Week 46—Saturday Acts 5:1-6, 13-14
Week 46—SATURDAY
Acts 5:1-6, 13-14
ENOUGH REAL CHRISTIANITY TO ABSORB
UNCHRISTIAN CHRISTIANITY
A woman in India, where because of illiteracy, the people must vote by dropping their ballots into the box with the symbol representing the party for which they wanted to vote, put a garland of flowers on one ballot box and then dropped her ballot in another box. The word of loyalty became word—became flowers, but the word became flesh in something else—another ballot box. Another woman stood with folded hands and said her prayers to the ballot box, but dropped in no ballot. She voted with her prayers but not with her person. A caricature on democracy, it is true. But do these illustrations destroy democracy? No, for there is enough solid democracy in the country to absorb these aberrations and go on its way to express the will of the people.
So the illustrations of the Word become word on the part of the church do not cancel the church and destroy it. For there is enough real solid Christianity within the church to absorb these anti-Christian elements and still go on its way. I walked on a cinder, encased in the bottom of my foot, for fifteen years. It pained me again and again, but still I walked—in spite of! There was enough general health to absorb that alien element and go on its way. So the Christian church has the power to absorb the mistakes and sins of its members and go on its way. It is not a divine institution, but it is a divine-human institution and the Redeeming Lord—the divine part of the church—redeems the human to the degree that it will let him. He is the Savior of the body. I believe in the church because I believe in Jesus Christ. He saves my faith in the church because he saves the church. The Christian movement has a principle and power of self-correction at its heart—the person of Jesus Christ. So Christ saves Christianity, for which I am grateful, for I am a part of Christianity.
O Son of God, I thank you that I need not be afraid that the light will go out. For you are standing in the midst of the candlesticks to relight them when they sputter and die. The bruised reed you will not break nor quench the smoking flax. I thank you. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: If I did not have a Savior, I would be lost. But I do have a Savior, for he saves me from myself and from sin.