What's the point?

What is the point of the church? Paul gives a succinct summary in 1 Timothy 1:

But the goal of this command is love from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.

1 Timothy 1.5

Well, OK, looking at this, at first I thought it was talking about the point of the church, which it still might be, but re-reading it again, it appears to be talking about the goal of Paul's command not to teach false doctrines (1.3). OK, so maybe it is the point of the church.

The thing I was going to say is that the point of the church, and I think other verses like John 3.16 and John 13.34-35 and Romans 5.5 point in this direction -- the point of the church has something to do with God's love. And I've been reading Donald Miller's Blue Like Jazz and I'm afraid that we've been doing a sort of mixed job of that.

My friend Dave says that the major paradigm of political organizing is fear: we decide what "we" are for, and demonize those who are against whatever "we" are for. People are afraid and give money to promote what "we" want. And yes, we have been involved in this. Hardly the way to reflect the love of God poured out into our hearts (Romans 5).

Today -- today, let me be different. Let the goal of what I say and do be love from a pure heart, a good conscience, a sincere faith. May it be so in the church.