Worship Locally, Impact Globally
It seems like you can’t turn around anywhere in central Oregon these days without bumping into a farmer’s market. And what’s not to like? Fresh fruit and vegetables grown without pesticides or herbicides, and meat that’s grass fed without growth hormones and antibiotics. And to boot, you get to know the grower personally.
This phenomenon has spawned two terms that have become part of our vocabulary: locavore and glocal.
A locavore is a person who primarily or exclusively eats food grown locally. Dictionary.com defines glocal as, “of or relating to the interconnection of global and local issues, factors, etc.” Thus someone who eats only locally grown food has an eye towards the world: glocal.
These terms provide a metaphor for a local church. We worship locally. We rub shoulders with people we know. We hear sermons from a pastor who lives among us. But we impact globally by our prayers and proclaiming the good news of the one God and mediator Jesus Christ.
That’s the crux of Paul’s instructions to Timothy in 1 Timothy 2:1-7.
1 Timothy provides personal instruction (4:11-16) as well as a manual for organizing a church (3:14-15). Verses 1-7 of chapter 2 focus on elements of corporate worship underpinned by a solid theological foundation.
The universal reach of a local church is found in four ways:
Prayer for everyone
God’s desire for salvation for all
Jesus giving himself for the world, and
We (like Paul) being teachers and preachers of the gospel.
1. Practice the subversive urgency of prayer in all things and for all people 2:1-2
Paul uses four different words for prayer in v.1. His purpose is not to differentiate but facilitate prayer. God says throw up all kinds of prayers when you worship. Eugene Peterson’s The Message says, “Pray everyway you know how, for everyone you know.”
Our prayers shouldn’t be parochial. Don’t be limited to just local prayers. Join in intercession with global body of Christ on the issues that affect us all. Pray that the government, whoever is in power, fulfills its divine mandate so we can go about our lives in dignity and fulfill our mandate as the Church, the body of Christ.
When Paul wrote this to his young pastor friend, the cruel and bloodthirsty Nero was Roman emperor. What started as spasmodic persecution of the church became systematic. Will we pray for leaders like this when we’re the minority culture?
Pastor and author J. Sidlow Baxter wrote this about prayer:
“Our loved ones may spurn our appeals, reject our message, oppose our arguments, despise our persons—but they are helpless against our prayers.”
Prayer seems counterintuitive in an activist culture. But it’s first on the list to impact the world globally.
2. Align ourselves with God’s desire for salvation for all 2:3-4
Before I step into theological quicksand, let me state that I believe Scripture teaches election, that God chooses some for salvation not on the basis of works or foreseen faith (Eph.1:4-5). At the same time, we have a biblical mandate as witnesses to others of the risen Jesus (Acts 1:8). We also know people resist God’s offer of salvation. None of these truths should hinder us from preaching God’s good news to any and all we meet.
3. God’s salvation truth for all is embodied in a person: God who became a man, Jesus Christ 2:5-6
Three truths stand out in these verses:
There is one God (1 Cor. 8:6). Claims of universal salvation run up against the clear monotheism of the Bible. Logical contradictions arise when people claim polytheists (or even atheists) receive salvation too.
Jesus is that one true God (John 1:1) who bridges the gap between a holy God and sinful human beings by being a mediator of a new covenant (Heb.12:22-24), the go between who understands both parties.
Jesus paid the price himself as a ransom. A ransom pays the price to free someone in captivity. Negatively, corporations and individuals pay such a price to free themselves from malicious ransomware. Positively, Jesus paid the ransom price himself (Gk. antilutron) to free us. The little Greek preposition huper in v.6 translated “on behalf of” emphasizes the substitutionary nature of this transaction.
We may never know the global reach we may have when we talk to someone about Jesus! Let’s not limit ourselves to whom we speak. But always speak the truth in love.
4. We participate in the ongoing privilege of proclaiming and teaching the good news to any and all who will listen 2:7
While we certainly aren’t apostles, we do have a responsibility to preach. This is not preaching in a formal, vocational sense but as a herald, as an ambassador of the truth. Preaching has a persuasive element. We urge people to act on the truth. Teaching is instruction in the truth. We need a level of competency and knowledge to do that. But these are responsibilities we can’t delegate to professionals!
Sociology of religion scholar James Davison Hunter wrote this in his 2010 book, To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World:
“A final irony has to do with the idea of political responsibility. Christians are urged to vote and become involved in politics as an expression of their civic duty and public responsibility. This is a credible argument and good advice up to a point. Yet in our day, given the size of the state and the expectations that people place on it to solve so many problems, politics can also be a way of saying, in effect, that the problems should be solved by others besides myself and by institutions other than the church. It is, after all, much easier to vote for a politician who champions child welfare than to adopt a baby born in poverty, to vote for a referendum that would expand health care benefits for seniors than to care for an elderly and infirm parent, and to rally for racial harmony than to get to know someone of a different race than yours. True responsibility invariably costs. Political participation, then, can and often does amount to an avoidance of responsibility.”
We’re easily distracted by external matters like politics. We forget to pray, preach, and teach. We fail to put them in the forefront. Worship locally but impact globally.