You can say ‘Stand firm’ to a jelly until you are blue in the face – but it will still wobble. It’s different with Hagia Sophia. That is still standing today after a millennium and a half of usage. Human nature is somewhat less durable.
Standing firm is all very well but it sounds like a renunciation of progress. To stand firm in a rising tide – in, say Morecambe Bay – is a risky decision. A church standing firm against Galileo may come to regret it.
Nevertheless ‘Stand firm’ said Paul to his friends in Thessalonica. He did not beat about the bush when he was writing to them. He told them point-blank that he had earned his living in toil and drudgery rather than be a charge on them. He urged them to do their bit and hold fast to the traditions that they had learned from him -- by face-to-face encounter and by letter. (These were days, remember, when Paul’s letters were shaping the early Christian communities before the Gospels came into being.)
Common sense kicks in here. The apostles lived in a tradition. They cast lots This was how they appointed Matthias to fill the vacancy left by Judas. We sense this as a point at which the church leaders were not at their best. Barnabas took the view that Mark (his cousin) was a good choice of person to accompany Paul in a return to his converts. Paul dissented. The Paul-Barnabas partnership broke up.
Like these responsible men, we are not bound to repeat what worked once before. Nor that we should just go on doing new things in a traditional way. Paul had written in an earlier letter: ‘Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.’ We are not to suspend critical judgment and mutely accept what we’re told by a person who speaks with apparent authority. We also have to bear in mind the possibility that our curiosity may be uninformed. After all; we do not know the outcome of Matthias’s apostleship or Barnabas’s foray into his home island.
If we are going to stand firm, we must keep our eyes open and remember what we’re standing on. The Scriptures give us what we need as we use them advisedly.
TEMPORARY EMPIRES
In their day the Roman empire, the Austro-Hungarian empire and the British empire were impressive and long-lasting institutions. They had their day. They looked to be standing firm. Then they collapsed. Time will tell.
Change and decay in around I see;
O Thou, who changest not, abide with me (H,F. Lyte)
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