6th November 2024

The Bible begins with the book of Genesis affirming that God created the world and that it was very good. Continually throughout the Bible God reaffirms his positive attitude towards his creation. Yet some Christians have expressed negative opinions about life and the creation, and instead consider attitudes such as asceticism to be virtuous and to constitute some higher form of spirituality.

This raises the question: is Christianity synonymous with the negative, the drab, and the joyless? Too many secular people in the West have come to view Christianity in general in the same vein as the American journalist and satirist H. L. Mencken viewed Puritanism: ‘The haunting fear that someone somewhere may be happy.’

A lack of understanding the Biblical uses of the word ‘world’ (Greek: kosmos) may well be responsible for some unwarranted negative views, since this Greek word is used to convey different meanings. The apostle John wrote, ‘For God so loved the world (kosmos) that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.’ (John 3:16). John also wrote, ‘Do not love the world (kosmos) or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them.’ (1 John 2:15). John then goes on to define what, in the latter case, he means by ‘the world’: ‘For everything in the world – the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life – comes not from the Father but from the world.’ (v.16)). In this sense the term ‘world’ does not mean God’s good creation that God intended humanity, including Christians, to enjoy, but the present condition of human affairs that is alienated from God and is opposed to him.

The gospel is a positive message about God’s love for his creation. All human beings need to know that God loves them, despite their imperfections, faults and foibles. What has been entrusted to the church is the gospel of reconciliation and not a gospel of negativism with rules and regulations that are done to earn God’s favour. It is an appeal to all human beings to accept God’s gift of salvation that Jesus Christ has already achieved for all humanity through his death on the cross, and to respond to that free gift by following God’s way of life.

Local congregation: 
Grace Communion Sheffield
The Showroom and Workstation
15 Paternoster Row
Sheffield S12BX

Meeting time:
Church services take place on Sundays 10.30 am, twice a month.  
Please email the local congregational contact (see below) for dates. 

Local congregational contact:
Christine Chamberlain
Email: sheffield@gracecom.church

Word of Life contact:
wordoflife@gracecom.church