Beginning this week I am going to be adding a post a week about some piece of content I teach on Sunday mornings at First Alliance Church in Erie, Pa, during Sunday School or our community life group as it is called here. Today will be the beginning of the book of Philippians Chapter 1:1-11.
Paul’s prayer in chapter one is of particular interest to me.
“And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless on the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.”
The word ‘love’ pops out at me. Here love is very active and informed. Not mushy love; a communal, uniting, familiar kind of love. Laden with meaning, it caries with it this knowledge of spiritual truth and the ability to make good moral decisions. So that, the people of God would look more and more like Jesus and less and less like the pagan. An issue we struggle with even today. They would live transparently in the midst of an opaque world. Overflowing or filled with the evidence, fruit, that Christ has taken their sins and substituted them for his righteousness, ‘to the praise and glory of God’. To unite these people to each other and to Christ. To be the good work begun in each of them which is being completed in them by the God who created them and made them new.
It is a rich prayer for their day and for ours.
I ponder recent trends of social networks and other technology:
ReplyDeleteDoes their loosening of personal privacy increase the transparency called for in the passage? Does their increase of communication increase the love called for in the passage?
All tech aside, this is a great prayer.
Well... the transparency spoken of in this passage refers to the pure and blameless section of the verse. It has to do with being known or exposed. So, I think it might be different. I think I would also have a difficult time making a blanket statement about technology helping people to know other people. Knowing my personal information may give you a much fuller picture of who I am, but I wouldn't say you know me in a sense unless there is reciprocal relationship, or at least your knowing about me wouldn't matter. The passage is calling for vulnerable relationship that causes people to feel unified. Paul used an early form of social networking called a letter where he didn't just let them know who he was, but he proved he knew who they were and challenged them to live more godly lives. It seems to me that it isn't the volume of communication, but the quality of the communication that is important. Otherwise I just know what you like to have for breakfast or what crops you have harvested in the past 24 hrs. Perhaps the most telling part of this passage in terms of social networking and privacy and what not is that this was a prayer Paul had for the people. Prayer practiced as a constant discipline will show you where you have relationship and where you don't, were you love and were you don't.
ReplyDeleteMy heart is warmed knowing you think this is a great prayer. I enjoy it myself.