social and private religion
I’m still reading a book called “The Pursuit of God” by A.W. Tozer, and I came across this:
Social religion is perfected when private religion is purified – A.W. Tozer
Now, the language is a little antiquated (Tozer wrote this in the late 1940′s) and I’m not sure how I would paraphrase this, but the sentiment is quite profound to me. We hear people talk about how they are ‘unsatisfied’ with church, and we hear the age-old complaint that “I’m just not being fed in church anymore”, but Tozer is going in the opposite direction in this part of the book. He lays it out that the faith and relationship with God of the individual is what sets the standard for the community’s faith in God.
Where the church as a whole is at, has a direct correlation to how the individuals that make up the universal church are. If the individual is spiritually healthy, then they will contribute positively to the health of the church -both the local church and the universal body of believers. It’s up to me to make sure that my personal journey with Christ is moving forwards, because my walk with God will directly affect those who are around me. There’s numerous passages of scripture that are the basis for this concept. Matthew 5:16 and 1 Corinthians 12:7 are where I’m going to keep myself thinking about this.
Note: I just discovered that the entire book is available online for free from several different places, feel free to check it out on Manybooks.
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