Presented to The Salvation Army Alberni Valley Ministries, 18 April 2021 by Captain Michael Ramsay (service outside the Legion following all of the Covid-19 rules and recommendations)
I am so thankful that we are allowed to have our worship times outside now (as long as we are blessed with appropriate weather).
There has been a lot of talk about obeying the authorities in recent times. It has after all been illegal for the Church to meet in the churches for church services since Christmas. It is only in the previous few weeks that we have even been allowed to meet outside in the elements again. There have been many discussions about churches gathering. I had an article published in the Journal of Aggressive Christianity entitled “What we did when Church was illegal “[i]. It has been a serious concern. At a time when rates of suicide and drug use and abuse are at all-time highs to remove these emotional and spiritual supports from the most vulnerable doesn’t seem to make any sense to many people.
According to Matthew,
Jesus famously tells us to “render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s” (Mt 22:21) and Paul
in Romans
13 and Peter in 2 Peter
2 caution us to obey the authorities, reminding us that they are not there by
accident. For good or ill, whether they are good or bad, God has put them there
or at the very least permitted them to remain.
This is a very important directive that we are given in Romans, Peter, and Matthew – to obey the authorities. There is very good reason for this advice.
It is also very important to look at who is offering us this counsel. Jesus, like Peter and like Paul later, was executed by the State. The government tried, convicted, and sentenced Jesus, Peter, Paul, and many of Jesus’ disciples to death by capital punishment. Jesus and many of his prominent followers – including authors of the comments here encouraging us to obey the government – were convicted and executed for disobeying the government, breaking the law. Peter, Paul and Matthew all knew Jesus was executed by Caesar’s authority, after a trial, before they wrote their letters encouraging us to obey the authorities. They also seemed to realize that if they continued to meet with other Christians publicly that they would be sentenced to death and yet they did it anyway. How do we reconcile this apparent contradiction?
And how does it apply to us today where the Church has been denied by the courts (at least so far) its constitutional protection from the government? If we are told again not to meet for services, should we obey government directives or not? Should we meet in the churches or not? Peter has an answer for us .
1 Peter 2:20-22a records
“For
what credit is it if, when you sin and are beaten for it, you endure? But if
when you do good and suffer for it you endure, this
is a gracious thing in the sight of God. 21 For to this you have been called,
because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might
follow in his steps.
I think this is key. We
are not supposed to disobey the authorities about anything
in the whole world (no speeding, no working under the table, no breaking
covid-19 laws) – except when the authorities forbid us to serve God. We are instructed
in the Bible to meet as a Church and not stop doing so, Hebrews 10:25. This is
important. If the community of the saints no longer exists than the Church no
longer exist.
The question that we have
to ask
ourselves is what does our meeting together look like? Some people feel that
have been able to meet successfully
through zoom or social media. Some feel that regular meetings have been
accomplished through phone calls or letters. We here have been meeting to make
and serve meals to those in need in our community.
We have also had support groups running, as they are now permitted. Our support
groups are of course based on the Bible and have prayer as a key component and
our food service always has had prayer as a part of it, sometimes a devotional
thought and always the option of worship music playing in the background.
To conclude for
today: If you are
hearing me in person right now then obviously you are meeting as the Church. If
you are reading or watching this at another time and place, I encourage you to
ask yourself these
two very important questions about being
a part of Church during the pandemic when the government is restricting religious
gatherings:
1. Are you obeying the
government in every way that you possibly can? As a Christian you need to do
this. Anything else makes us all out to be causeless and seemingly clueless
rebels. And
2. Are you continuing to
meet as the Church somehow with others to pray, serve, and read the Bible? If
you are not, you need to do so.
Let us pray.
[i] Michael Ramsay, “What We Did When
Church Was Illegal”, Journal of Aggressive Christianity Iss. 131 (Feb – Mar,
2021), On-line: http://armybarmy.com/JAC/article4-131.html?fbclid=IwAR16vfl-dZKyos7OGnZpyZmWI6xp0JaSQtqQAZNvV0MF5AEWbdJ8HWE1VUU
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