CreatorWorship

During the sermon this morning the pastor referenced two metaphors used by John MacArthur concerning unity in the church. Never quite willing to let a good analogy go unanalyzed and extended I began musing.

According to his reporting of MacArthur, we frequently see unity as a bag of marbles. Marbles (people in the church) are held in (unity) by a bag (programs). If the bag wears thin or tears the church loses all its marbles via the loss of the external binding force of the bag.   It occurred to me that the congregants scatter because they have potential energy (sin nature) that gives them momentum (movement) away from one another once the constraining force of the bag is reduced. The reason this occurred to me is that I have seen dead churches that still have a semblance of unity even when there are no programs to hold them together simply because there is also no life or movement in the church. Dead objects don’t move (or stop their present straight line motion (tradition)) unless acted upon.

MacArthur thought that a better analogy for unity was that of a magnet (God) acting as a central attractive force upon iron filings (the people). But the science teacher in me rebuffed that there are no mono-poles. For every north pole there is a south pole, always. So what we are being attracted to as our north pole-God- causes us to be oriented away from what is then our south pole-the world, the flesh, and the devil. Iron filings alone will be attracted to either pole but once magnetized by an attraction to one pole will orient with their “backs” to the other pole since they become mini-magnets with north and south poles. We still have sin natures which pull us the wrong way, but we now have a new pole oriented toward God and others in our church, unless we pull away.

What attracts you? What are you being oriented toward? What have you turned your back on or is this outside force deciding for you? Orient yourself toward God by His grace along with a body of believers (iron filings) and you will turn your back on evil. Try to stay neutral and you will be pulled in by the next passing attraction.