Alexander Strauch, Love or Die: Christ’s Wake-Up Call to the Church. Lewis and Roth Publishers, 2008. 99 pages.
In Ephesians 4:15–16, Paul makes it clear to the local church that their goal is corporate maturity—maturity that comes through speaking truth to one another in a particular way.
Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love. (Eph. 4:15–16)
For the local church, speaking the truth in love is essential to corporate maturity.
As straightforward as this may be, by the time we get to John’s vision in Revelation 2 of the risen Christ admonishing the church at Ephesus, we find the Ephesians on the brink of disaster, not for giving up the truth, but for failing to love.
Alexander Strauch suggests that this lovelessness still characterizes many local churches. In Love or Die: Christ’s Wake-up Call to the Church he offers practical solutions for churches riddled with lovelessness.
DIAGNOSING THE SICKNESS
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