Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? We don’t need letters of recommendation to you or from you as some other people do, do we? You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everyone, revealing that you are a letter of Christ, delivered by us, written not with ink but by the Spirit of the living God, not on stone tablets but on tablets of human hearts.
2 Corinthians 3:1-3 (NET)
Paul is speaking to a Church here, a messed up Church, one that doubted his apostleship. His point is that he doesn't need a letter of commendation. This is because the Corinthian Church is his letter, their existence is authenticating his work. Their existence communicates something. Their existence was communication.
I was worshipping this morning and I noticed that people were shut off, eyes closed, it was them and Jesus, no one else. The thought popped into my brain that in this passage it was the people who communicated a needed truth.
It is our brothers and sisters who warm our hearts and attest the truth of the Gospel. My brothers are there because of God's grace, my sisters are there because of Christ's faithfulness, I am there by the Spirit's prompting and conviction. This is an attestation of a beautiful truth; the gospel is so much bigger than me and Jesus, it is for God's glory and encompasses many others.
To shut ourselves off from others in worship is to deny a communication by God. One that authenticates the gospel, one that nourishes the Church.
Christ is also seen as the writer, they are Christ's letter. He communicated something through his faithfulness, through his choosing, through his gathering a Church together. We are his, we see his faithfulness while we worship in others.
Now is there an aspect of individuality in Christianity? Yes. In Christian worship? Yes. Is there an aspect of Church in Christianity? Yes. Is there an aspect of Church in worship? Yes.
There is a balance don't abuse it.
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