Charles Spurgeon an Emerging Christian?!

          I find more and more every day that I have had enough of the labels projected by the church. Emergents, Emerging Christians, Fundamentalists, Evangelicals… It’s all vanity! He who lives in repentance and in love, is of Christ. He who basks in sin, pride, arguments and judgements is not. Our calling means loving people who don’t agree with us. Gays. Liberals. Other Christians. Our enemy. We are to love all but hate sin. We are to serve, and not to judge. I’ve heard far to many times that we are called to judge. I say that’s a blasphemy more severe than almost any other. I love Spurgeon… he explains it far better than I could.

          Love thy neighbor, too, albeit that he be of a different religion. Thou thinkest thyself to be of that sect which is the nearest to the truth, and thou hast hope that thou and thy compeers who think so well, shall certainly be saved. Thy neighbor thinketh differently. His religion thou sayest is unsound and untrue; love him, for all that. Let not thy differences separate him from thee. Perhaps he may be right, or he may be wrong; he shall be the rightest in practice, who loves the most. Possibly he has no religion at all. He disregards thy God; he breaks the Sabbath; he is confessedly an atheist; love him still. Hard words will not convert him, hard deeds will not make him a Christian. Love him straight on; his sin is not against thee, but against thy God. Thy God takes vengeance for sins committed against himself, and leave thou him in God’s hands. But if thou canst do him a kind turn, if thou canst find aught whereby thou canst serve him, do it, be it day or night. And if thou makest any distinction, make it thus: Because thou art not of my religion, I will serve thee the more, that thou mayest be converted to the right; whereas thou art a heretic Samaritan, and I an orthodox Jew, thou art still my neighbor, and I will love thee with the hope that thou mayest give up thy temple in Gerizim, and come to bow in the temple of God in Jerusalem. Love thy neighbor, despite differences in religion.

(Love Thy Neighbor- Aug. 9^th, 1857)

 

          I totally agree with Spurgeon! It is not our job to force or to pressure, it is our job to love and accept. We are supposed to win people with the true love of Christ, and allow the Holy Spirit to do His divine job, for we are not the potters, we are the instruments the potter uses. This quote will ruffle the feathers of any fundamental evangelical because it seems to ere more on the side of the Emerging Church Movement, but does that make Spurgeon, one of the most beloved and respected preachers of the last 300 years, an emergent?

          No… It just shows that this beloved leader of the faith possessed a balanced worldview and a faith that allowed for grace, but still called for repentance. That is the type of faith I desire to have… A balanced and true faith that will set me free from anything other than the ultimate call on our lives. The great commission.

          This past week I have been called a heretic, a pagan, and a blasphemer from two very harsh critics. And that has really hurt me… No I am not a perfect person. No I am a breaker of the law, but I know Christ is in me as surely as He is in anyone. I hurt for these individuals, these sons of Sceva. I take comfort in the above quote because of one simple truth it holds “He shall be the rightest in practice who loves the most…” and honestly, I wish I knew how to love these people who have condemned me. Everything in me wants to fight them, but I know it would be counterproductive. It is not my job to fight them, it is my job to love them. I pray that the focus of this blog will follow only the courses of true love and authentic repentance. If it strays, it is garbage.

So my questions are these:

• Are you loving the most?
• Is your life characterized by a smile and a servant’s heart, or is it mired in the dirt of the flesh man we have victory over but still follow a lot of the time?
• What is love to you?
• How can we show others love in practice and not in words?

          You can answer these to yourself or on here, just know I’d love to hear your thoughts.

~ by Tim Kurek on December 2, 2008.