Lately, I’ve been contemplating the perspective that the Christian life is not this set of tenets and actions that individuals choose to believe or not believe, but a shared experience within a larger body of believers. The sermon this past Sunday was on this very topic, and both the book I’m studying with the men in my church on Wednesdays (Romans) and the one I’m studying by myself in the mornings (1 Corinthians) are, like almost all epistles in the New Testament, letters from Paul to a group of Christians (i.e. not an individual message to individual people).
This sense of individuality is a very modern and Western notion, and it is a frame of reference that many modern Western Christians (including myself, more often that not) read the Bible and live the Christian life. The road to discipleship, while we understand the value of authentic relationships along the way, is one that we individually choose into, and as part of that, make thousands of individual choices daily, to sin or to be holy.
Not only do I find this way of thinking to be incomplete at best and flat-out wrong at worst, but it just isn’t nearly as effective in terms of living the righteous life. For ever since I saw a picture of my daughter, who we will be meeting for the first time next month, I understand that I am not just an individual accountable for myself but a father who has a connection with another human being for whom I will be responsible.
And this sense of being connected to someone else has made it easier for me to say no to sin and yes to Christian obedience. For I get into trouble when it comes to sinful behavior when I convince myself that I am my own person, free to make my own choices and face the consequences accordingly. But I am not my own person now; I am a father, and I just can’t bring myself to want to act in any sort of way that I could not justify to my daughter.
The funny thing is that before we knew we were adopting a baby girl, I was already a connected person. I am married, and have covenanted before God and family to be one flesh with this other person. I am connected to a larger body of believers, and as a body part among other body parts, I ought to rejoice when others rejoice and suffer when others suffer. And ultimately, I am connected to God and accountable before Him, now and on Judgment Day.
Becoming a dad doesn’t replace all of these other connections, obviously; but what it has done is focused these other connections. Indeed I am connected all over the place. To sin now isn’t just about me making an individual decision, nor is to be holy; but doing both, I now see more clearly, has an effect on others and on my connection to others. This sense of connectedness, and not an individualistic relationship between me and God, is what I believe to be more proper, and as I mentioned above, more effective in living the righteous life.
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