January 8 1996

ARTICLE TOOLS

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The church appears to be adopting the principles and practices of big business and finding these practices very effective.

Now there is nothing wrong with good business. Bad business is certainly not desirable for the church. Wise pastors and church officers will do everything they can, with care, to apply those principles and practices which maximize the effectiveness of their churches, however small or large they may be. Bigness is not evil, and smallness is not a virtue. But the question is, When do these principles and practices cease being tools for the church, when do they dominate its life to the extent that they become its master?

It is a mistake to be always turning back to recover the past. The law for Christian living is not backward, but forward; not for experiences that lie behind, but for doing the will of God, which is always ahead and beckoning us to follow. Leave the things that are behind, and reach forward to those that are before, for on each new height to which we attain, there are the appropriate joys that befit the new experience. Don't fret because life's joys are fled. There are more in front. Look up, press forward, the best is yet to be!

If love is the soul of Christian existence, it must be at the heart of every other Christian virtue. Thus, for example, justice without love is legalism; faith without love is ideology; hope without love is self-centeredness; forgiveness without love is self-abasement; fortitude without love is recklessness; generosity without love is extravagance; care without love is mere duty; fidelity without love is servitude. Every virtue is an expression of love. No virtue is really a virtue ...