Grace in Our Church
美佳之窗 His Window 91（ Jul – Sep 2020 ）
Text by Rev. Phan Wu Chung
Translated by Stephen Cheng
In a life group meeting, there was agroup of youths discussing the topic – ‘Can you thank God and pray for the church?’
Soon after this question was raised by the chairperson, the youths paused and seriously pondered whether there were any matters in church that they ought to be thankful for. Someone started to comment, saying “ Although our church is small, we are perfectly healthy.” Another said, “Church provides the life groups with a platform to fellowship with one another.” The youths focused on seemingly “minor” or “trivial” matters, to thank God for.
I observe in church, that we often give thanks for many things that may seem insignificant to some people. However, if we’re to ponder seriously on their values and not focus on finding excuses to not give thanks, we will appreciate that these see mingly “trivial” matters truly deserve our thankfulness.
In 1 Corinthians 1:4-5, Apostle Paul says: “I always thank my God for you because of His grace given you in Christ Jesus, for in Him you have been enriched in every way with all kinds of speech and with all knowledge.”
Many people who delve into the book of 1 Corinthians, discover that the church in Corinth was full of sins, conflicts and heresy. However, in his opening chapter of 1 Corinthians 1-3, Paul addressed the writer and reader of his letter with a greeting of peace, and he did not accuse the church in Corinth of their wrong doings. Instead, he used some of his writing space to thank God for the church. We notice in Paul’s epistles, he habitually thanked God for the church, and thus to him thanking God was his routine. Observably, this habitual thankfulness may appear to be a mockery for those who are not thankful. However, this observation lacks reliable evidence to prove its truth. Moreover, Paul did not thank God for what was lacking in the church (for instance, love, faith and truth), and indeed, Paul’s thankfulness for the church was truly sincere.
In fact, Paul’s thankfulness is fully covered in 1 Corinthians 4-9. But, due to page space constraint, we will just look at verses 4-5. Firstly, let’s look at the word “grace” mentioned by Paul, which generally refers to the salvation of God; but, from the above scriptures it may also point to all the blessings of His grace. In other words, as a whole, Paul regards the church in Corinth as fully blessed with the grace of God.
In order to support his point, Paul mentioned that God had enriched the Corinthian church in every way. Of course, we can view the richness of the church in two aspects; material and spiritual. From the material aspect, the city of Corinth was one of the important commercial centres, hence naturally the Corinthian believers could live a prosperous life. If we do not think it is important to thank God for our basic material richness, then, we do not really know how to be grateful people! At the same time, we are often reminded to not just focus on material richness.
From the spiritual aspect, Paul ascribes “enriched” to the believers’ various types of speech and different forms of knowledge. Of course, here it shows that they handle their daily matters with speech and knowledge. The original meaning of “speech” is “logos”, and it may also mean prophesy, teaching, preaching and evangelizing the Gospel. In other words, Paul was reminding the Corinthian believers that their greatest richness which others had never possessed before is the “Gospel”. Regarding “knowledge”, it does not only point to learning or experience, it also includes the ability of the “gospel” to understand, see and discriminate clearly. It simply means that God wants to bless the people who can understand the Good News with His wisdom. If we take for granted that the granting of God’s “gospel” to us is proper, and that we do not need to be thankful, then, we are really ungrateful people!
I think we can learn from Paul that we should look at the church with the right attitude. Taking the Corinthian church as an example, even though it was full of problems and many of the believers did not support him (1 Cor 1:12), yet Paul always thanked God for them.
Let us recall:
When was the last time we prayed for the church?
Have we ever thanked God for our church?
Whenever we think of the church, do we always think of our dissatisfaction towards the church?
Can we not think of anything that we want to thank God for?
Actually, we are all imperfect people who gather together as a church; therefore, there is no so-called a “perfect church” in this world. Rather than looking at the church with a heart full of criticism, it is preferable to learn to view the church with a thankful heart. I believe whenever we thank God for the church, we will naturally be filled with joy and the church will become more loving and gracious! More importantly, we believe that our Father God loves His church in all circumstances, and grants us sufficient grace to help us grow spiritually in Him.