The Ordo Communitas

This current series of posts I’ve been working through deal with the subject of community, but in this particular post I want to tackle the specific nature of community. In other words, I want to answer the question, “How do we structure our community?” Theologians have a manner of discussing the process of salvation from Predestination to Glorification. They call this process, based on Romans 8:29-30, the Ordo Salutis (The Order of Salvation), and so following their idea I want to talk to about the Order of Community.

I have previously addressed this in my first post discussing that Community must be built around the church’s mission and not around some amorphous concept of unity and fellowship, but I want to expand on that idea here. The Order of Community begins with the call of God. God has clearly, in Scripture, called his people to a great task, one that requires a unity of people. Matthew 28 is the clearest depiction of God’s call, we read there: And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always to the end of the age” (Matt. 28:18-20).

In this passage we have the command of Jesus that we are to expand his Kingdom by going into the world and teaching and baptizing. The immensity of this task is clearly seen in the words “all nations.” This is not a one man job; no single man can faithfully and sufficiently accomplish this task. It takes a multitude of believers to see God’s plan come to fulfillment. It is a task given not to individual Christians, but to the church as a whole! So we see from the very beginning of God’s call that community is necessitated.

Usually people turn to Acts 2:42-47 when they think of the perfect picture of Christian community. There is, of course, no doubt that this picture is beautiful and attractive. They shared all things in common, lived together, and served one another in a beautiful picture of unity and care. But it is often ignored that things do not long stay like that. By chapter 7 Stephen is being publicly persecuted for the faith and in the beginning of chapter 8 everyone but the Apostles scatters. And in 8:4 we read, “Now those who were scattered went about preaching the word.” So again we are reminded that community does not exist for it’s own sake, but for the mission of God!

Paul, the champion of church planting in the New Testament, built up communities all over the ancient world and we would, then, serve well to look at Paul’s comments on community to continue building the Ordo Communitas. In 1 Corinthians we read Paul’s words concerning the various conflicts in the church that were creating disunity. In chapter 12 particularly we see how Paul describes the church as a body. Just as the body has various parts each important to the health of the whole so it is with the church. We all need community; “the eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you” (12:14). Paul continues discussing the importance of mutual love and care, and turns to focus on the roles of gifts within the body of Christ. He says diversity of giftedness in the body is good, but there is a particular gift (prophecy) which when used benefits not only believers but also unbelievers. To be sure Paul’s primary focus in dealing with church unity, in this passage, is that it builds up the community, he repeatedly makes this clear. But he slips in a comment in 14:23-25 to highlight that when the church has proper community and is doing things rightly and an unbeliever enters their midst he will see the gospel lived out and “he will worship God.” Paul knows all to well that proper community is concerned with the mission of God. We are to build one another up in the church, but not simply for the sake of unity and community, but because in so doing we reflect the gospel. Nowhere is this more clearly taught than in 1 John.

The apostle John writes hundreds of words on the importance of love within the body of Christ, but in 1 John 4:11-12 he explains why it is so important to love one another: Beloved, if god so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.

John’s point in this verse is that despite the fact that men do not see God they can know Him by the love we display towards one another. Community, you see, has a greater purpose: displaying the gospel to the world! That is the purpose of community, that is the purpose of the church. We, not as individuals, but as a community, communicate the Gospel to lost sinners. This is a recurring theme of the Bible. God told Israel they were his ambassadors to the World to communicate himself to the nations. Ephesians 5 says that the community of marriage is to be a picture of Christ’s love for the church, again communicating the gospel to the watching world. And the church is a community of gospel envoys, sent by God to do the mission of God.

So, in conclusion, I suggest to you that the teaching of scripture presents the order of community as follows: first the mission of God –> then the community of God. When we get it backwards we lose the mission and become self-focused and the world has no interest in us or our message. Community for community’s sake is irrelevant to the lost world. But community for the sake of the mission of God is attractive, compelling, and transforming!