The early followers of Jesus where not called Christian,indeed the name was used first as an insult . .Bit like kidz calling out `GOD SQUAD` back in the day...the followers of Jesus where known as people who where on the Way..Jesus said . .`l am the way..do it like this...`
we lost some of our direction l feel due to Academic writings and the way we do Church especially the words .. further the established explanations given from Pulpit most Sundays.
Doing Good advocates not Christian Social Action but what it calls Christian Social Liturgy. It’s feels (deliberately) awkward some kind of phrase it a rich one that is intended to capture the complex meaning the New Testament Greek word leitourgia, from which our modern liturgy comes.
Like all words, not least complex ones from historically distant cultures, leitourgia was used in different ways and can be understood to have meant different things (The word, is used only six times in the New Testament). However, leitourgia has two identifiable meanings on which the phrase Christian Social Liturgy draws.
In the first instance, it was used to mean a service that was obviously “religious” or sacrificial, a priestly or Levitical service that was conducted, more likely than not, within the Temple.
The word could also be used, however, in a less overtly “religious” sense to refer to the kind of charitable activity or gift or benefaction that was central to the life of the earliest Christian communities. Thus, when Paul writes in 2 Corinthians, praising that church’s members for their readiness to give and their enthusiasm for action, and commending their “service” in supplying the needs of the Lord’s people, he uses leitourgia (2 Cor. 9:12).
Sometimes, the word hovers between these two meanings, suggesting the coherence of the two meanings in a single term. In his letter to the Philippians, Paul writes how he is being “poured out like a drink offering on the sacrifice and service coming from your faith” (Phil. 2:17), thereby framing discussion of his pastoral efforts in a sacrificial understanding.
Christian Social Liturgy is intended to convey the idea of Christian social action that isn’t an add-on to the “real” business of saving souls, but a simultaneous loving of God and neighbour, an open, unapologetic, authentic, and maybe even distinctive way of loving others in the light of God’s love.
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