Part Eight: The Disciple's Formation for This Conversation
36. The Volume I Connection - The Battle from the Inside
The Christian Statement
Volume I described the disciple's identity in the battle against external opposition. Volume VI describes the harder battle: the one against the failures of the institution the disciple belongs to and loves.
This is the battle that requires the most maturity, the most nuance, and the most sustained abiding. Because the external battle is clear. The enemy is outside. The internal battle is murkier. The enemy is sometimes the tradition the disciple loves. Sometimes the enemy is the disciple's own pride dressed as faithfulness. Sometimes the enemy is the misplaced compassion of someone who genuinely loves the person they are preventing from reaching the poverty of spirit that is the kingdom's door.
The disciple who can hold all of this simultaneously - who can love the institution they belong to, acknowledge its failures honestly, hold the Person behind the institution clearly, engage the people the institution has wounded, maintain the standard without the confrontation that makes the standard undeliverable, and do all of this from a position of genuine humility rather than institutional pride - that disciple is doing the hardest work in the series.
Volume I said: the battle is real. Volume VI says: the battle is also inside the walls.
"For it is time for judgment to begin, starting with the house of God; and if it starts with us, what will be the outcome for those who are disobedient to the gospel of God?"
-- 1 Peter 4:17 (NET)
The house of God is not exempt from judgment. It is the place where judgment begins. The disciple who takes that seriously - who applies the same honest inquiry to the church that the apologetics volumes apply to Islam, secular materialism, and Jewish objections - is the disciple who has understood that the logs must be removed from our own eyes before we can see clearly to remove the specks from others.