There is No Recipe For Church Growth

So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace and was being built up.  And walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it multiplied.  Acts 9:31 

Ray Ortlund:

I’m not against strategic plans.  I’m for them.  They have their place, as a matter of wise stewardship.  But they cannot generate the astonishing outcomes described in the book of Acts. 

I remember hearing Michael Green at the Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization in 1974.  He asked us, Why don’t we see anywhere in the book of Acts a man-made strategic plan for evangelizing the world?  His answer: They didn’t have one. 

What then did they have?  Two things, for starters: the fear of the Lord, and the comfort of the Holy Spirit. 

In the fear of the Lord, they were teachable, they were humble, they were listening to the gospel, they were open and grateful and easily bendable.  They did not have a spirit of self-assurance.  They were eager to learn and grow and change in any way the Lord wanted them to. 

In the comfort of the Holy Spirit, they were gladdened, they felt forgiven, they were reconciled to God and reconciling with one another.  They saw their sins and failures, but they also saw the far greater reality of Jesus crucified for them.  To put it in a secular way, they couldn’t believe their luck. 

Openness in a know-it-all world, comfort in an angry world – that ancient world simply could not resist these heaven-sent powers.  So the church didn’t just grow, it multiplied.
Those early churches had no master plan for their future.  But they were walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, and it worked. 

Church growth takes planning.  Let’s do it.  But church multiplication takes miracle.  Let’s be open to what only God can do.

Books by Ray Ortlund:

• Proverbs:  Wisdom That Works
• Isaiah:  God Saves Sinners
• A Passion for God: Prayers and Meditations on the Book of Romans
• God's Unfaithful Wife: A Biblical Theology of Spiritual Adultery
• When God Comes to Church: A Biblical Model for Revival Today

God's Grace is Purifying Grace

“I apologize for putting this so bluntly, but it’s in the Bible. We need to face it. How can we hope to be true to Christ if we look away from the Bible’s stark portrayal of our natural corruption? The Bible alerts us that a blasphemous attitude lurks in all our hearts. We tell ourselves: ‘What’s the big deal about this or that compromise? He’ll understand. He’s all about grace, right?’ But what man would say: ‘What’s the big deal about my wife’s adulteries? It’s only marriage. I understand. I’m all about grace’? In the same way, our divine Husband does not think, ‘Well, she’s brought another lover into our bed, but as long as they let me sleep, what’s the big deal?’ The thought is revolting. 

“The love of Jesus is sacred. He gives all, and he demands all, because he is a good Husband. Only an exclusive love is real love. Only a cleansing grace is real grace. Would we even desire a grace that did not cleanse us for Christ?”

- Ray Ortlund, The Gospel: How the Church Portrays the Beauty of Christ, p.45

(HT:  Jared)

A Church Culture That Embodies The Implications of the Gospel is Hard to Find

Tony Reinke:

Wise pastor Ray Ortlund addresses this problem throughout his forthcoming book, The Gospel: How the Church Portrays the Beauty of Christ (Crossway; April 30, 2014). He writes this on pages 82–83: 

A gospel culture is harder to lay hold of than gospel doctrine. It requires more relational wisdom and finesse. It involves stepping into a kind of community unlike anything we’ve experienced, where we happily live together on a love we can’t create. A gospel culture requires us not to bank on our own importance or virtues, but to forsake self-assurance and exult together in Christ alone. 

This mental adjustment is not easy, but living in this kind of community is wonderful. We find ourselves saying with Paul, “For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things” — all the trophies of our self-importance, all the wounds of our self-pity, every self-invented thing that we lug around as a way of getting attention — “and count them as dung in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ” (Phil. 3:8–9). 

Paul did not regard the loss of his inflated self as sacrificial. Who admires his own dung? It is a relief to be rid of our distasteful egos! And when a whole church together luxuriates in Christ alone, that church embodies a gospel culture. It becomes a surprising new kind of community where sinners and sufferers come alive because the Lord is there, giving himself freely to the desperate and undeserving. 

But how easy it is for a church to exist in order to puff itself up! How hard it is to forsake our own glory for a higher glory! 

The primary barrier to displaying the beauty of Jesus in our churches comes from the way we re-insert ourselves into that sacred center that belongs to him alone. Exalting ourselves always diminishes his visibility. That is why cultivating a gospel culture requires a profound, moment by moment “unselfing” by every one of us. It is personally costly, even painful.

"No matter how right the cause is, the anger of man only makes things worse."

Ray Ortlund:

Behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.  Luke 2:10 

The anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.  James 1:20 

A harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.  James 3:18 

Flee youthful passions.  2 Timothy 2:22 

The “youthful passions” in this context are not sexual.  Paul has in mind the passion for controversy, that feeling inside that relishes a fight and loves to be proved right and even prophetic.  Instead, “The Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, . . . patiently enduring evil” (2 Timothy 2:24).  But there is something about us, especially in our youthful immaturity, that lusts to raise protests and set the world right and make sure everyone cares as passionately as I do, because I’m on the side of the right, I’m the defender of the downtrodden, I get it more than others do, etc. 

In this world of blatant, horrible wrongs, it is not hard to get angry.  It is hard not to get angry.  But “the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.”  It just doesn’t.  Because it can’t.  No matter how right the cause is, the anger of man only makes things worse.  Sometimes the youthful don’t see how clever evil is, how easy it is for us to add to evil while intending good, how hard it is for us to be angry and not sin and complicate things further.  Exposing and confronting wrongs — real wrongs with real victims — is good, but not simple.  Not for us.  What is simple is creating more victims by rushing to judgment with guns ablazing and a golden heart pursuing a noble cause.

Read the rest.


Books by Ray Ortlund:

• Proverbs:  Wisdom That Works
• Isaiah:  God Saves Sinners
• A Passion for God: Prayers and Meditations on the Book of Romans
• God's Unfaithful Wife: A Biblical Theology of Spiritual Adultery
• When God Comes to Church: A Biblical Model for Revival Today

What Does a Gospel-Centered Church Look Like?

Ray Ortlund:

“. . . a friend of tax collectors and sinners!”  Luke 7:34 

What does it mean for a church to be gospel-centered?  That’s a popular concept these days.  Good.  What if we were scrambling to be law-centered?  But the difference is not so easy in real terms. 

A gospel-centered church holds together two things.  One, a gospel-centered church preaches a bold message of divine grace for the undeserving — so bold that it becomes the end of the law for all who believe.  Not our performance but Christ’s performance for us.  Not our sacrifices but his sacrifice for us.  Not our superiority but only his worth and prestige.  The good news of substitution.  The good news that our okayness is not in us but exterior to us in Christ alone.  Climbing down from the high moral ground, because only Christ belongs up there.  That message, that awareness, that clarity.  Sunday after Sunday after Sunday. 

Two, a gospel-centered church translates that theology into its sociology.  The good news of God’s grace beautifies how we treat one another.  In fact, the horizontal reveals the vertical.  How we treat one another reveals what we really believe as opposed to what we think we believe.  It is possible to say, “We are a gospel-centered church,” and sincerely mean it, while we make our church into a law-centered social environment.  We see God above lowering his gun, and we breathe a sigh of relief.  But if we are trigger-happy toward one another, we don’t get it yet. 

A gospel-centered church looks something like this album cover — my all-time favorite.  A gospel-centered church is a variegated collection of sinners.  What unifies them is Jesus, the King of grace.  They come together and stick together because they have nothing to fear from their church’s message or from their church’s culture.  The theology creates the sociology, and the sociology incarnates the theology.  And everyone is free to trust the Lord, be honest about their problems, and grow in newness of life. 

The one deal-breaker in a gospel-centered church: anyone for any reason turning it into a culture of legal demandingness, negative scrutiny, finger-pointing, gossip and other community-poisoning sins.  A church with a message of grace can quickly and easily stop being gospel-centered in real terms. 

A major part of pastoral ministry is preaching the doctrine of grace and managing an environment of grace.  The latter is harder to accomplish than the former.  It is more intuitive.  It requires more humility, self-awareness and trust in the Lord.  But when a church’s theological message and its relational tone converge as one, that church becomes powerfully prophetic, for the glory of Jesus. 

May the Friend of sinners grant beautiful gospel-centricity in all our churches.

Books by Ray Ortlund:

• Proverbs:  Wisdom That Works
• Isaiah:  God Saves Sinners
• A Passion for God: Prayers and Meditations on the Book of Romans
• God's Unfaithful Wife: A Biblical Theology of Spiritual Adultery
• When God Comes to Church: A Biblical Model for Revival Today

Reconciliation Has to be a Priority

Ray Ortlund:

Aim for restoration.  2 Corinthians 13:11 

“Aim for restoration” was highly relevant to this community in Corinth.  They were broken at multiple levels.  They were making progress, but there was much good still to accomplish.  So, “aim for restoration” was ideal as an all-encompassing intention.  For any gospel-defined church, then or now, restoration is an obvious priority. 

But is it obvious?  Or, is it obvious to us today?  Few churches and movements, it seems, are free from relational strains and fractures.  A settled wholeness seems rare.  But I wonder if restoration is the priority it deserves to be. 

Earlier in 2 Corinthians Paul defined his life work as “the ministry of reconciliation” (2 Corinthians 5:18).  He defined the gospel as “the message of reconciliation” (verse 19).  That is why he did not say, “We have moments of reconciliation now and then.”  No, he saw his calling as “the ministry of reconciliation.”  In other words, “Reconciliation is all I do.  It’s how I roll.  It isn’t a preference.  It is a gospel necessity, an obvious one.” 

I wonder how many of our churches and movements can honestly say, with the apostle, “Reconciliation is our ministry, because it is our message.  We have no higher priority.  We want to be living proof of the gospel.  This is obvious to us.” 

Aiming for restoration deserves to be a matter of prayer and priority in 2014 for every gospel-defined church and ministry.  Settling for the status quo – where is that in the gospel?  We might not succeed in renewing shalom with everyone (Romans 12:18).  Some people will always be unsatisfiable.  But have we tried?  To whatever extent God gives success, we will be more ready for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit we all long for, for the salvation of many others around us. 

What wonderful things might the Lord do for us all in 2014, if we allow the gospel of reconciliation to define, or perhaps redefine, our ministry priorities?

Books by Ray Ortlund:

• Proverbs:  Wisdom That Works
• Isaiah:  God Saves Sinners
• A Passion for God: Prayers and Meditations on the Book of Romans
• God's Unfaithful Wife: A Biblical Theology of Spiritual Adultery
• When God Comes to Church: A Biblical Model for Revival Today

"Confession would be foolhardy, because it would be used as evidence against, rather than for, a person."

Ray Ortlund:

In some churches, nobody admits anything.  Confession would be foolhardy, because it would be used as evidence against, rather than for, a person.  If not dead already, such a church eventually will be.  But God welcomes all of us sinners to confess and get free forever.  It’s like being born again again. 

Biblical confession also includes a horizontal dimension – confession to one another, where we find powerful healing.  Confession to God alone often does not lift us into the freedom we seek.  With God alone, confession can be too easy.  It is too easy to save face, and there is no healing, no release, in saving face, however earnest the confession to God might seem to be.  Confession to God alone can be a way of not really facing ourselves and our sins.  James 5:16 shows us where freedom can be found: “Therefore confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed.  The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.” 

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in Life Together, writes, “You are a sinner, a great, desperate sinner; now come, as the sinner that you are, to God who loves you.  He wants you as you are; he does not want anything from you, a sacrifice, a work; he wants you alone. . . . You can hide nothing from God.  The mask you wear before men will do you no good before him.  He wants to see you as you are, he wants to be gracious to you.”

Read the rest.



Books by Ray Ortlund:

• Proverbs:  Wisdom That Works
• Isaiah:  God Saves Sinners
• A Passion for God: Prayers and Meditations on the Book of Romans
• God's Unfaithful Wife: A Biblical Theology of Spiritual Adultery
• When God Comes to Church: A Biblical Model for Revival Today

Wisdom and Money

Why is using our money for Christ wise? Because the more we use our money for self-importance, the sillier we look. The pretense of it, the love of appearances, the overreaching—we do that because money has an almost mystical power over us. But how many castles in Europe are still lived in by the families that built them? Self-importance is unsustainable. But the more we heap prestige on Jesus by our money, the more weighty and significant and relevant we become. We become serious people. We impact history. That is the irony of wisdom.

- Ray Ortlund, Proverbs: Wisdom that Works, p.68.

3 Simple Cautions When You Spot Error or Wrongdoing in Someone

Ray Ortlund:

1. If my only emotion toward a wrongdoer is rage, and I feel no desire for his or her redemption, I might need to step back and examine myself. Looking out over the city of Jerusalem, knowing the judgment they would suffer, Jesus didn’t gloat; he wept (Luke 19:41-44). Surely, there should be more tears among us.

2. If biblical warnings — for example, against confronting a wrong wrongly (1 Corinthians 6:1-8) — if hearing biblical warnings like this only makes me more angry, I may have crossed a line God doesn’t want me to cross. For any sinner, moral fervor is a dangerous emotion. But looking to the Lord and obeying him, however difficult, are always safe.

3. If the justice of God isn’t real to me, such that I cannot “leave it to the wrath of God” (Romans 12:19), I may have slipped into self-exaltation, taking God’s place as Judge. If so, then I am unable to “overcome evil with good” (Romans 12:21), because my own heart is evil. And evil cannot overcome evil, no matter how evil the other person’s evil is.

Read the rest.


Books by Ray Ortlund:

• Proverbs:  Wisdom That Works
• Isaiah:  God Saves Sinners
• A Passion for God: Prayers and Meditations on the Book of Romans
• God's Unfaithful Wife: A Biblical Theology of Spiritual Adultery
• When God Comes to Church: A Biblical Model for Revival Today

"Do we want to guarantee that our children will run in the opposite direction of our most cherished biblical convictions?"

Do we want to guarantee that our children will run in the opposite direction of our most cherished biblical convictions? All we have to do is sterilize our churches. Make them rigid, unresponsive, grim. Require of our ministers that they play the role of the scolding, scowling Reverend Eat-Your Peas. Treat the gospel as a theological system only, rather than also as a personal remedy. Use the Bible as ammunition for "culture wars" rather than as food for life. Withdraw from the historical situation in which God has placed us. Build us the walls, reinforce the barriers, and make certain that no experience gets in here.  Ignore the fact that "doctrine only"is not itself a biblical doctrine.  

- Ray Ortlund Jr., When God Comes To Church, p. 16, 17

How To Read the Bible and How Not To

Ray Ortlund:

There are two ways to read the Bible. We can read it as law or as promise.

If we read the Bible as law, we will find on every page what God is telling us we should do. Even the promises will be conditioned by law. But if we read the Bible as promise, we will find on every page what God is telling us he will do. Even the commands are conditioned by promise.

In Galatians 3 Paul explains which hermeneutic is the correct one. “This is what I mean: the law, which came 430 years afterward, does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to make the promise void. For if the inheritance comes by the law, it no longer comes by promise; but God gave it to Abraham by a promise” (Galatians 3:17-18).

So, if we want to know whether we should read the Bible through the lens of law or grace, demand or provision, threat or promise — if we want to know how to read the Bible in an apostolic rather than a rabbinic way — we can follow the plot-line of the Bible itself and see which comes first. And in fact, promise comes first, in God’s word to Abram in Genesis 12. Then the law is “added” — significant word, in Galatians 3:19 — the law is added as a sidebar later, in Exodus 20. The hermeneutical category “promise” establishes the larger, wraparound framework for everything else added in along the way.

The deepest message of the Bible is the promises of God to law-breakers through his grace in Jesus. This is not an arbitrary overlay forced onto the biblical text. The Bible presents itself to us this way. The laws and commands and examples and warnings are all there, fulfilled in Christ and revered by us. But they do not provide the hermeneutic with which we make sense of the whole. We can and should understand them as qualified by God’s gracious promise in Christ, for all who will bank their happiness on his promise of grace for the undeserving.

Books by Ray Ortlund:

• Proverbs:  Wisdom That Works
• Isaiah:  God Saves Sinners
• A Passion for God: Prayers and Meditations on the Book of Romans
• God's Unfaithful Wife: A Biblical Theology of Spiritual Adultery
• When God Comes to Church: A Biblical Model for Revival Today

Should We Have a Ton of Programs in Our Churches?

On Revival

“Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful. Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For with the measure you use it will be measured back to you.” Luke 6:36-38

Ray Ortlund:

Surely, this is one of our Lord’s ordained pathways into revival.

He is not saying we can earn a good measure of divine blessing. But his grace leads us into more than a position of mercy before God. His grace also leads us into participation in the mercy of God: “Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.”

A merciful heart feels for the offender. A merciful mind enters the experience of the offender, to understand his or her weakness. A merciful will chooses a generous outlook. Our Father is like that. That is what we believe and teach. And gospel doctrine always creates a gospel culture.

Read the rest.

Love Your Enemies

“But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil.” Luke 6:35

Ray Ortlund:

But love your enemies. If we stand up for what’s right, we will have enemies. They feel justified in their hostility. But Jesus says, love them anyway. Hostile people expect hostility in return. Jesus says, surprise them.

And do good. This “love” cannot be just benevolent emotions or big talk. Jesus says, make it practical. What good thing can you and I do for those who have done bad things to us?

And lend, expecting nothing in return. Jesus is moving from the general (love your enemies) to the actionable (and do good) to a specific example (and lend, expecting nothing in return). Loving our enemies will cost us.

And your reward will be great. Enemies have the power to take, but they do not have the power to return what they have taken. Jesus does. Our futures are in his hands, not theirs. And he is promising a great reward to those who trust him enough to follow him in this way.

And you will be sons of the Most High. It is no petty godlet who calls us into this hard path. It is the Most High. And his greatest glory is that he loves the undeserving. Jesus says, here is how you can be most clearly identified with him.

For he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. Before God, we are all ungrateful and evil. But Jesus is saying this with reference to the conflicts we find ourselves in. It is ungrateful and evil enemies we are to love — people who should be grateful and good, but for their own reasons they are not what God wants them to be. It is such people to whom he is kind. Good thing for us.

Check out Ray's books here:
Proverbs: Wisdom that Works
Isaiah: God Saves Sinners
A Passion for God: Prayers and Meditations on the Book of Romans
God's Unfaithful Wife: A Biblical Theology of Spiritual Adultery
When God Comes to Church: A Biblical Model for Revival Today

Evidence of God's Spirit at Work in our Times

Ray Ortlund with a very encouraging post that I heartily agree with.  He writes:

I was ruined at 19. I saw the Holy Spirit come down and change the subject on the streets of L.A. to Jesus. It was known as “the Jesus Movement” — from around 1969 to 1972. I thought this was just how ministry was done, this is what to expect. All my life since I have prayed and labored to see breakthrough spiritual power of that magnitude.

I am seeing it. We are seeing it. But this time, it’s better. The Jesus Movement was more like a power surge. Kaboom. It came, it went. Much good was done. But it was too soon over. This time, however, we’re planting churches, forming coalitions and networks, building websites, writing books of lasting value, and much more. This time, it’s built to last. This is thrilling.

These advances are pouring out of a broad renewal in the biblical gospel. Union with Christ crucified and risen, regeneration, justification by faith alone, sanctification by grace, the church as ground zero for the purposes of God, and so forth — robust gospel doctrine is being run up the flagpole through The Gospel Coalition, Together for the Gospel, Acts 29, Sovereign Grace Ministries, Reach Records, and so forth, and a new generation is saluting. I see this as evidence of God’s power in our midst. And here’s the cool thing. It’s not as though a human committee met in a hotel conference room somewhere to mastermind the progress of the past decade. God has done this himself. And it’s no stunt. He has a plan, and he’s working his plan. He is creating conditions for an even better future, if we will steward his blessing wisely.

How can we do that? How can we live in such a way that, twenty years from today, we won’t be regretting how we handled our historic opportunity? What can we do, within our limitations, not to squander what God is giving us but to parlay it into even more?

Read the rest for his exhortations on how we move into the future with such blessing.


Check out Ray's books here:
Proverbs: Wisdom that Works
Isaiah: God Saves Sinners
A Passion for God: Prayers and Meditations on the Book of Romans
God's Unfaithful Wife: A Biblical Theology of Spiritual Adultery
When God Comes to Church: A Biblical Model for Revival Today

How To Think About David's Mighty Men Today

Great post here from Ray Ortlund.

A Great Reminder

Did I know these things already?  Yes.  Do I need to be constantly reminded because I am forgetful?  Yes.

Ray Ortlund writes:

The longer I live, the more I care about fewer things, and it’s good. Here are those fewer things:

1. God is patient. “. . . the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience” (Romans 2:4). Where would I be now, if God were not patient with me?

2. My wife is my most precious earthly treasure. “An excellent wife is the crown of her husband” (Proverbs 12:4). And how I delight in my family!

3. Everything man-made will fail. But it’s okay. Everything God-made will last. “God’s firm foundation stands” (2 Timothy 2:19).

4. Gospel doctrine creates a gospel culture. “If God so loved us, we also ought to love one another” (1 John 4:11). When the gospel gets through, our relationships become beautiful.

5. I will die in just a few years. What matters now is lifting up a bold new generation for Christ. “I endure everything for the sake of the elect” (2 Timothy 2:10).

6. God visits weakness with power, suffering with blessing, setbacks with progress. “My grace is sufficient for you” (2 Corinthians 12:9).

7. The Bible is my oxygen. “The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life” (John 6:63). How could I live a single day in this world of illusion without God’s inerrant Word?

8. The grace of God is the endless resource for everything I face. “Be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus” (2 Timothy 2:1).

9. The highest truth is God’s mercy for the undeserving. “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). It’s all I want to talk about.

10. Whatever else I lose, I must keep my own walk with the Lord. “But for me, it is good to be near God” (Psalm 73:28).

Two Contents, Two Realities

I would contend that what is written in the linked post could be the most important thing you read all year.

Ray Ortlund:

Asking the question, What is the Christian’s task in the world today?, Francis Schaeffer’s answer was not evangelism. Evangelism too often seems canned and mechanical, Schaeffer said. But when evangelism is pursued as part of a larger whole, it will be more convincing. What is that larger whole, embodied in a healthy church? Two contents, and two realities, Schaeffer proposed.

Read the rest.

Forsake All Fraudulent Success

Ray Ortlund:

In a world of secrets, outward success is everyone’s goal. If we can just succeed, we won’t have to face ourselves. No wonder that doesn’t work. It can’t work. The reality of what we are will always topple this house-of-cards persona we so earnestly wish were true.

The gospel is not God’s way of giving us an even better self-improvement goal. The gospel is God’s judgment on our better selves and his replacement of it all with Jesus.

Every one of us thinks, “If only I could do __________ or be __________, then I would arrive.” So, what does “arrival” look like to you? If it isn’t Jesus, the risen Lord himself, every arrival you achieve is only another set-back.

If you make financial security your arrival, you are already trapped in anxiety. If you make a thin body your identity, you will hate yourself more. If you make a porn-free life your okayness, you are doomed to compulsion. God’s remedy for you is not more money or better looks or perfect control. God’s gift to you is Jesus. With Jesus, we are saved. Everything is going to be okay. Without Jesus, we are damned. Nothing will go right.

Forsake all fraudulent success. Make Jesus your goal, your arrival, your identity, your comfort, your okayness, and he’ll gladly give himself to you — and on terms of grace. But reach for anything else, and it will turn into its opposite and betray you.

To paraphrase the apostle Paul, “I’ve lost everything, and I don’t even care, because now I get Jesus” (Philippians 3:8).

Showing Honor

Ray Ortlund:

Outdo one another in showing honor. Romans 12:10

I wonder if Romans 12:10 is one of the most under-obeyed commands in Scripture. I wonder if we have lowered our standard to “Do no harm to one another,” which is passive, and if we are not destroying each other we must be doing okay. But the gospel is all about the glory of God coming down on sinners (2 Thessalonians 2:14). Honor to one another is an obvious next step. But how many churches have you observed that made you say, “How they honor one another!”

What might keep us from pressing further in this way?

Read the rest.