The New Testament emphasis on relationships

EXPLORING CHRISTIANITY - THE CHURCH

THE BIBLE
Can we trust a book written 2000 years ago?

EYEWITNESS
Did the writers of the New Testament get their picture of Jesus right?

GOD - MAN
Is Jesus really God?

RESURRECTION
Did Jesus really rise from the dead?

RELIGIONS
With so many religions, why Christianity?

SUFFERING
If there is a God, why is there so much suffering?

TRINITY
Understanding the Trinity.

SCIENCE
The complementary nature of Science & Christianity.

FORGIVENESS
What it is and why it matters?

GUIDANCE
How does God guide?

REPENTANCE
What it is and why you can't get to heaven without it.

BORN AGAIN
What does it mean to be converted and born again?

SAVING FAITH
The kind of faith that will get you to heaven

ASSURANCE
Can I know for sure that I am going to heaven?

TRUTH
What is truth and does it matter?

MORALITY
Does it matter how we live? A Christian view of morality.

THE CHURCH
God's vision for his family, the Church. A call to the churches of the new millennium.

PURPOSE
How can I find a great purpose for living?

IDENTITY
Who am I; Finding my true identity as a human being and as a child of God.

SELF-ESTEEM
How can I feel good about my self? The Christian basis for proper sel-esteem.

LIFE AFTER DEATHChristianity's Hope & Challenge.

THE CROSS
Why did Jesus Die? What the Bible says about the Cross.

Grace
The importance of grace in the New Testament.

The New Testament emphasis on relationships

Douglas Spanner, in Biblical Creation and the Theory of Evolution, says:

The Bible as a whole is fundamentally about relationships. The very names Old 'Covenant' and New 'Covenant' should make this clear.

"The two greatest commands, on which, according to Jesus, all the others depend, are concerned with relationships, with God and one another"

The two greatest commands, on which, according to Jesus, all the others depend, are concerned with relationships, with God and one another (Matthew 22:36-40). However, with the coming of Jesus and the gift of the Spirit, the focus on relationships is sharpened, as is the constant emphasis on reconciliation, made possible through the cross, which must be the basis for all relationships.

It is because God is so concerned with the creating of the church as his community, that so much of the New Testament deals with relationships. Jesus spent about two and a half years seeking to build a small group of followers into a true community. Brian Hathaway has estimated that 44% of the letters of the New Testament are about how we should get along with one another. This contrasts with about 4% on spiritual gifts. (How much of our preaching and teaching deals with relationships?) This emphasis is particularly clear when we look at the number of times the words "one another" occur, particularly in Paul's letters. The Greek word allelon occurs 59 times as a specific command. We are commanded to:

love one another (John 13:35 - this command comes 16 times)

be devoted to one another (Romans 12:10)

honour one another above yourselves (Romans 12:10)

live in harmony with one another (Romans 12:16)

build up one another (Romans 14:19; 1 Thessalonians 5:11)

be likeminded towards one another (Romans 15:5)

accept one another (Romans 15:7)

admonish one another (Romans 15:14; Colossians 3:16)

care for one another (1 Corinthians 12:25)

serve one another (Galatians 5:13)

bear one another's burdens (Galatians 6:2)

forgive one another (Ephesians 4:2, 32; Colossians 3:13)

be patient with one another (Ephesians 4:2; Colossians 3:13)

be kind and compassionate to one another (Ephesians 4:32)

speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs (Ephesians 5:19)

submit to one another (Ephesians 5:21, 1 Peter 5:5)

consider others better than yourselves (Philippians 2:3)

look to the interests of one another (Philippians 2:4)

bear with one another (Colossians 3:13)

teach one another (Colossians 3:16)

comfort one another (1 Thessalonians 4:18)

encourage one another (Hebrews 3:13)

stir up one another to love and good works (Hebrews 10:24)

show hospitality to one another (1 Peter 4:9)

employ the gifts that God has given us for the benefit of one another (1 Peter 4:10)

clothe yourselves with humility towards one another (1 Peter 5:5)

pray for one another (James 5:16)

confess our faults to one another (James 5:16)

We are to do these things because we belong to one another (Romans 12:5; Ephesians 4:25).

All these commands do not take into account the things we are told not to do to one another!

"Many of our churches today are strong on teaching but weak on fellowship"

We read that the first two characteristics of the early church were that "they devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and to the fellowship" (Acts 2:42). Many of our churches today are strong on teaching but weak on fellowship. Good teaching is not a substitute for fellowship. They are two distinct aspects of the church's life and both have to be worked at. The Greek word for fellowship, koinonia, is a significant one in the New Testament. It can be translated "communion", "fellowship", "sharing", "participation". At the heart of the word is the adjective koinos, which means common. It is a trinitarian concept. "Our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ" (1 John 1:3). Paul adds, "the fellowship of the Holy Spirit" (2 Corinthians 13:14). We all have the same God as our Father, the same Jesus Christ as our Saviour and Lord, and the same Holy Spirit as our indwelling Comforter. We share these things in common with all believers. The New Testament concept of fellowship began at Pentecost with the giving of the Spirit.

John goes on to say in chapter 1 of his letter, "if we walk in the light (in fellowship with God)...we have fellowship with one another" (1 John 1:7). In the early church this fellowship went as far as the sharing of material possessions. Luke tells of this generosity: "All the Lord's followers often met together, and they shared everything they had. (Literally: "they had all things in common" - koine). They would sell their property and possessions and give the money to whoever needed it" (Acts 2:44, 45). This sharing of material goods is an aspect of fellowship that we Western Christians are not very good at, and yet one about which the New Testament has a great deal to say! (The best and most challenging summary of biblical teaching about our attitude to material possessions that I have read, is in Brian Hathaway's Beyond Renewal: The Kingdom of God.)

"No amount of technical administrative skill in labouring for the masses can make up for lack of nobility of personal character in developing relationships"
Stephen Covey

In Galatians 5:16-26 Paul contrasts those qualities of character that result in bad relationships with those that form good relationships. "The acts of the sinful nature" include "hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy", whereas "the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control." As Stephen Covey says in The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People with regard to running a business, or marriage, or family:

No amount of technical administrative skill in labouring for the masses can make up for lack of nobility of personal character in developing relationships.

The basis for our relationship with one another is Christ's relationship with us. We are to "Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God" (Romans 15:7). It is this acceptance that brings glory to God. Christ's acceptance of us is gracious, total, unreserved, unprejudiced, forgiving and freeing. Our acceptance of one another is to be similar. We have no mandate in the Christian church to decide who we will accept and who we won't. All who receive the Holy Spirit are members of the family.

Of course, the ultimate in community will be that which we experience in the "new heavens and new earth" so graphically pictured in Revelation 21 and 22. That is why the Bible begins in a Garden, but ends in a City. In a garden the focus is on the pleasant environment; in a city it is the relationships that are important. Our present cities are anything but places for good relationships, but in that city the barriers to deep and fulfilling relationships will be forever removed. "There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away" (Revelation 21:4) and "No longer will there be any curse" (22:3), the curse of spoilt relationships that sin has brought upon us. As far as our relationship with God is concerned, it will be most intimate. "They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God" (21:3). We will "see his face" (22:4). Gilbert Bilezikian, in Community 101, says:

"The worst disease in today's world is not leprosy or cancer: it is the feeling of being uncared for, unwanted, of being deserted and alone"
Mother Teresa

Since community alone will survive from this world into the next, it is ultimately the only thing God is doing today that has eternal significance.

I like the definition of the church given by theologian Andrew Kirk:

What the New Testament means by the Church is not an institution which owns property, performs rites and organises meetings, or even one that plans strategies to evangelise unreached people. Rather, it is a group of ordinary people who, because they are experiencing the immense grace of a compassionate God, are learning how to overcome hostility between people, forgive and trust one another, share what they have and encourage one another in wholesome and joyous relationships.

When we think of the church in organisational rather than community and relational terms, it distorts our values. We give lip service to biblical values but in practice other values predominate. Lawrence Richards, in A New Face for the Church, gives three lines of evidence that clearly indicate this.

The major deliberation of church leaders focuses on organisational problems - personnel and staffing problems, building problems, financial problems. How do we maintain the organisation? Not that these are unimportant. They are just not the prime business of what the church is all about.
Status in the church is ascribed on the basis of organisational performance. A "good Christian" is one who attends church regularly and is actively involved in the organisation.
Christians see themselves in terms of their role in the organisation. Their identity comes from their relationship to the organisation, rather than from their relationship to Christ and his people.

Obviously, when humans get together you have to have some organisation, but organisation must always be subservient to community, relationships and mission in the church. Gavin Reid, in The Gagging of God, put it like this:

What is needed, then, is for organised Christianity to be seen as a cause. Only a cause that is obviously unselfish, outgoing, compassionate, flexible and travelling light in terms of structures, can be a credible source for the message that God is, God loves, God came and God forgives.

Or as John Tanburn put it in Open House, describing the apostolic church:

The only basic principle of church order and structure was that it should Foreward the church's mission.

We live in a community-starved world. Psychiatrist Jean Rosenbaum estimates that loneliness is America's greatest killer of those who die between the ages of two and thirty-seven, and that 94% of the people suffer from chronic alienation. Mother Teresa said that "the worst disease in today's world is not leprosy or cancer: it is the feeling of being uncared for, unwanted, of being deserted and alone." Toffler coined the phrase, "the plague of loneliness". Also, we are told that there are today fifty "hot spots" of ethnic conflict around the world. The church can have no greater impact today than by modelling true community as God intended. Ralph Osbourne, Executive Director of Faith At Work, says:

The search for community is our culture's deepest longing and the Christian faith's greatest promise.

No doubt Jesus had this in mind when he spoke of the church as a "city set on a hill" (Matthew 5:14). He said that people would know who we are by our love for one another. "If you love each other, everyone will know that you are my disciples" (John 13:35). In prayer to his Father, he said that people would know who he is by our unity. "I want all of them to be one with each other, just as I am one with you and you are one with me...Then the people of this world will believe that you sent me" (John 17:21). Bishop Stephen Neill, in Christian Faith Today, said:

Within the fellowship of those who are bound together by personal loyalty to Jesus Christ, the relationship of love reaches an intimacy and intensity unknown elsewhere...Where it is experienced, especially across the barriers of race, nationality and language, it is one of the most convincing evidences of the continuing activity of Jesus among men.

Or, to compare two other significant verses -

We can see God as he is revealed in Jesus:

"No one has ever seen God. The only Son, who is truly God and is closest to the Father, has shown us what God is like." John 1:18

We can see God as he is revealed in a loving Christian fellowship:

"No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us, and his love is truly in our hearts." 1 John 4:12