Those Pesky Nicolaitans 5: So What?

Sylvia:   Why are you whispering?

Donna:  I’m in church.

Sylvia:   What are you doing in church?

Donna:  Praying.

Sylvia:   Huh – bit late for that, madam.

Doctor Who S4 E1, ‘Partners in Crime’ (2008)

It’s Sunday morning, and I can’t decide

Whether I’ll go to church today or not.

I’ve no wish merely to indulge my pride,

Which I’m tempted to do rather a lot.

I see advantages on either side,

So that, based on the arguments I’ve got,

I can’t tell how God is best glorified –

And I have to do something, yes, but what?

 

Pew Bibles. It looked vaguely churchy, and I am too tired to think of clever image options.

Holding a theological opinion is one thing. Conducting oneself in accordance with said theological opinion is a different ball game altogether.

I’ve drawn some lines as to what I think is the most Biblical thing for me to do with regard to this whole business of those pesky Nicolaitans. For the moment, I mean. Said lines might not stay where they are. I might decide, in light of further scriptural study, and earnest conversation, and observation of the effects of my decisions, and changing circumstances around me, that it would glorify God better to redraw them elsewhere. Translating the conclusions we take from the text into actionable policies for everyday living is never a clean-cut, set-in-stone kind of process.

One thing that I think makes the matter I’ve been discussing for the past few weeks a particularly tricky one to translate from theory into practice is the fact that I’ve never actually seen a real-life congregation doing church the way I think the scriptures say it should be done. I can’t pin down what it would even look like. Another thing that achieves a similar effect is the fact that this particular theological opinion in accordance with which I’m trying to conduct myself pertains to more than my own conduct; it pertains, necessarily, to the conduct of the church at large. I could have the fullest, most perfect, most God-glorifying understanding of ecclesiology ever, and it wouldn’t make a blind bit of difference to the fact that I can’t do church right by myself. Categorically. That would defeat the entire point of church.

I tell you what, though, all my arguing that authority rests, after Christ and his words, with the body at large, rather than any particular bit of it, does leave me rather excuseless when it comes to the matter of my taking initiative to contribute to the proceedings. If I had been arguing that the right way to do church was that the pastor/vicar/minister/whatever should do everything, and the rest of us should just rock up and receive, then I could blame him for not doing his job properly and not lift a finger myself, in total integrity and consistency with the case I was making. As it is, I’m arguing that responsibility for making church happen, and happen, moreover, in the manner in which it ought, rests with the whole collective of which I am an equal member. That rather obliges me, if I think there’s a particular way we ought to be doing things, to, you know, actually do something about it.

I can think of four (admittedly very interconnected and overlapping) things to do straight off the bat.

1) Exercise my gifting.

So it turns out I can teach. Like, as in, I’m spiritually gifted for that jazz. Mental, right? The funny thing is that it took me absolutely forever to twig this, until, in true cartoon-light-bulb fashion, it occurred to me that maybe, just maybe, all those times when brothers and sisters in the Lord had stated or implied that they thought I was gifted to teach, it was, crazily, because they actually thought I was gifted to teach. And not just because they were, I don’t know, being polite or something.

Actually, I do think it was more than my general social obliviousness which generated that particular lack of realisation: teaching is, at least in the churches I’ve spent time in, disproportionately prized, sought out, and utilised, compared to other spiritual giftings; it seems to be seen less as a specific vocation and more as a default activity that any reasonably mature believer ought to be encouraged to do. It was into the latter category that I used to assume I fell. But at any rate, there are apostles and prophets and evangelists too, and we all of us ought to be fulfilling the ministry we have been given.

Sometimes, much to my discomfort, that might involve making a right nuisance of ourselves. It might involve interrupting when people would rather we wouldn’t and not shutting up when people would rather we would. Given that I’m still in the habit of apologising for every comment on the original Hebrew that I offer my Wednesday-morning Bible-study group (“sorry to keep us on that same verse a bit longer, guys, but the word the NIV has translated ‘servant’ here doesn’t really mean ‘servant’”), or for every contribution I make to a group discussion about gospel-related matters (“sorry to jump in, but doesn’t it actually make perfect sense that people were expecting the Messiah to be a military leader, given all the stuff in scripture about him ruling the nations with a rod of iron and that?”), or for every conversation with a Christian friend in which I keep veering off on outbursts about cool things I’ve come across in the scriptures (“sorry, please do say if I’m boring you, but seriously, the marriage regulations for the High Priest present such an encouraging picture of the righteousness given us in Christ”¹), I have a really long way to go as far as being prepared to make a nuisance of myself in this way is concerned. And I hasten to stress, of course, that we must always be speaking, in love, for the genuine edification of our spiritual siblings, and not just saying what we feel like or fishing for attention. Often, it really is wiser not to say anything. But if you’re never saying anything, you’re not exercising your gifting, and that, I’m afraid, amounts to neglect of duty.

Speak up. You are charged with a ministry; carry it out. And if the way your church works is holding you back from fulfilling it, figure out ways to colour outside the lines.²

2) Encourage others to exercise their giftings.

See, look at that obvious follow-on. I don’t just want to be doing my own thing; I want you, O Grace-Gifted Reader, to be doing yours also. And, to add another layer on that, I want you to be exhorting and enabling other believers to do theirs as well. When I say I want to carry out my teaching ministry, I don’t mean I want to replace whoever’s up the front, or find a way of inducting myself into the standard rotation of speakers. I mean I want to be part of a Christian community in which it is a priority to allow and equip everyone to make the contribution that he or she is gifted to make.

So I’m trying to give thought to what my Christian friends’ giftings might be, and, if I think I have some idea, to mention it to them as a possibility. (Remember what I said above about the brothers and sisters who told me I was gifted to teach? I’d never have figured that out without them.) I’m also trying to affirm and stir on my Christian friends in carrying out the ministries they have. And, lastly, I’m trying to be conscious of the fact that God has given grace for ministry to the Christians I know, for the sake of the edification of people like me, and so to be ready to really listen to what they, empowered by the Spirit, have to say, and to earnestly take it on board (whilst exercising discernment, of course). It’s a pretty phenomenal thought that, as well as giving us his very own self, God has also given us all one another – all these little Spirit-filled humans running around, each charged with keeping the others rooted and growing and bearing fruit in the true vine.³ Blimey, I love the Church.

 

So the vine is that thick, straight branchy bit on the right-hand side, yeah? I am really nothing of a horticulturalist.

3) Be serious about others’ holiness.

Of course, the entire point of us all exercising our giftings is precisely that: that we all be kept rooted and growing and bearing fruit in the true vine. The point of doing church at all is to establish and increase one another in holiness. That requires caring about one another’s holiness, and again, caring enough to make a nuisance of ourselves if necessary – which is really hard, just in case you hadn’t noticed. Still, I can’t think of anything I regret more than the occasions when I have seen a sister in Christ starting to drift and have done little to push back against that trajectory.

Because church leadership is not a category that rightfully exists, moreover, this work cannot be outsourced to a professional minority, such that the rest of us might pass the buck and put our feet up. We all bear responsibility for provoking each other to love and good deeds. It’s not fair to rely on just a few people to be providing all the momentum, and to be picking up everyone who’s struggling or facing temptation. If my Christian friend has a problem, well, then it’s my problem too.

4) Be serious about my own holiness.

I can’t outsource other people’s holiness; neither can I outsource my own. Merely turning up at services or studies is not going to make me more like Jesus, as if holiness were some sort of airborne contagion. I am commanded to work out my own salvation with fear and trembling.⁴ Fear and trembling, because one day I’ll give an account for how I worked it out, and I won’t be able to hide behind what Pastor So-and-So said, what Reverend So-and-So did, what His Holiness So-and-So the Umpteenth claimed about God and the gospel; I’ll stand or fall before one Master and one Master only. Thank God that he is able to make me stand.

5) Take refuge in the gospel.

All right, I said four things, but having written that lot down, I’m feeling unpleasantly aware of the fact that I’m making an absolutely appalling job of actually doing them. It’s easy to draw lines, to make rules for oneself and feel smug about having ticked the boxes. It’s a lot harder to actually live like Jesus.

But this, of course, is the whole point: I am not getting the way I contribute to church right, just as I am not actually getting anything perfectly right, but I know that God’s favour on me does not rest on me getting things right, but on the fact that I am part of the body of which Jesus is the sole and perfect Head. It rests on the fact that I am in him and so dressed in his perfection. It rests on the fact that, though his bride was dead in her sins, he surrendered himself to the worst horrors that exist in order to save her and to have her take her place at his side, be called by his name, and share his inheritance.⁵

I started with a verse of my own; I’ll finish with an entirely superior verse of Samuel Sebastian Wesley’s.

Though, with a scornful wonder,

We see her sore oppressed –

By schisms rent asunder,

By heresies distressed –

The saints their watch are keeping.

Their cry goes up: “How long?”

And soon the night of weeping

Shall be the morn of song.⁶

Footnotes

¹ Whoever said Leviticus was boring clearly did not know how to read it in terms of types: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Leviticus+21&version=ESVUK.

² I could, at this point, have disappeared down an absolute rabbit hole of theoretical scenarios and possible responses, but I’m not sure that would have been terribly productive: you know your circumstances and your options better than I do, after all.

³ I here allude to John 15, of course: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+15&version=ESVUK.

⁴ Of course, the next verse continues “for it is God who works in you”: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Philippians+2&version=ESVUK. Work towards this goal, because God is also working towards it – and, given that he’s perfect and almighty and sovereign and all, that means that you can’t, in the end, fail. Amazing, right?

⁵ So Christian spoken-word poetry is really cool, and I was reminded of the following rather excellent example thereof while I was writing this post: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T44LepcRUhk.

⁶ ‘The Church’s One Foundation’ – you know it, right? Here’s a nice version if you don’t: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yz72eK_JsNc. Although I fear for all those expensive musical instruments in that dramatic Canadian landscape.