08 Nov Friday

St. Paul connects faith and works in his final chapters of Romans. Putting the faith into practice is the phrase we use. “May the Word of the Lord speed forward and be glorified,” and “you are doing and will continue to do.” These phrases describe the evangelizing work of the Church, because this is the first and foremost work of the Church, certainly in the theology of this author.

The image of the Word “speeding” ahead, or literally “running” or “rushing’ seems rather slow compared to the spread of information in our internet and social media culture. While we have every opportunity to promote the Word, we are seemingly still at about the pace of 1st century AD.

The point may also be that the Word wins the race and not I. We all like to think of ourselves as winners, in at least something. Can we imagine that God’s Word should win this race, this pilgrim journey we are on to the heavenly city of Jerusalem?

We are also a culture that loves speed! The faster, the bigger the better. Which makes of us a lazy culture because we expect and demand that some machine do it for us. We don’t take the time in our rushing around, and then after all that speed, what is it exactly that people have been freed up do do? Exhaustion and crashing.

How doe this Church culture promote forward the Word of God in our lives?