If you love one another...

According to my good friend, Wikipedia (remember, if it's on the internet, it's gotta be true!), there was a man named Tertullian who was an early church leader. The son of a Roman soldier, he lived from 155-230 A.D. in Africa. After his conversion to Christianity sometime around 197 A.D., he wrote quite a bit to Roman leaders defending this new persecuted faith, including the following:

“We are an association bound together by our religious profession, by the unity of our way of life and the bond of our common hope…We meet together as an assembly and a society…We pray for the emperors…We gather together to read our sacred writing…With the holy words we nourish our faith…After the gathering is over the Christians go out as they had come from a school of virture. It is our care of the helpless that brands us in the eyes of many of our opponents. ‘Only look,’ they say, ‘look how they love one another!’”

Others in that early church era who lived outside of the Christian faith noted how different the Christians were. How they were willing to stay and care for the sick as plagues decimated villages, while the doctors of the day fled for the hills. Leaders and authorities marvelled at how they cared for the poor far better than the government of the day did.

Jesus told his followers it would be this way. He told them that they would be recognized as different because of their love for one another.

Do we look that way today? Would the world recognize us as Christ-followers by how we care for each other and those outside the church? Are they curious to know what it was that gave us peace enough to make us a bit strange or alien?

I've seen this in practice specifically in relation to our little league sports ministries. I've seen the looks on faces of parents in these leagues who are astonished to learn that the team they are playing that week is one sponsored entirely by a local church...sponsored not merely with money but with time and effort and love. While I am not nearly as active in that ministry as I would like to be, I really enjoy that others get a chance to see that kind of service born out of love. Sharing what we're doing there with others is part of that ministry, I believe...and is another example of God multiplying the work we do.