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It
is one of the most attractive imperatives in the New Testament, and
when one considers the circumstance in which it was given it takes
on enormous significance. First, the charge to love the brotherhood
comes from the heart and mind of a seasoned apostle who, according
to tradition, was soon to die as a martyr in Rome. And it was from
that dreadful pagan city that the apostle Peter writes, which he
calls “Babylon” (1 Pet. 5:13). Peter was not unlike his
Lord in this respect, for while Jesus prayed for the unity of all
believers as he turned his face toward the Cross, Peter urges love
for the brotherhood as he faced martyrdom.
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The
imperative to love the brotherhood also takes on deeper meaning when
one realizes that it was written to “the pilgrims of the
Dispersion” who were undergoing a time of trial. The apostle
refers to those who “speak against you as evil doers”
and he urges the believers to live such an exemplary life before
such ones that “they may by your good works which they observe
glorify God in the day of visitation” (2:12). Moreover, he
urges them to have a good conscience before God so that when those
who “defame you as evil doers” will see their good works
and be ashamed. So, it was in an atmosphere of calumny, defamation,
and persecution that the believers were urged to love the
brotherhood, along with fearing God and honoring the king, which
appear in the same context.
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If
Peter’s letter does nothing else, it should set us straight as
to who our enemies are, who are identified in the letter as those
who reproach the name of Christ (4:14). We have been too eager to do
battle with each other, as if the enemy were our brethren. Or we put
on the whole armor of God and go after “the denominations”
as if they were the enemy. The enemy is rather identified in
Scripture as “those who blaspheme the honorable name by which
you are called” (Jas. 2:17) and “the rulers of the
darkness of this age” (Eph. 6:12). The latter passage says
plainly that our struggle is not against “flesh and blood”
— not people as such — “but against the
principalities and powers.”
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So
1
Peter
urges
believers to love one another with a love that hides a multitude of
sins (4:17). They were even to kiss one another with “a kiss
of love” (5:14). And how elegant are the apostle’s words
in 1:22: “love one another fervently with a pure heart.”
It is clear enough that whatever else may be concluded about
“brotherhood” Peter viewed it in terms of love.
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And
what does the apostle mean by the term, which appears only in
1
Peter
in
the New Testament? It clearly has to do with
brothers
and
of course
sisters,
and
not institutions, systems, or organizations. Brotherhood is people,
but a certain kind of people. The figures Peter applies to these
people in this letter help to identify them, some of which are
pilgrims, sojourners, elect, obedient children, redeemed, purified,
born again, newborn babes, living stones, the people of God, God’s
sheep, saints, Christians, house of God, stewards of the grace of
God. Anyone of these and all of these is what the apostle means by
brotherhood.
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The
Greek work is defined as “a band of brothers” or simply
Christians, all the brothers and sisters in Christ. While the
apostle does not use the term
ecclesia
in
this letter, that is what brotherhood refers to —
the
church,
all
those in every place who are in Christ Jesus.
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Now
that we’ve seen what an apostle of Christ meant by
brotherhood, what do we mean when we use the term? There is hardly
any term in the New Testament that is given such a sectarian twist
as brotherhood. We have “brotherhood schools,”
“brotherhood papers,” and “brotherhood agencies.”
We commonly hear the likes of “He’s one of the best
preachers in the brotherhood” and “He decided to work
with our brotherhood.”
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Clearly,
when we refer to
“our
brotherhood”
we are not talking about what the apostle Peter had in mind, but to
those churches who have fellowship in the North American Christian
Convention. Or “the brotherhood” refers to those
Churches of Christ associated with Pepperdine, Lipscomb, and Abilene
Christian. It is plain sin for us to take a biblical term that
underscores the unity of believers — “the children of
God” everywhere — and prostitute it for the sake of but
a small fraction of God’s people. If “love the
brotherhood” means that we show a special affection only for
our own group, we are violating the teaching of Christ which calls
for a love for all God’s people.
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The
truth is that “brotherhood” has been so prostituted
among us that it has come to be no more than a euphemism for
denomination. It is both more factual and more honest to refer to
“our denomination,” but we dare not do that lest we be
guilty of admitting what is obvious. I admire the brother who can
say, “As a member of the Church of Christ denomination I love
the brotherhood.” In the first part he would be truthful and
in the second part he would be scriptural, and that’s not bad.
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It
is imperative that we get our thinking straight on this matter, for
so long as we equate “the church” or “the
brotherhood” to our own crowd we will never rise above the
mentality of a narrow little sect. But how beautiful and how
liberating it is once we see the majesty of the one, holy,
apostolic, and catholic church, made up of all those who are in
Christ Jesus! Such a view is not unlike what John saw in Rev. 7:9:
“I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could
number, of all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues,’
standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed with white
robes, with palm branches in their hands.” John saw the
brotherhood in heaven, the church universal. That is what we are to
love, and that includes both
us
and
them!
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I’ve
met with believers in the back alleys of Hong Kong, at an army
retreat center in Seoul, in a bamboo hut in the mountains of
Thailand, in a public hall in Tokyo, as well as elegant and
not-so-elegant church edifice!, around the world, and they are
all
part
of the brotherhood of believers in Christ. Wherever the Spirit of
God dwells in the hearts of men and women there is the Body of
Christ, and that is the brotherhood.
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If
we prostitute
brotherhood
to
mean more than those who are truly Christians, then we have some
kind of humanistic fraternity; if we prostitute it to make it mean
less than all true disciples of Christ, then we have a sect. And it
is much worse to be a sect than to be a denomination. We can avoid
being sectarian, while it may be well nigh impossible not to be a
denomination. To be a sect is to presume to be the whole of the Body
of Christ when we are but a part. To be a denomination is to admit
to separateness in name, organization, etc., but to claim to be a
part of the larger brotherhood of Christians. If we hope someday to
transcend denominationalism, we must first overcome our
sectarianism, the “us only” mentality.
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The
figures the apostle Peter uses in his letter makes it clear that he
sees the brotherhood in terms of unity in diversity. As
stewards
he
sees God’s children as having diverse gifts (4:10), and as
living
stones
(2:5)
we are different as we make up God’s spiritual house. We can
join Peter in thanking God that he did not make us bricks, shaped
and formed exactly alike. —
the
Editor