Christian Living

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Larry Lilly’s Letter Thursday August 17, 2006

This week has been a trying one in that due to certain pastoral realities I had to, at the last minute, cancel a speaking commitment given to a long standing friend and one who can use men being upfront in their support of his specialized efforts in helping truly independent churches. So with humble pie half chocking me, I offered sincere apology to Dr. Ben Townsend. The same sort of thing happened to me last year concerning another conference with another friend of long years.

I take some comfort in knowing that pastors understand that our first obligation is to the flock over which God has made us overseers. Thankfully there is seldom a conflict, but when it comes to the decision of what to do it is already made by our acceptance of God’s call on our life.

I take promises very seriously and one of the marks of the downgrading of American life is the slothful manner in which promises are given and so lightly, often laughingly broken. Years ago each person who joined a church of my persuasion was expected to publicly affirm the Church Covenant. Many actually attempted to live by this courageous commitment to the practicalities of the Christian faith. I do not know of a church today that follows this practice as the affirmation became hardly more a ‘little white lie session.’

Lewis Smedes wrote:
“Toward the end of his three volumes on the history of the French Revolution, Thomas Carlyle concluded that the revolution failed, not because of corruption in high places, but because ordinary people in their ordinary places neglected to keep their promises.
If we do not keep our promises, what once was a human community turns into a combat zone of competitive self-maximizers. We are at sea, loose-jointed, uncertain, leery of each other, untrusting. Nobody can trust their neighbors. And without trust, no law, no police force, and no legal contracts can keep a community human. We are a people who can join together in a permanently free society only if we are a people who can keep promises together.”
"The Power of Promises," in A Chorus of Witnesses (Eerdmans 1994), Thomas G. Long and Cornelius Plantinga, editors.

I often chuckle at the ads for Las Vegas, which by the way seems to have taken on a more Christian atmosphere, else why would so many church members being going to the Desert Mecca? You have seen the ad; people doing outrageous, immoral things and then the assuring ad, “What happens here stays here.” The implication being it’s okay to break promises made elsewhere.

One of the indictments handed down on Christian society in Paul’s day was the practice of ‘breaking covenants’ or in modern terms, failure to keep your word. Our generation, to our shame laughs at the practice, but the Word of God is plain on the matter.

Larry Lilly Copyright © 2006 Use with credit.

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