The Church is "Otherworldly"

We continue again this week with some reflections on God in the Wasteland: The Reality of Truth in a World of Fading Dreams by David Wells. If you missed our first post (somewhat of an introduction last week), click here.


In chapter 3, Wells goes to great lengths to think through and describe worldliness. He offers a definition that is both Biblical and practical. Amidst this discussion of worldliness and its impact on the church, Wells said the following...

"There is a clear line, then, between those who belong to Christ and those who do not, a line separating two very different ways of viewing self and world. If we stay with John, we can easily see how sharply he differentiates these two spiritual realms. Those who belong to the church have been born of God (1 John 3:1-3); those who belong to the world have not (1 John 4:4-6). The church belongs to Christ (1 John 3:7-10); the world belongs to Satan (1 John 5:19), its 'prince' (John 12:31, 14:30, 16:11). All that is of Christ endures forever; all that is of the world is transient, fading (1 John 2:17), and under God's judgment (1 John 4:17). Love for God, therefore, is utterly incompatible with the love of the world (1 John 2:15). Thus there is a profound sense in which the church as to be 'otherworldly.' It carries within itself a discernibly different view of life from what passes as normal and normative in society." (pg. 40-41).

This quote got be thinking a few things...
1) This sounds a lot like a talk I heard given at Together for the Gospel by Thabiti Anyabwile a few weeks back. I can't recommend this talk fervently enough. Watch the video below or track down the audio.

T4G 2010 -- Session 4 -- Thabiti Anyabwile from Together for the Gospel (T4G) on Vimeo.

2) I agree with Wells. The church (individually and collectively) should look different than the world - not in an uppity ("better than you") kind of way, but in a humble ("we want to be imitators of God" - Eph 5:1) kind of way. This gets me asking myself questions. Let's think about our lives and our churches for a minute... do our lives look different than our unsaved neighbors? Does our church body look different than the knitting or sky-diving club in our town. If so, how? Are they different in: our love for one another in the church, our desires, our use of our money, our use of our free time, our parenting, our sex, our work ethic, our aims in life, our (fill in the blank)? The answer is yes on all fronts. We must be careful to guard our hearts against worldliness. Wells is arguing that our churches can very easily become worldly in practice and in priorities. We must guard our churches against the poison of worldliness, and this starts by guarding our own lives.