Real Community

Real community must be joyful for its members. It is easy to try to force community or force friendships. There is a certain hollowness to community which is not based on one's heart.

It is interesting in life that there are often ethical positions which require ethicical decisions to be disinterested. If we do something out of joy the decision loses its ethical value.

The bible is clearly against such an ethic. It is better to do what is right without joy than to do evil, but the highest ethical sense is when our joy aligns with what is right.

Doing good out of love for God and with joy is much preferred to doing good and finding it drudgery. Often Christians pull a certain stoicism into the Christian life which was never meant to be there.

Disinterest has no place in the Christian life. It brings an interesting side question as to the wisdom of required Christian education.

If children are enrolled in a Christian school or are at a Christian college that requires them to attend a chapel or spiritual formation class they do not wish to attend, are they harmed by the requirement? Could forced Christian education be harmful?

My opinion is, yes. A one size fits all approach to Christian education can be harmful. It is of course why pastors do not read sermons from famous pastors when they get into the pulpit. The sermon should be a faithful exposition of God's word to the people in the church.

In my mind things such as required chapel or curriculum in Christian schools may harm those who do not wish to attend. It is a delicate balance between encouraging and fostering faith and hindering faith by making it distasteful.

Active Christian Love

Christianity without love is not possible. The bible says that if we have all things, but not love our faith is worthless.

You see one of the great issues of the day is a failure to practically understand and promote Christian love. There is a great concern for ethical living and proper thinking, but love often falls to the wayside.

You see if we live ethically and think properly and expound proper teaching but do not have love then everything we do is worthless. Love of God and love of neighbor is the sum of all true Christian ethics.

Christian ethics which do not teach an active and outward expression of love to the world are completely unchristian. Prayer is also not a full expression of love.

Prayer is vital in the Christian life, but too often people fall back on prayer as the only expression of love they are comfortable to express. This is a completely insufficient expression of Christian faith.

Prayer should motivate action. We pray and prayer is of the most importance, but a prayer which does not motivate action is worthless prayer.

If we pray for our brother or sister in Christ but our prayer has no concern toward action from ourselves then our prayer is insincere. If we pray this or that for a person but do not actively consider how we may be of help our prayer has no sincerity. We pray out of duty and not truth.