In Piper’s The Pleasures of God, he quotes Patrick Johnstone. The quotation is profound. I absolutely had to share it. Piper quotes:
“We are being compelled to return to a more biblical and radical position—that of being a minority in the world not of it… The church deprived of political power is free from the burden of trying to use human power to dominate and influence the world… Our reference point is not territorial or church growth aggrandizement, but building a kingdom that is not of this world, yet which will fill the earth as a contrasting alternative society. We need to return to the concept of a pilgrim Church, the church that will be hated, rejected, despised, persecuted, yet be an incisive, decisive, victorious minority which one day soon, will be ready for its heavenly Bridegroom as the perfected Bride.”
Holy crap. Seriously. “The church deprived of political power is free from the burden of trying to use human power to dominate and influence the world” . Lets take a minute and digest that one. I’m not even sure I fully understand the ramification of that idea, however, it’s compelling and attractive and at the same time frightening.
I suppose that should God deem fit to give us political power, it would be a grace that we ought to steward properly. But, it seems that perhaps we haven’t and that grace is being removed.
November 12th, 2008 at 6:54 am
“The church deprived of political power is free from the burden of trying to use human power to dominate and influence the world”
Love it. So if we were not so wrapped up in trying to legislate love on to the people in the world we would be freed to share his love with the people in this world…