Title: The Reforming Church (Hebrews 9:9-10)
Contents
Today is Reformation Sunday. Tomorrow is the 488th anniversary of the Reformation. Our Protestant Church is a Protestant Church that has departed from the Catholic Orthodox Church. Reformation Sunday is celebrated to commemorate the departure and departure.
Reform (改革) means to repair the skin. I wondered why I was writing this letter. After Adam and Eve sinned, they made and wore fig mouths to cover their faces. The God of love healed the figs with skins for those who sinned. I don't think this is the first thing you changed and fixed. That is why the word reform may have come to be used as a Chinese character meaning to repair the skin. There are many records of the act of reforming in the Bible, but the word reform appears only in one text we have seen today.
“These things, along with eating and drinking and various washings, became only the ordinances of the flesh and were left until the time of reform” (Hebrews 9:10).
God gave the law and the sacrificial law to Israel at the age of that time. However, it clearly states that this is not perfect, but is entrusted to you until the new law is established in the new era. Yes it has weaknesses. Therefore, reform is presupposed.
The original leather has the property of being spoiled if used as it is, becoming rotten, stiff, deteriorated and deformed. So. You need to treat the rawhide with a drug to correct its properties. In this way, first, the tissue of the leather does not decay and can prevent bacterial erosion. Second, stiff leather becomes flexible and elastic. Third, it does not deteriorate even at high temperature or in a changed environment.
The three elements of this raw leather repair are the origin of the spirit of reform. Incorruptibility, softening, and incorruptibility. This is the essence of reform.
The Reformers brought about the Reformation because they wanted to reform the Roman Catholic Church because it was decaying. It was not from the beginning that I wanted to leave the old school and establish a new religion. However, as the Roman Catholic Church rejected it and condemned the Reformers, Protestantism was born.
You must not be told that the Lord's Church is corrupt. In order to become an incorruptible church, it must be a church that constantly reforms.
The Roman Catholic Church has only become rigid over time. The Inquisition was not hesitant, and the system became rigid. Later, it came to the point of rejecting all other disciplines. In the end, it led to backwardness and came to the defeat of the Crusades.
You shouldn't be told that the Lord's Church is rigid. The Lord's Church must not become rigid by always fixing it. The frame of the church is not fixed. It should be able to change its shape and model as the times go by.
The vessel can be changed and the clothes can be changed, but the contents must not be altered. For the gospel that does not change, there must be a reform that removes what is covered and straightens out what is crumpled.
We must not be told that the Lord's Church has been corrupted.
The gae (改) character of reform contains the character “body ki” (己), which means self. The reformation means to heal yourself by beating yourself rather than fixing others. Therefore, these reforms must come from "I" and not from elsewhere. And that is what must be reformed from my church. If you try to fix others without fixing yourself, conflicts, misunderstandings, and hatred will arise. And the results are small.
On Reformation Sunday, I hope that you and your church will have at least one history of healing yourself.