1 Thessalonians 2:13–20
13 And we also thank God constantly for this, that when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men but as what it really is, the word of God, which is at work in you believers. 14 For you, brothers, became imitators of the churches of God in Christ Jesus that are in Judea. For you suffered the same things from your own countrymen as they did from the Jews, 15 who killed both the Lord Jesus and the prophets, and drove us out, and displease God and oppose all mankind 16 by hindering us from speaking to the Gentiles that they might be saved—so as always to fill up the measure of their sins. But wrath has come upon them at last! 17 But since we were torn away from you, brothers, for a short time, in person not in heart, we endeavored the more eagerly and with great desire to see you face to face, 18 because we wanted to come to you—I, Paul, again and again—but Satan hindered us. 19 For what is our hope or joy or crown of boasting before our Lord Jesus at his coming? Is it not you? 20 For you are our glory and joy.
In 1952, Flannery O’Connor published her controversial and fascinating novel, Wise Blood. It is a story of a man named Hazel Motes who returns from World War II as an atheist and begins to actively preach his atheism around town. In the process, he encounters a charlatan preacher named Hoover Shoats who realizes he can make some money from Hazel Motes’ atheistic preaching. So, Hoover Shoats changes his name to Onnie Jay Holy and announces the arrival of a new church. He then proclaims the atheist preacher Hazel Motes (who wants nothing to do with Onnie Jay Holy) a prophet!
Onnie J. Holy decides to name his church “The Holy Church of Christ Without Christ” and charges everybody $1 to become a member! He then proclaims that there are three reasons why folks can pay that dollar and trust in The Holy Church of Christ Without Christ.
First:
“In the first place, friends, you can rely on it that it’s nothing foreign connected with it. You don’t have to believe nothing you don’t understand and approve of. If you don’t understand it, it ain’t true, and that’s all there is to it. No jokers in the deck, friends.”
Second:
“Now, friends,” Onnie Jay said, “I want to tell you a second reason why you can absolutely trust this church—it’s based on the Bible. Yes sir! It’s based on your own personal interpitation of the Bible friends. You can sit at home and interpit your own Bible however you feel in your heart it ought to be interpited. That’s right,” he said, “just the way Jesus would have done it. Gee, I wisht I had my gittarr here,” he complained.
And third:
“This church is up-to-date! When your in this church you can know that there’s nothing or nobody ahead of you, nobody knows nothing you don’t know, all the cards are on the table, friends, and that’s a fack!”[1]
In other words, Onnie Jay Holy’s Church of Christ Without Christ:
- Makes your own understanding of God all that matters and therefore removes all mystery and all possibility of growth.
- Makes the Bible say whatever you personally want it to say and nobody can tell you that you are wrong in any interpretation.
- Makes all people’s opinions absolutely equal and so nobody can say that they know more than anybody else.
Well! That might sound crazy to you…or it might sound familiar! In point of fact, when Flannery O’Connor wrote Wise Blood she was hoping to critique some of the kinds of Christianity she was encountering in her own day. O’Connor was a Christian and, because she was, she had little tolerance for the kind of nonsense she depicted in Onnie Jay Holy’s Church of Christ Without Christ.
But if that is what a church without Christ looks like, what does a church with Christ look like? To answer that, we can turn to 1 Thessalonians 2:13–20. The Thessalonian believers had Jesus in their midst. What, then, did they look like?
To get at this I would like to offer you three key words, three Greek words that highlight the difference that Jesus makes in a church. This is what happens when a church gives itself to Jesus!
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