The Church of Old, Today, and Tomorrow…

I don’t read much. Reading has never been my passion. Moving pictures seem to engage my mind a little more than a book. However, words seem to captivate me. Not paragraphs, but each individual word. I feel that each word has the potential for so much. So much power lies within each word. For example, think of the magnitude within these words individually: God, Love, Church, Ecclesia, His. When used in context these words tend to lose their impact, but alone, they can be recognized for what they really are and can be.

I was skimming through a book the other day, which means a lot since I don’t like to read normally, and the book contained writings of the early church; we’re talking 170 A.D. early. The interesting thing is that when we look at what the church spoke about back then, we see so many similarities between the church of old and the church of today. I was reading the First Epistle of the Clement to the Corinthians. It was written shortly after the letters we know as 1 and 2 Corinthians and to the same church. The interesting thing about the letter was that they were facing the same issues that today’s church faces. Like it has always been, we, the church, the ecclesia, are being called to step up, to be an active voice in the world, to be a face of righteousness, to be constant and faithful.

God is calling our youth and adults, the church of today, to step up, to be the change in Uvalde, the change in Texas, the U.S.A., and the world. He is calling us to be constant and faithful, relentless in the pursuit of righteousness. Let us hear that call! No more can we sit idly by watching His creation suffer at the hands of the wicked. God has armed and equipped us to be lights in the darkness of our community and our world. Let us hear that call!

But we may say, “What is one little town on the map? Much less, who am I, one person? How can I do something of that magnitude?”

What is one word among many? It is lost in the multitude. But hear this, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” (John 1:1) Now how can we say, “What is one word? How can one person change the world?” God is calling. “He who has ears, let him hear.”