The Discernment of the Church
The Discernment of the Church
In the previous issue on the topic "Edification: How to Discern It," I pointed out that the effort of discernment is not a method of problem-solving used in parliamentary models, but a truth-seeking process. It is an action of phronesis. This discernment process includes "the truth that we feel," "to think about the truth we have together," "the truth that we have received," and "the truth we have experienced in prayer." In summary, discernment is to seek a more comprehensive and abundant truth, a truth that leads people to freedom. This kind of truth can bring about the transformation of a person's heart and make synergy and co-walking possible in people's lives.
The Church Has Succeeded the Faith of the Prophets
In the present issue, I seek to consider the discernment of the church. First, we go back to the Old Testament times to examine the faith of the prophets that the church has succeeded. The prophets in Old Testament times strive to understand the will of God and put it into practice. Their action is specific, symbolic and relational. Their words include reproach, judgment, call, and encouragement. For example, the prophet Ezekiel reprimanded the false prophets at that time, "because they lead my people astray, saying, "peace," when there is no peace, and because, when a flimsy wall is built, they cover it with whitewash." (Ezek 13:10) Ezekiel pointed out that such kind of lies would bring about the judgment of God, "My hand will be against the prophets who see false visions and utter lying divinations. They will not belong to the council of my people…." (Ezek 13:9)
Isaiah declared that Yahweh would punish Israel by rendering His people to be defeated by a great power. Isaiah recorded, ‘"Who has stirred up one from the east, calling him in righteousness to his service'? He hands nations over to him and subdues kings before him. He turns them to dust with his sword, to windblown chaff with his bow." (Isa 41:2) However, Isaiah also pointed out that God had the power to come up with another possibility. That is to bring about new things in this world. God has the power to win over the power of Babylon and liberate Israel. Isaiah conveyed to them the declaration of God in the days of exile, "I, even I, am the Lord, and apart from me there is no savior. I have revealed and saved and proclaimed―I, and not some foreign god among you … For your sake I will send to Babylon and bring down as fugitives all the Babylonians… See, I am doing a new thing…." (Isa 43:11-19) The distinctiveness of interpreting history by Old Testament prophets consists in seeing that God is working in human events, and that the history of Israel is an interaction between God's will and human intention.
How did the prophet discern God's will? How did they see God working in human events? Prophets could discern the movement of political powers and the establishment of military powers. They criticized corruption, oppression, and greediness in society. Their observation did not come from superb intelligence but from their spiritual sensitivity. They were people co-walking with God. Not only did God speak to their minds but also to their hearts and souls, prompting them to take action, a result of submission to God to speak out the word of God.
The Church Has Succeeded the Faith of the Apostles
The church has also succeeded the faith of the apostles. The church in the apostolic age had seen the intervention and action of God in human history and knew that they lived in the age promised by the prophets' prophecy. They saw that God had intended to act in the history of the birth, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ and saw that the Christ event was the focal point of all the past, present, and future events. This is the hallmark of the boundary between the old age and the new. Acts 2 points this out, "This is what was spoken by the prophet Joel: ‘In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy … And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.' Men of Israel, listen to this: Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did among you through him, as you yourselves know. This man was handed over to you by men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross. But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death … God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of the fact." (Acts 2:16-32)
The church of the apostolic age saw: God in Jesus Christ began a new age and they could enter into the new age through Christ. If the heart of man refuses to submit to God and remains self-centered, then the old age will continue. But when a person's life is transformed from disobedience into obedience and from being self-centered into Christ-centered, a new age will begin. As man is willing to forsake sin and leads a life of being a faithful disciple, he will then find himself being connected to Christ and form a solidarity community with other followers of Christ to announce that the new age has come. They announce the salvation of Christ and call on all people to repent and be baptized into a faith community. This ever-growing community believed that the new age had come and Christ would return with power and glory. However, in the meantime they knew that the old age had not disappeared, the new age has already but not yet come and they were living in the eschatological age when God would implement His intention and action through their lives.
The Church Will Continue to Discern God's Action and Will
Today's churches will have to succeed the experience of the prophets and apostles and continue to discern the action and will of God.
1. Discern Society's Reality, Announce the Peace Promised by God
Like the prophets, today's churches need to discern the reality of contemporary society and the agony and wounds of the human world. A severe social reality is that the poor have nothing to eat, nowhere to live and their souls are weak and weary. The deep, hidden wounds have received no care and they have no sense of belonging to the society. Those who are wounded cover up their inner anger, fear and alienation. Yet, the hidden wounds have grown deeper and deeper, the areas affected have grown wider and wider, extending even to the younger generation. Those wounded souls give birth to greater indifference and cynical spirit, also arousing greater calls for revenge and hostility. In discerning the social reality, the church seeks to see some of the economic policies stem from some money-grabbing syndicates, to see the selfish nature and evil tendencies of some economic systems (be they capitalist or socialist), and to point out that the way those who unintentionally or intentionally join the economic system have become its perpetrators and victims.
Yet, as the prophets testified to the new things of Yahweh, the churches today also announce the new things that God has done. One of the new things is that God's love will never part from His people and His covenant of peace will not be removed. "For a brief moment I abandoned you, but with deep compassion I will bring you back … Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed, yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken nor my covenant of peace be removed." (Isa 54:7-10) "I will make a covenant of peace with them … I break the bars of their yoke and rescue them from the hands of those who enslaved them … they will know that I, the Lord their God, am with them…" (Ezek 34:25-30) Like the prophets, our churches should declare the peace that God has promised and put peace into practice. This is the work of the church. When the church earnestly recounts the real situation of man and points to the promise of God, then the peace of God will come to men, so that the human walls will be demolished, orphans adopted, and slaves released. In so doing, land can be reformed, the river water, purified, and nature, protected.
2. Be a Reconciling Community in a Broken, Disintegrated World
The church can discern the will of God in this generation of confusion does not mean that she herself has superb knowledge and status; we do not think that possessing wisdom and strategy of the human world enable us to act in the name of the Lord. In a situation or arena of injustice, by following the example of Jesus' disciples, we trust that the gospel of peace comes from God and only the gospel of peace can demolish the wall of the human world. "But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility … His purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace, and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit." (Eph 2:13-18) The church declares that Jesus came to the world to demolish the walls that separate man and God, and man and man so that man can have access to true peace.
To the apostle Paul, the gospel is the way that God has taken the initiative to put an end to hostility. Therefore, reconciliation means through the love of Jesus Christ, God turns enemies into friends to make peace. The presupposition of this kind of discernment is: the grace of God brings about reconciliation, justice and peace and the conclusion is: reconciliation is the way God makes friend with man and similarly the way man makes friend with the other (referring to an individual or a community). If the church acts as a community of reconciliation in this broken and fragmented world, then she will testify to the fact that the reconciliation work of God throughout history continues to extend in Christ.
Discernment Is the Theological Task of the Church: Reflection and Action
Just as the apostles devote themselves to Jesus' reconciliation action, the church also needs to respond to God's peace-making gospel by submitting herself to God's will and action. Obedience is discipleship and it means to follow Christ throughout one's life. This implies forsaking the old self, following Christ and re-learning a new mode and habit of life. From this we can see that the real test of discipleship is not faith but following Christ, that is the renewal of behavior. Regeneration, holiness, and love are not intellectual belief or subjective experience, but the renewal of life. The gospel of reconciliation enables everyone who takes up the cross to advance towards more abundant grace from God.
The reconciliation action of God is eschatological. As the church participates in God's action, the existence of the church will also be eschatological. We are standing on a newly developed arena in which we experience God's action through which all will be renewed. Right there, we can see the new age conquer the old.
In this way, the mission of discernment includes both reflection that contains criticism and also action that contains a purpose (arising from man's obedient response to God) while the two are mutually interactive. In face of the hostility, oppression, strife, and isolation of today's society, the church needs to keep making rational, critical reflection, to keep understanding the revelation of God's word to us today and looking carefully at how God is acting today and how we can get involved in God's action. Therefore, on the one hand, the church should have the courage to point out the present social problems, on the other hand, she should faithfully read the Bible and look carefully at the eternal will of God, following the inspiration and direction of the Bible to make decision and take action. The kingdom of God is an eschatological reality to help us understand and participate in the past, present and the future while the power of the Holy Spirit enables us to learn from the past and gets ready for the present and the future.
Discernment is like a continuum that cannot be cut off. One end of it is critical reflection while the other end is action with a purpose, that is submitting to God's will and getting involved in God's action. The relationship between obedience to God and taking action and making reflection are inter-connecting and inseparable. To understand the will of God is to obey His will. Our true knowledge of God comes not from man's rational thinking but from God's self-revelation (the self-revelation of God to those He wants to reveal) and our action to follow Him. The true knowledge of God's act in the world at this present moment cannot be gained by those on-lookers or objective analysts, but from the reception and discernment of those who understand the purpose of God and who respond obediently to God's will and participate in His action. The will of God must be received in humility and faith.
For this reason, the church must not take the will of God as "it-truth." The will of God is not a kind of truth that is to be discussed, analyzed, treated and objectified. Such kind of it-truth is to be reviewed by us and it does not review us. The will of God is "thou-truth" in which the everlasting Lord will judge us, guide us and care for us at an unexpected place and time.
Overall, discernment is the theological task of the church. The reflection and action of discernment cannot be separated. A church busy with social action do not always have time to reflect upon her ministry in this generation and cannot see from history God's action and then join His action. Only when we see God's present purpose and action can the church accomplish her ministry of discernment. Only when the church is situated in the sphere between the old age and the new can she accomplish the task of discernment. From that position, she discerns that abundant life is not built on man's good work but it is a God-given gift, the fruit of man's response to God and involvement in His action.
May 2016