Now may the God who gives perseverance and encouragement grant you to be of the same mind with one another according to Christ Jesus, so that with one accord you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 15:5-6).
A critic of one of my recent blogs remarked that I tend to speak of “the church” in terms of a singular, monolithic voice. The point is well taken. I recognize that the church often speaks with many voices, with positions that are conflicting. But I would suggest that the apostolic church spoke in a singular voice; and on certain core issues the Church continues to speak with one, authentic voice. With that said, not everyone who claims to speak in the name of Christ is an authentic voice (and that is true for those on the left and right!).
The truth is that the church does not speak in unison; we’re not even singing in a four part harmony. Instead, we have become a mass choir of thousands of voices in which there is no unison, or harmony, but a deafening, indiscernible roar. Paul’s discourse on tongues-speech is helpful here.
Yet even lifeless things, either flute or harp, in producing a sound, if they do not produce a distinction in the tones, how will it be known what is played on the flute or on the harp? For if the bugle produces an indistinct sound, who will prepare himself for battle? So also you, unless you utter by the tongue speech that is clear, how will it be known what is spoken? For you will be speaking into the air. There are, perhaps, a great many kinds of languages in the world, and no kind is without meaning… in the church I desire to speak five words with my mind so that I may instruct others also, rather than ten thousand words in a tongue. Therefore if the whole church assembles together and all speak in tongues, and ungifted men or unbelievers enter, will they not say that you are mad? (1 Corinthians 14:9-23).
Because the church speaks in the public square with a deafening and indiscernible roar, those who hear our noise think that Christians have lost their minds, making no sense at all. If the message of the church is to be heard by the masses, the church must speak “with one voice”.
So, how can we hear the authentic voice of the Spirit in the Church? How can we discern the words of Truth out of the deafening roar? Paul taught that tongues-speech in the worshiping community needed a Spirit-inspired interpretation. If the bishops and teachers of the church want Christ’s message to be heard in the world as discernible and intelligent, then we must seek to offer a single Spirit-inspired voice out of the mass confusion.
The three necessary elements in Christian hermeneutics are (1) the Holy Spirit, (2) the Holy Scriptures, and (3) the Church. The Holy Spirit inspired the Holy Scriptures. Contrary to those in the Emergent movement who view the Bible as a loaded gun in the hands of children, the words of the Bible are the bread of life to hungry souls. The Holy Spirit guides and teaches hungry souls in the interpretation of the Bible. Paul has told us that the “fruit of the Spirit is love” (Galatians 5:22) and that a church without love is nothing more than “a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal” (1 Corinthians 13:1). A hermeneutic that allows for the Spirit as teacher, must be a hermeneutic that gives priority to redemptive love.
The clanging noises that come from too many pulpits are filled with anger and hate. In the name of being “prophetic,” many preachers (left and right) have perfected the rhetorical art of joyfully preaching the world into hell. If redemptive love is the priority of our hermeneutic, we will embrace the prophetic pathos of Jesus, who is the Word made flesh:
Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling. Behold, your house is being left to you desolate! (Matthew 23:37-38).
The words of Jesus are compelling. Jerusalem is guilty and will be judged. Even so, Jesus does not rejoice over the impending destruction of the city, but is deeply grieved. The hermeneutic of love will be passionate, but not angry. The hermeneutic of love will not reflect a sadistic glee over the demise of the sinful; instead it will be heard as sorrowful lamentation. It was this prophetic pathos that motivated Jesus to embrace the cross and offer his life for the sins of the world.
The glaring lack of love among those who claim to speak for Christ is a sign that they in fact do not speak for Christ. This is especially true when Christians of every stripe address controversial issues. Rarely do we confer together around the table with brothers and sisters with whom we disagree; instead we shout at each other from across the room, or more accurately, through the various electronic media.
The apostolic church gives us an example of how the Church is to deal with controversial issues – the Jerusalem Conference (Acts 15). When the Holy Spirit baptized the first Gentile Christians, the predominantly Jewish church was scandalized. They could not deny the evidence of the Spirit among the Gentiles, but that Gentiles could receive the Spirit of Israel’s God confounded them. So, they came together as a believing community to search the Scriptures and listen for the voice of the Spirit. In the end, they agreed that the Gospel is “the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek ” (Romans 1:16).
If the church is going to speak “with one voice,” first we must recover the “more excellent way” of redemptive love (1 Corinthians 12:31). We must love God, love each other, love our opponents and even our enemies. We must love the Holy Scriptures, the great tradition of the Christian faith, and the Church as the body of Christ. Redemptive love will form within our hearts the prophetic pathos that will empower us to be “crucified with Christ” (Galatians 2:20) for the sake of a corrupt and dying world.
