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Pursuing Love

Food, Drink, and Unity

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“Receive one who is weak in the faith, but not to disputes over doubtful things. For one believes he may eat all things, but he who is weak eats only vegetables. Let not him who eats despise him who does not eat, and let not him who does not eat judge him who eats; for God has received him.” (Romans 14: 1-3)


When Paul sends these instructions to the Romans in chapter14 of his letter, his focus initially is on the question of food and drink, but the text leads us into much deeper issues around the matter of unity. In a context where meat on one hand may have been sacrificed to idols, and on the other hand was subject to Jewish law relating to blood, some believers avoided the spiritual minefield of eating meat altogether by eating only vegetables. Paul’s view of this particular aspect of Christian life is clear: “I know and am convinced by the Lord Jesus that there is nothing unclean of itself; but to him who considers anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean.” (Romans 14:14) From his perspective, scrupulous avoidance of meat shows a weakness of faith, but he teaches that the basis of our relationships with our brothers and sisters is not our view of what they believe, but our acceptance of it: “Let not him who eats (meat) despise him who does not eat, and let not him who does not eat judge him who eats; for God has received him… Therefore let us not judge one another anymore, but rather resolve this, not to put a stumbling block or a cause to fall in our brother’s way…if your brother is grieved because of your food, you are no longer walking in love…for the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” (14:3, 12, 15, 17)

Paul widens the context beyond food and drink and other “doubtful things” in verse 21: “It is good neither to eat meat nor drink wine nor do anything by which your brother stumbles or is offended or is made weak,” summarizing chapter 14 with this: “We then who are strong ought to bear with the scruples of the weak, and not to please ourselves. Let each of us please his neighbour for his good, leading to edification. For even Christ did not please Himself; but as it is written, “The reproaches of those who reproached You fell on Me.” (Romans 15: 1-3)

The priority of Edification
God’s priority is that we build one another up (“edification”). Jesus said “I will build My church.” Anything I try and build will just collapse, probably on top of me. Jesus is coming for a bride without spot or blemish. If we try and remove each other’s blemishes we just make ourselves more blemished – “judge not lest ye be judged.. And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye?” (Matt 7:1,3)  We build one another up to become more like Christ by pleasing one another, not by correcting one another. The unity that King Jesus is seeking among His disciples is what Paul calls being “like-minded,” and the scripture makes clear that this like-mindedness is not only a work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts, but also that it glorifies God: “Now may the God of patience and comfort grant you to be like-minded toward one another, according to Christ Jesus, that you may with one mind and one mouth glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Romans 15:5).

Like-mindedness
Our like-mindedness is an expression of our attitude to, not our analysis of, one another, and has its origin in the humility we learn from Christ. It has nothing to do with thinking along the same lines. We probably find the best expression of it in Philippians 2, and I will quote the full passage here, as the words of this famous portion of scripture draw together the threads of our acceptance of one another and our authority in Christ far more effectively than anything I could write:

“Therefore if there is any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and mercy, fulfill my joy by being like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind. Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others. Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” (Phil 2: 1-11)

True Unity
If we hold onto the understanding that true unity, indeed “the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace,” (Ephesians 4:3), is really what Paul calls “like-mindedness,” and comes from humble acceptance of the fact that we all stand before God and not before each other, we cannot leave the subject without looking at the three verses that make up Psalm 133.

Here is verse one: “Behold, how good and how pleasant it is For brethren to dwell together in unity!

As can so often be the case, the power of the original language is diluted in translation. There are lots of words that can be translated as “good.” But this one, “tob”  is the same as the “good” that God felt when He looked at His original, perfect, creation. When brothers dwell together in unity, it is as good as it can get; it is in alignment with God’s purposes. It is as good as Eden. Psalm 133 is a song of ascents: it was sung as the people of God ascended the hill to worship in the Temple. The unity it speaks of is not so much a state of mind, or even a state of being: it is unity in action, a group of people joined in a common purpose, each one carrying their own cross, and each one loving the others as they walk together up the mountain.

The Anointing
Verse two says that this unity is“like the precious oil upon the head,
Running down on the beard,
The beard of Aaron,
Running down on the edge of his garments.”

Our translations compare this unity to the anointing. “It is like the precious oil upon the head…” Not so the Hebrew: in the original text there is no word for “like,” just a repetition of “šemen,” the word for the anointing oil. A literal reading would be “It is the oil the precious oil…” Our unity, the unity of the Spirit, isn’t just “like” the anointing; it brings the anointing. Jesus makes an interesting statement in John 7: “If anyone wills to do His (the Father’s) will, he will know concerning the doctrine whether it is from God or if I speak on my own authority.” (John 7:17) In other words, when we make it our purpose to come into line with God’s will, He will sovereignly demonstrate the truth of His words. I can pray for the anointing all I want, but if I am operating in my own flesh – “on my own authority”- the Holy Spirit will not be present in power. If we want rain, we need to be where the rainclouds are. But when we are genuinely one in the Spirit, “like-minded,” the rain is ready to fall.

Revival
The final verse of Psalm 133 gives us another phantom “like,” which I will now leave out: It is … the dew of Hermon,
descending upon the mountains of Zion;
for there the LORD commanded the blessing— Life forevermore.

So like-mindedness is not just the anointing on an individual; the anointing falls on the whole mountain. The dew of Hermon was known to be abundant; a soaking, not just a dampness. It provided life-giving moisture for the parched lands of Israel over the Summer months, just as the living waters of the Holy Spirit bring His abundant life to revive spiritual deserts wherever He flows. The blessing is commanded from the mountains of Zion, a picture of the Kingdom of God. We often misquote this pslm, saying “The unity commands the blessing,” but this is not what the psalmist wrote. It is the LORD who commands the blessing, and He commanded it to come out of Zion, when we walk in the ways of the Kingdom of God. In the three verses of Psalm 133 we find a progression: when each of us, “by ourselves alone”, pursues like-mindedness as we ascend the hill to worship and glorify God, (v.1) we can expect the anointing to fall on our ministries, (v.2) and ultimately for the waters of revival to bring Kingdom life to our lands. (v.3)

Like-mindedness, anointing, revival. It might not be easy, but it’s as simple as 1-2-3.

Pursuing Love, Walking in the Spirit

By Himself Alone

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“Therefore, when Jesus perceived that they were about to take him by force and make him King, He departed again to the mountain by himself alone.” (John 6:15)

After Jesus had fed the 5,000 He walked on the water towards the disciples. The narrative account of this really begins while he was still on land, after distributing loaves and fishes to the crowd. They wanted to make Him king, but He went off to the mountain to be alone. If we look at this miracle through the lens of what it demonstrates of Christ’s authority and our authority in Him, we can see here the enemy  inciting the crowd to offer Jesus the same temptation that He faced in the wilderness, when Satan offered to give Him all the kingdoms of the world in return for His Worship.

The crowd had seen the power of God at work through Jesus before the miracle of the loaves and the fishes, but it was when they saw His ability to produce food out of thin air that they wanted His kingship. As He said to them in Capernaum, after He had taken the disciples across the stormy lake, “you seek Me not because you saw the signs, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled.” John 6:26). They weren’t interested in Jesus because of what the sign said about Him, but because He conjured free food.

John’s narrative tells us that He departed “by himself alone.” He uses two words – autos monos in Greek – when one would have made the meaning clear enough. So why is the scripture so emphatic? I think there are two sides to this. The first one is clear enough: the authority of Jesus came from the mountain and not from the world; from the Father and not from men. His kingdom was “not of this world.” Satan could tempt Jesus with “all the kingdoms of this world and their glory“ (Matthew 4:8) because he had stolen them from Adam; in Christ, the second Adam, we, “the violent,” seize them back from him “by force.” (Matt: 11:12) Sometimes the glory of the kingdoms of this world can clutch at us like the hands of the crowd were clutching at Jesus; and if we are to walk after the spirit are not after the flesh we have to resolutely turn away from them, as Jesus did, to reach the mountain where we stand in His authority and power.

The second aspect is not so much about Christ Himself and our position in Him, but it’s about us. However, the manifestation of what we receive on the mountain depends on it. Each one of us stands before God, “by himself alone.”  God loves each one of us and Jesus died for each one of us as individuals, and He wants us to love each other as individuals as well. The truth of His great love applies to everyone, but my experience of His love is not the same as yours: we work out our own salvation in fear and trembling. (Phil 2:12) We love one another for who they are ‘by themselves alone,’ we don’t try and make them into somebody else – especially not replicas of ourselves. Even if I disagree with your theology, that is ultimately between you and Jesus. If I think you are an error, I can share what I believe, and whether it’s truth spoken in Love or my own error spoken in love, what is important before God is that it is spoken in Love. The apostle Peter tells us that “judgement begins at the house of God.“ (1 Pe 4:17) This doesn’t mean that I judge you because I think you walk in error, but that God judges me if I’m not walking in love. When we, the body of Christ, become practised in taking every critical and judgemental thought captive to the obedience of Christ and can learn to truly embrace our differences, the love of God will break through and bring unity where the judgement of man has previously brought division. And we all know Psalm 133 and what it is that unity commands. 

So our spiritual authority rests in the power of Love and the mercy which triumphs over judgement, and it comes from the mountain, not from the crowd. Because it’s just as important not to seek the approval of others as it is for us not to disapprove of them. Our spiritual authority has a dual core: it rests in our relationship with God and the love for our neighbour that we receive from Him. We do not love for the power, the influence or any other reward that we can receive from people, but only out of what we receive from God. He is our very great reward. We don’t run to the crowd; we run to the mountain, by ourselves alone. But having been up on the mountain, Jesus headed out across the waves towards His friends. We can only walk on water in the dark when we have stood on the mountain in the Light.