my life―that while there is so very much packed into the scriptures, we have only just scratched the surface in our attempt to mine out their treasures and to put them to good use in our lives.
It’s also frustrating because, having studied this much, it’s fairly obvious to me that most of the churches are in quite a dysfunctional mess with regard to the heavenly design for the life of the believer and for the fellowship he keeps with others. Articles like this present one are generally not met with enthusiasm as I think they should be. Rather, there’s generally a cold disinterest about them, along with the occasional spiteful blowback from those who don’t welcome the conviction such Bible passages rightly bring, and would rather find a way to “justify” not listening.
I do wish I could study this exhaustively, though. I suppose I would find some number of “system”-related teachings like this―and I don’t know offhand if I’d find a dozen or ten dozen of them. But even if it were just half a dozen, my hunch is that it would make an amazing difference to see them all well-implemented in any particular fellowship. Indeed, why would any fellowship refuse the counsel of God as to how they should conduct themselves?
