- Essays on Lingua Lincoln -

- A More Excellent Way -

by Lincoln Sayger

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The Church has lost her way. She has wandered from the straight and narrow path. She has become a moody, haughty, self-centered, isolationist elitist that serves the flatterers and abusers around her instead of her rightful husband and king. She is chasing after brutal, powerful men and seeks to gain power for herself. She is abandoning her children and the poor. She is gathering finery and dressing herself in it in the most gaudy fashions imaginable. She has lost her way.

She has lost her way so thoroughly that her children, who follow her bridegroom and king, are hesitant or completely unwilling to be called Christians. And perhaps this is for the best. Perhaps we have enjoyed an undeserved reputation, both for good and then for evil, from this name for too long. At one time, being known as a Christian made people look on you as a good person, a social cachet that continues in some circles even to this day when being known as a Christian makes people in other circles look on you as a two-faced, judgmental pretender. Even when the misconception is positive, we should not be accepting accolades of being 'good people'. The servant is not above his master, and our Master avoided being called good, reminding the people that only God, not any man, is good.

To paraphrase Paul, it is perhaps time for the members of the Body, those who follow the way of the Christ, to be shown a more excellent way. I hope, through these articles on the Christian life, to show something approaching that way. I am not the wisest of men. In fact, I am among the worst sinners. I rarely show a good example of what God is like to the world. But perhaps my Lord will use my poor, lisping, stammering tongue-- or quill-- to convey this more excellent way. Or, failing that, inspire someone wiser and better equipped to make inquiry into this matter and present a superior guide to this way than I present to you. Either way, let my Lord Jesus the Christ, the King of the universe, and the Spirit of holiness and truth be given all the glory and honor for whatever good is found in these meditations on the followers of the Way.

For that is what we are, whether we are comfortable with the name of Christian (one belonging to the Christ) or not: We are followers of the Way. There are two facets to this. We are followers of the way of Christ Jesus. And we are followers of Jesus, who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

Consider 2 Peter 1:2-11.

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