Fundamentalism and the Church at Ephesus
Part 3: The Importance of Love
“To the angel of the church in Ephesus write: These are the
words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks among the
seven golden lampstands: ‘I know your works, your toil and your patient
endurance. I know that you cannot tolerate evildoers; you have tested those who
claim to be apostles but are not, and have found them to be false. I also know
that you are enduring patiently and bearing up for the sake of my name, and
that you have not grown weary. But I have this against you, that you have
abandoned the love you had at first. Remember then from what you have fallen;
repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and
remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent.’”
We come now to the chief criticism Christ lodged against the
church at Ephesus—that they had abandoned the love they had at first. It is
interesting that in exhorting the Ephesian church to love, he says that they
should “do the works [they] did at first”, calling “love” a “work.” In my time among fundamentalists, the explanation of this
criticism capitalized around the concept of “working out of love for God.” The
application of this interpretation usually centered on making certain that your
ministry involvements were rooted in a love for God, and not mechanical. However, that interpretation and application is based on the
assumption that the “love [they] had at first” is merely a love for God. The
text gives no warrant to limit it in this way. The NIV and NLT both render this
as “first love”, which I find very suggestive of the two commandments which
Christ identified as the greatest of all:
“‘Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?’
‘He said to him,
‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and
with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first
commandment.
And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as
yourself.’
On these two commandments hang all the law and the
prophets.’”
All the law and prophets hang on the commandments to love
God and your neighbor. This was a message the Pharisees needed to hear. This
was a message Ephesus needed to hear. This is a message fundamentalists need to
hear.
That this “first love” is combined love for God and others
is obvious in two ways. In Matthew 22, Christ groups them into a single
category on which the law and prophets depend. Secondly, we know from elsewhere
in Scripture that these two loves must go together:
“We love because he first loved us. Those who say, ‘I love
God,’ and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love
a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not
seen. The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love
their brothers and sisters also.”
Love for God cannot exist separately outside of love for
others. The Apostle John understood Christ’s commandment in this way as well. Many of the independent fundamental Baptists I have been
around have attempted to qualify this dual love for God and neighbor by
declaring that this condemnation especially concerns evangelism (or
“soulwinning”). In other words, the church at Ephesus grew cold in their
witness to a lost and dying world. Again, however, this is reading something
into the text that is not there. The love we are commanded to have for others
extends to all people, not just those in a particular category. Christ said
clearly, that we must love our neighbor. If we ask with the lawyer, “And who is
my neighbor?” we then recall the story of the Good Samaritan that the concept
of “neighbor” extends to everyone we encounter (Luke 10:29-37). Christ could
have used a story of preaching and conversion to illustrate neighborly love,
but He did not.
Moreover, what we find in Paul’s epistle to the Ephesians
that the main love he exhorted them to was love for others in the church:
“I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beg you to lead a
life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and
gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every
effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
[…]
But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way
into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and
knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is
working properly, promotes the body's growth in building itself up in love.
[…]
Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and
wrangling and slander, together with all malice, and be kind to one another,
tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you.”
-Ephesians 4:1-3,15-16,31-32
If the Ephesians struggled with loving brothers and sisters
in Christ (at least by the time of the writing of the Revelation to the Apostle
Peter), then it is highly likely that their love for God and those outside the
church suffered too. Love is love is love; to partition it is to turn it into
an insidious form of hatred. Thus, Christ did not need to talk about what kinds
of love the Ephesians needed to work on. The Ephesians just needed to LOVE.
To understand how it is that the Ephesian church ceased to
love as they ought, we can tie in the previous discussions on this letter. In
Part 2, we looked at what the Ephesian church did right, in sticking to the
truth and challenging error. In Part 1, we looked at the importance of the
unity of Christ’s church universal. The fact that Christ has to challenge them
on unity and love in light of their doctrinal strength suggests a picture of
this church that matches closely with today’s fundamentalists.
From this letter and the exhortations to unity in the
epistle to the Ephesians, we get the picture of a church that has let doctrinal
correctness trump Christian love. The Ephesians had evidently engaged in some
form of ecclesiastical separation that denied Christ’s ownership of all the
churches and the essential unity of the body of Christ. Such separation thrives
on an “us vs. them” dynamic which would have trickled down to result in
internal discord at Ephesus and an “in or out” view towards the lost.
Such a situation accords well with today’s fundamentalism.
Anyone acquainted with fundamentalism has heard derogatory remarks made towards
evangelicals (“evanjellyfish”), liberals, and others. This is simply the
outworking of ecclesiastical separation where lines have to be drawn and an “us
vs. them” dynamic is maintained.
The basis for ecclesiastical separation is a voluntarist,
(pseudo-)creedal ecclesiology that defines Christian community not through
receiving of God grace, but through mental assent to a set of propositional
truths. Therefore, such an ecclesiology has further warrant to prosecute from
within those who do not line up with the specific, stated positions of the
leadership.
Lastly, in the interest of doctrinal purity, relations with
the unbelieving world must be carefully managed. This is why the saved/not
saved distinction is so strong. Either you are with us, or not; and if you are
with us, you will do things our way. Today’s fundamentalists are highly
evangelistic, and consider “born-again” conversions as the ultimate spiritual
achievement of the church on earth.
Ultimately, love is conditioned on assent to a specific
application and outworking of the gospel without respect to the spiritual
consciences and giftings of the believers. If you are unsaved, it is held that
your greatest need is to get saved, so any type of social work that is not
overtly evangelistic is derided as “social gospel.”
The exact expression of doctrine trumping love in the
ancient church at Ephesus may not have exactly matched what we find among
today’s fundamentalists, but it, in all likelihood, followed the same
trajectory in making love conditional upon acceptance of a particular
application of revealed truth.
