Insights on the Journey

“All you need is love… Ya-da-da-da-da… All you need is love…”

Some of us are old enough to  remember the Beatles song All You Need Is Love. Great song, great lyrics, great sentiment, poor theology.

“Wait a minute, Brian!  Didn’t Jesus say all the Scripture could be summarized as love God with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself?”

Yes, but maybe that was just the starting point.  Consider Colossians 1:7-10:

7 You learned about the Good News from Epaphras, our beloved co-worker. He is Christ’s faithful servant, and he is helping us on your behalf. 8 He has told us about the love for others that the Holy Spirit has given you.
9 So we have not stopped praying for you since we first heard about you. We ask God to give you complete knowledge of his will and to give you spiritual wisdom and understanding.10 Then the way you live will always honor and please the Lord, and your lives will produce every kind of good fruit. All the while, you will grow as you learn to know God better and better.

Paul was thrilled by Epaphras’ report of the love demonstrated by the believers in Colosse.  He considered it evidence of the Holy Spirit’s work in them.  So that was all they needed, right?

No, Paul said that knowing of their love he was praying for God to show them His will, and to give them spiritual wisdom and understanding.  Then, the way they lived would honor and please God and they would produce fruit. I take it that love is a critical component of living lives pleasing to God, but it’s not sufficient.

I think the current missional movement is a very healthy correction to a church that has become far too internally focused.  In fact, I would argue that the term “missional church” should be redundant because if we aren’t on mission we aren’t being the church.  But I think the leaders of the missional movement would agree that we need to be sure we don’t let the emphasis on loving others totally replace the growth in spiritual wisdom and understanding that comes from Bible study and sharing with fellow believers.

Being internal or external is not an either/or according to the Bible.  It’s a both/and.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 18th, 2009 at 8:00 am and is filed under Missional. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.