Some of our modern church practices can fool us into thinking that our faith is a private matter, or perhaps even that church itself is something for us to sit and enjoy, listening to a nice message and then leaving.
But the Christian life is inherently focused on others, not just on self. A quick search of the New Testament will show that there are more than 50 occurrences of commands for one another. Think about the Lord Jesus’ teaching to his disciples in the upper room when he said,
“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:34-35).
Jesus expects that all who follow him will take an active role in loving others. In this episode of the CCL podcast, we explore several of the “one another” commands and consider how, in becoming aware of them, we might live more faithfully as disciples of Jesus.
Links referred to:
- The Priscilla & Aquila 2022 annual conference
- Peter Orr’s plenary addresses: Part 1and Part 2
- The World Next Door by Peter Orr and Rory Shiner
- Our 2022 live event program
- Our March event: Commanding the heart: Anger (9 March)
- Support the work of the Centre
Runtime: 28:46 min.
Transcript
Please note: This is an edited transcript.
Chase Kuhn: Some of our modern church practices can fool us into thinking that our faith is a private matter, or perhaps even that church itself is something for us to sit and enjoy, listening to a nice message and then leaving.
But the Christian life is inherently focused on others, not just on self. A quick search of the New Testament will show that there are more than 50 occurrences of commands for one another. Think about the Lord Jesus’ teaching to his disciples in the upper room when he said,
“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:34-35).
Jesus expects that all who follow him will take an active role in loving others. Today on the podcast, we explore several of the “one another” commands and consider how, in becoming aware of them, we might live more faithfully as disciples of Jesus.
[Music]
CK: Hello, this is Chase Kuhn and I’m welcoming you to the Centre for Christian Living podcast. We’re coming to you from Sydney, Australia, and today, I’m joined by my friend, Dr Pete Orr, who teaches New Testament here at Moore College. Pete, it’s a joy to have you.
Peter Orr: Thank you! It’s great to be here.
CK: Pete, you’ve been working on a few projects lately. Tell us about a couple of things that have been interesting to you.
PO: Well, I’ve just had six months of writing leave, and I spent some time working on a book on Mark’s Gospel—exploring themes in Mark’s Gospel. That was a lot of fun, just digging deep into a part of God’s word. What struck me is this is a part of the Bible that I thought I knew well, but just in doing that sustained study, you find layers and depths that you hadn’t noticed before. I think that’s just a testimony to the wonderful riches of God’s word. So it was a real privilege. I loved doing it.
CK: That’s lovely. Well, one of the joys that I’ve had of being your friends for years now is that we get a lot of chances to talk about God’s word, and today we get to do that more. You’re going to be speaking—and by the time people listen to this podcast, they will have had a chance to have heard you—at the Priscilla & Aquila conference on the “one another” commands that are found in the Bible. Just in preparation for this episode, I was struck by how many commands there are in the New Testament for us to be considering one another. Today, it’s about giving us some exposure to these commands and thinking about what they’re like in the Christian life.
Just as we begin talking about this, tell me about some of the surprises in your work as you’ve prepared the material that you’re doing on “one another”.
PO: I think, as you say, the frequency of those commands across the New Testament and the understanding that, as Christians, we really do have responsibility for one another. That’s an obvious point, but as you say, when you read it in the Scriptures and see it occurring so frequently, the picture that the New Testament gives us of how we relate as Christians is so far from the casual indifference and assumptions that nominal Christianity might work with. It assumes a depth of relationship. So that’s one thing.
The other thing that struck me is the importance of these commands and us obeying them for the health of the church. I think sometimes we focus on what’s happening in the pulpit, and it’s right to do that—that is vital for the health of the church: if what’s being preached in the pulpit is unhelpful and heretical, or whatever, that’s very damaging for the church. But equally important is what’s happening between one another for the health of the church: particularly places like Ephesians 4, Paul really sees the relationship of Christians, one to another, as absolutely critical for the growth of the church. So in other words, it’s not just the pastor who’s concerned that your church is growing; all of us have a responsibility and the ability to help the church grow. So I’m excited by the topic and looking forward to exploring it.
CK: That’s great. Two things you just mentioned there about nominalism and the growth of the church—I mean, not disconnected necessarily, because nominalism would quickly lead to the decline in the church—
PO: Correct.
CK: —or unhealth in the church. And I guess if we’re thinking about nominalism, we could think about it just from a point of view from faith—that is, that we’re just coming along, maybe indifferent or disinterested or disengaged, with an ulterior motive, or whatever it may be. But we don’t always think that a disinterest in others in the church is quite like Christianity, only in a nominal form—that is, only in name. And so, something about Christianity that’s inherent to it is that we have a care for one another. That’s part of being Christian. I think that’s a really fascinating thing you’ve just drawn out.
What would you say is the enemy of that today? Why have we found ourselves—maybe in what we would even see as good churches, finding this hard?
PO: I was reading someone who analysed common understandings of how we view church, and one understanding is to see it almost like the theatre. So we go along, we enjoy the performance that’s in front of us, and as we leave, we maybe say the things that we liked about the performance or say the things that we didn’t like about the performance. So we’re not invested in it. Well, we’re invested in it as long as it pleases us and ticks the boxes that we want. So that’s one view.
And then what you might thing is a better view, and this is probably more common, is to see the church like a voluntary organisation—like a club. It might be a sports club or whatever. And you volunteer, you join, you go along and you get involved—as long as everything goes the way that you want it to go, and as soon as it doesn’t, then you pull out. And so, in both those understandings of church, it’s about me: I’m at the centre.
So I’m watching a performance that pleases me, or I’m joining a club because I’m interested in it and I’ll keep going and keep being invested as long as it suits me. But if we think of the church more as a family, and you’re stuck with your family and you have responsibility for your family, you love your family, the depth of relationship and responsibility and involvement, it’s much greater than either of those models. And so, there’s family language throughout the New Testament in relation to the church—even just the simplest description of Christians as brothers and sisters—and so, I think the “one another” commands really flow out of that.
CK: Church is the household of faith—that type of model.
PO: Yes, absolutely!
CK: What you’ve just explained there is so interesting. We could almost put it as many people approach church in a contractual way: you join the gym, you sign a contract, and that contract goes for a certain season, as you said. If not, you can break the contract, because it’s not working for you anymore. Whereas the family, they don’t disappear. You can put them aside, you can avoid them or whatever else, but—
PO: I mean, I probably should say at this point, we don’t want to push that image to its absolute extreme. There are reasons and good reasons to leave churches, so I’m not putting that—it’s not quite the same as our biological families. But I think it’s just helpful to think of our relationships the way the New Testament does much more in those organic family terms.
CK: Yeah. One of the things I find fascinating is that when the New Testament presents to us this view of one another, it requires both parties being committed to that. It actually assumes both parties being committed to that. And it seems to me that the gospel is required for that to happen in the sense that we actually have to have that foundation, which establishes a basis of trust that we can operate on—that I am free, in one sense, because of the gospel, to give myself to others. Whereas in so many other spheres of the world, we’re constantly living out of fear for self-protection, and as soon as we begin to self-protect in the church—protect our own interests—suddenly, then, it’s me against you and what can you do for me, and if you’re not doing well for me, then I’m out. So how do you think the gospel helps us get that foundation?
PO: Yeah, so the gospel relates us to God through Christ. But the gospel also creates those bonds with one another as brothers and sisters. Peter in his letter talks about us being “born again” by the word of truth (1 Pet 1:23), and when you’re born again, you’re born into a family. And born again by the Word, it’s almost the image as if the word of God is our DNA. So it’s the gospel that is our DNA just like you’re related to your family members by blood or marriage or adoption. For us, it’s the gospel that is the DNA. It’s the thing that relates us, not that we have the same interests or we’re from the same social class. So when you think about that, I think, “Absolutely”.
CK: Yeah. Running with even what Peter says later on, you think about the way that Christ laid down his life for us, in one sense: that also then frees us for a particular kind of giving. If we have that security—that his life has been given for us to have life—if we are secure in God—or even move into John, for example, the commands to love one another in John are centred on a God who has shown love to us. And in one sense, that liberates us to love because we’ve been shown that love from God and received it. So fear is gone and we can actually now engage differently.
PO: Yeah, so John 13:34: “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another” and you think, “Well, that’s not really new, because it’s in Leviticus”. But Jesus says, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you” [emphasis Peter’s]. And so, the newness of that command is that it is modelled on the way that Jesus laid his life down.
The flip side of that, as well, is we need to be able and willing to receive love from one another—what you said earlier about it’s both parties who are invested. I think that’s a critique for the view that “If the pastor is not caring for me, I’m not being cared for”. You sometimes ask people, “Are you being cared for in your church?” “Oh, the pastor doesn’t really know me all that well.” I’m not saying that necessarily people don’t have this problem. But if people in the church are looking after you and caring for you and it’s functioning well, well then you should see the love that you receive from a parishioner—that’s an expression of the gospel. And just because we sometimes artificially think that unless it’s the pastoral team are caring for me, then I’m not being cared for.
CK: Yeah, it’s a whole body, life together. I think it’s interesting—I want to just pick up on something you said there. First of all, I’m really glad you talked about the new commandment, because I really wanted to ask you about that and I think you’ve done a great explanation of that. But the second thing is the receiving love is something I’ve been thinking about lately because it’s one thing to be able to serve and think, “I’m doing the right thing because I’m serving”, but actually to begin receiving service as well is quite a difficult thing to do. Sometimes people find it very hard to receive care because, in one sense, I guess, it exposes us to our finitude, it exposes us to our need, and so, for serving, serving, serving, we think we can do everything. But actually being served shows that you have real needs and a dependence. And I guess the “one another” language of the Scriptures shows that we are mutually dependent. And that actually is an expression of God showing us, as the infinite creator who loves us, a provision for us even in our finite resources. He’s giving us people around us to make sure we have what we need. It’s a lovely picture.
I want to move into some of the other commands that we get here—the “one another” commands. Take, for example—I was surprised, looking over these, how often “Greet one another with a holy kiss” comes up, Pete. And knowing that you’re a World Wrestling fan—a big fan—I was thinking maybe in another life, the holy kiss would be your wrestling move—your know, your kind of finishing move.
PO: Yeah, that is helpful. I may be past it: I’m turning 50 this year, so my wrestling career might never get off, which is a shame. But—
CK: Oh, senior’s league!
PO: Well, maybe! Yeah, thank you.
CK: Okay. What kinds of commands do you find surprising, besides the holy kiss? And we could talk about why we don’t kiss each other anymore [Laughter], COVID aside. What other commands did you find surprising, perhaps, in the “one anothers” that maybe we overlook quite easily?
PO: Well, one that I found surprising is in James 5:16 “Confess your sins to one another”. That’s quite striking. We, in some contexts, have accountability groups, and that’s a good thing. But someone said, “Maybe we should call them ‘confession groups’”, and confessing your sins to one another—it’s an exposure of our vulnerabilities. So that’s probably the one that really struck me is, okay, the depth of relationship here is quite significant.
CK: Yeah, and forming relationships that actually permit that space. Thinking about confessing your sins, Pete, that, again, comes from a gospel foundation, doesn’t it. I mean, I would be hesitant to confess sins to you if I was really insecure about what could come to me if those sins were known. And yet, if I have a real confidence in the gospel that my sins are already forgiven, then confession can only do me good. In one sense, it can further free me from the grip of sin and the consequences of sin in my life, and actually keep me going on the new path. What kinds of ways do you encourage people to confess sin? You mentioned accountability groups, but what kinds of ways would those be helpful groups and, maybe, hurtful groups? How can we do it well and not well?
PO: Yeah, so in preparation for these talks, I’ve had a little bit of a look at early Methodism. John Wesley set up groups: there were classes and then a smaller group of bands, and the bands were groups of four or five people. To join that band or that group, you had to agree to this as a practice—that you would be willing to confess your sins to one another.
Now, the small group Bible studies that I’ve been in are very different to early Methodism’s classes and bands, and I’m not saying we should change our Bible studies. But I’ve been struck to think maybe in our Bible study groups, we should be a little bit more intentional. What are we actually trying to do in our Bible study groups and our small groups in general? Is the best thing for our small group in the context of our church to be an extension of the Bible teaching ministry? Maybe it is. Or would it be better to be something more like—I’m not saying exactly the same—but more like a sort of early Methodist class or band where we’re much more focusing on Christian growth on confessing our sins to one another. So I’m not saying we need to abolish the way we do small groups. But looking at the different ways that these things have happened has made me think, “I think we need to be more intentional in deciding what we are doing with our groups and the range the things the New Testament sees that we could do with our groups”.
CK: And like you said, it’s always grounded in the fact that we’ve been born again by the Word. That’s it, right: the Word has come into our lives and that’s the DNA that we share. And in fact, the Word in the power of the Spirit is going to be the change agent. But I guess you’re right: there is the Bible study that puts the Word on the table and begins to dissect it under a microscope, and it keeps it at arms’ length, in one sense, and it treats it as if it’s a specimen to be looked at, rather than something to be digested and actually embodied. And so, now we have to find ways to get beyond just the factual, rehearsing—
PO: —understanding. As important as that is, and I’m struck by a lot of American churches, as you might know, will have an adult Sunday school class before the Sunday service, which is much more teaching-centred. So in our context, could we do that, and that’s the place where you do the in-depth teaching, and then the small groups could be much more to do with what we’ve learnt, how do we put that into practice, how are we struggling as Christians, let’s be open with one another—the teaching that we’ve heard, I find it really hard to apply it in my life, because I’m struggling with this sin.
I’m not saying any of that is easy. But I’m guess I’m saying just a little bit more imagination—that we don’t get into the rut of “This is the way we’ve always done our small groups. This is the way we always do our Sundays.” Just keep going.
CK: Well, one thing that we shouldn’t overlook is that this is not a matter of indifference—that actually, this is what Scripture’s commanding us. This is actually a responsibility that we have in our Christian life. We need to confess our sins to one another.
PO: Yep. And it doesn’t have to happen in the context of small groups. It can be you have Christian friend and you talk to them, and you don’t necessarily have to have it programmed—we’re going to meet up every Wednesday at seven o’clock. But you should be thinking, “Who do I know well enough who I can talk at this level to?”
[Music]
CK: If you’re enjoying today’s episode, then I would encourage you to listen to the longer talks that Peter Orr recently gave on the “one another” commands for the Priscilla & Aquila Centre2022 annual conference ( Part 1 and Part 2). The Priscilla & Aquila Centre is a partner centre of ours, which encourages the ministries of women in partnership with men. You can explore an amazing collection of resources on offer and you’ll find them online at paa.moore.edu.au.
Also, we’d love for you to join us this year for our live events at the Centre for Christian Living—either in person in Sydney or online. We’re looking at Matthew 5 and considering how Jesus’ teaching reorients our lives. At our first event on 9 March, I’ll be speaking in partnership with my friend Kara Hartley on the topic of anger. Registration for all of our events are now open and we’d love for you to make a plan to join us this year.
Now let’s get back to our program.
CK: As we look over all the “one another” commands, and again, there are many: “consider how to stir up one another” or “encourage one another”; “encourage one another” is constant—“build one another up”—these kinds of commands, it seems to me as well, though, that love is quite a pervasive theme. And I guess this is really grounded in what you’ve already said from Jesus’ “new commandment I give to you, that you love one another” (John 13:34), and of course, he picks that up again through John 15, and then John picks it up in his epistles—it seems to me like Paul, as well, in his section in Romans 12, for example, is really building on the love theme, again—that we love one another—and almost, I wonder—I want to know from you, do you think some of the other commands around that are under the umbrella of love? Would you see that this is the meta theme, if you will, or how would you categorise them?
PO: Yeah, so the way I’ve categorised them, and this may be slightly artificial, but 1 Peter 4:8-11 talks about loving one another and then he goes on to talk about serving one another and speaking to one another. And so, that might be, as you say, “love one another” is the umbrella command, and then I think it is expressed in what we might say the more practical ways of serving one another. But the equally important “speak to one another”. So, yeah, I think “love one another” is the umbrella command that runs throughout the New Testament, and then we can think of practical—“serving one another” and then “speaking to one another”.
CK: Yeah. I think it’s interesting—I mean, even “speaking the truth in love” is something that is really important.
PO: Correct. Yeah, so it’s not as if “love one another” and “speak to one another” are different things. Speaking to one another is an expression of what it means to do that umbrella “love one another” command.
CK: Yeah, great. We often think about these things, in one sense—the speaking is often reserved for the paid clergy up the front: we think that’s the kind of speaking that really features in our life together as a church. But what ways might we be surprised about our responsibility to one another in our speech?
PO: Yeah, so Ephesians 4:16 is the place to go and “speaking the truth in love” or it’s actually “truthing in love”: in Ephesians, the truth is not just the opposite of a lie. So it’s not to say only speak things that are true to one another. The truth is—Ephesians 1:13—is the truth of the gospel.
So it is speaking the gospel to one another in love, and in the context of Ephesians 4, he describes what happens if we don’t do that, and he has this imagery of infants tossed to and fro by every wind and doctrine (v. 14), and you think of an infant—think of how helpless an infant is—but then think of an infant in the midst of the ocean and then think of an infant in the midst of an ocean surrounded by false teachers who are trying to destroy it. That’s the picture that Paul wants to avoid, and how does he see us avoiding that? Well, as we speak the gospel to one another.
And as we do that, we grow up together into Christ, as we build one another up. So you can see, for Paul, a healthy, growing church, it’s absolutely dependent on us all speaking the truth of the gospel to one another. So it’s not a matter of indifference; it’s absolutely critical to our maturity—our corporate maturity—as Christians. And if we’re not doing that, well then we are—even if we’re getting great teaching from the front—if it’s not then resulting in this speech to one another, there’s something truncated and immature about our Christianity.
CK: Yeah. Help me get really practical on this: we often talk about speaking the gospel to one another. I know for many people, they think the gospel is really, you know, “Jesus lived, died, rose again”. If they’ve read your book, they’d know that he’s ascended as well. So what do we do besides just kind of a formulaic, “Here’s three or four main ideas that we think about with the gospel”? What does it mean to actually speak the gospel to one another?
PO: Yeah, well, I mean, Paul says speak the truth, and I think he deliberately uses that more broad word so it’s not just the gospel as is expressed, say, in 1 Corinthians 15; it’s the gospel and its implications. And we don’t want to be twee with our application of saying, “Make sure at morning tea, you talk about the sermon”. That’s a good thing, but it’s much more than that.
I sometimes think, as evangelicals, we’ve adopted a really good practice of having a daily quiet time. It’s good to have time in the Word and prayer, and that’s become part of our evangelical DNA. It’s a good thing. Even though the Bible doesn’t talk about having a Quiet Time every day; it doesn’t use that language, we’ve said, “Look, the Bible sees it’s so important that we read the Bible and pray. Our way of expressing that that fits with our culture and everything is to have a Quiet Time.” But maybe to recognise the importance of speaking truth to one another, maybe we should say, “Well, I’m going to adopt a practice of doing that every day”—of sending someone an email or a text message, or have a conversation with a Christian and just build them up. Say, “Hey, I read this Psalm this morning. I found it really helpful. Maybe you will to.” Or, “Hey brother! I know it’s hard. I’m praying for you. I’m praying that you would continue to trust Christ and God’s promises through him”. Or something like that.
We’re not going to make a new law that you have to do this every day. But if we thought of ourselves in those terms—that I am my brother and sister’s keeper—I am kind of responsible for their spiritual health. It’s not just the pastor who’s responsible for the spiritual health of the people in my congregation. I am. So I want to build them up—particularly the people, maybe, in my small group—particularly the people who I know better than others—but more widely than that. And just to think of ourselves all in those terms—that’s the proactive. And then there’s obviously the reactive: when we see someone going down a path that’s not helpful, we can all intervene to different degrees.
CK: Yeah. I don’t want to embarrass you, Pete, but I think you’ve had a real gift for this even in our friendship. I mean, you quite naturally encourage me from the Word, sent me messages of prayer and other things, and I thank you for that, and I think you’ve been a good model to me of this.
I find that some people are really reticent to do that—almost as if there’s a fear of being too zealous or something. People are kind of like, “Ooh, I don’t want to be that guy who’s just always ‘Praying for you, brother’, or”—you know what I mean? There’s that kind of a strangeness about us, which I would love to just see obliterated. I would actually love to see people who are so keen to say, “Look, I was really encouraged by this in my Bible today. I hope you will be too.” And it’s not an agenda. It’s not saying, “I think you really need to hear this”. But actually, “Look, this is something that’s really rich for me, and maybe—I was praying on this this morning and I realised this is something true in my life and I need to repent of, and maybe I need to repent towards you or whatever else, but also I hope you’re encouraged as you hear these truths”.
PO: You know, what’s setting our culture of how we relate to one another: is it the casual, cool indifference of our culture or is it the New Testament? And we can extract ourselves from our culture. But we probably need to critique ourselves. I’m struck by 2 Corinthians—Paul’s relationship with the Corinthians—it’s so intense. It’s “Open wide our hearts to us” (2 Cor 6:13). “We say we would die with you and we would live with you” (cf. 2 Cor 7:3). If people started saying that sort of thing to us, we’d be like, “Ooh, steady on. That’s a bit intense.” And maybe in our context, it wouldn’t be a problem. But why are we so uncomfortable when Paul expresses things with tears and there’s an intensity of relationship? And I’m not saying we need to mimic and use the same phrases that he uses in an artificial way. But he shows us—as the Lord Jesus does—there’s a depth of relationship amongst Christians that I think, in particularly Western Christian contexts, we lack.
CK: Yeah. And greater love has no one than this—than one who lays down his life for his friends (John 15:13)—or a brother. Yeah, I think Paul follows Christ, and says, “I will die for you. That’s how much you mean—and your spiritual wellbeing—means to me.” And I think we often just say, “I am indifferent towards you, unless you can do something for me.” That is just, like—it’s not Christian, unfortunately.
As we close up this conversation, Pete, I just wonder how would you encourage people to think broadly about the “one another” commands—maybe to take notice of them or at least just think about their responsibility to others in the church?
PO: Yeah. That’s a good question. I think just to stop and think—obviously your relationship with God through the Lord Jesus, that’s primary. But it’s not just about you and God in this kind of private relationship: God through his word and Spirit has caused you to be born again into a family. The New Testament says you’ve got responsibility to your family members. And so, to think of the people in your church as, to some degree, your responsibility. Yes, they’re your pastor’s responsibility in a different way—in a particularly acute way. But they’re also your responsibility. And to think of yourself in your church not as a member of the hockey club or as an attendee at the latest blockbuster, but this is family and to a degree, you are called to be responsible—to watch out for your brother and sister.
CK: That’s great. Pete, I’m really grateful for the time you’ve given today. Thank you. Thank you for helping us think about God’s word. For those who are interested, you can listen to Pete’s talks from the Priscilla & Aquila Centre conference, and I encourage you to check that out at paa.moore.edu.au. Thanks, Pete!
PO: Thank you.
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CK: To benefit from more resources from the Centre for Christian Living, please visit ccl.moore.edu.au, where you’ll find a host of resources, including past podcast episodes, videos from our live events and articles published through the Centre. We’d love for you to subscribe to our podcast and for you to leave us a review so more people can discover our resources.
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We always benefit from receiving questions and feedback from our listeners, so if you’d like to get in touch, you can email us at ccl@moore.edu.au.
As always, I would like to thank Moore College for its support of the Centre for Christian Living, and to thank to my assistant, Karen Beilharz, for her work in editing and transcribing the episodes. The music for our podcast was generously provided by James West.
[Music]
Scripture quotations are from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
