Week 2—Thursday 1 Timothy 3:16
1 Timothy 3:16
CHRISTIANITY IS CHRIST
We paused yesterday to look at the suggestion of Dr. Mowrer that the emphasis should be on the principles in the Christian faith and not on the Person. But the Person is the Christian faith. Christianity has its doctrines but it is not a doctrine; has its creeds but it is not a creed; has its rites and ceremonies but it is not a rite or ceremony; has its institutions but it is not an institution. Christianity is Christ. Christians are people who believe in God and persons and life through Christ. We do not begin with God, for if you do, you do not begin with God but with your ideas of God, which are not God. We do not begin with humans, for if you do, you begin with human problems. And if you begin with a problem you will probably end with a problem, and in the process you will probably become a problem. Of one modern minister it was said, “Without a problem spake he not unto them.” This is a problem-obsessed age, and we have become problems dealing with problems. A man was offered a better job—he turned it down: “I’d be a two-ulcer man in a five-ulcer job.” A retired bishop said, “Since I’ve been retired I am frustrated; and unhappy.” We don’t begin with God, and we don’t begin with us, we begin with the God-Man and from him we work out to God, and from him we work down to us. In Jesus’ light we see life—all life. For Jesus is the revelation of God and humans—the revelation of what God is and what we can become—we can become Christlike.
The words of William Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury, sum up the Christian position: “The supreme revelation is given in the life and person of Jesus. The revelation is not His teaching or His acts but Himself. . . . Christianity is not a dedication to a system of rules or of thought, but a dedication to a Person. This is unique among the religions of the world.” Mowrer wants the Word become word; the Christian faith presents the Word become flesh. Hence power.
O blessed Savior, you are a Savior just because you are God available—available to our needs, for you meet us amid those needs. You have lived among our needs and have shown us how to live where we live. Now I not only hear, I see. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: I, the personal, am made by the Personal, and for the Personal, and cannot rest this side of God.