Growing up, we always answered the phone. When it rang someone got up, walked to the kitchen, and lifted the receiver off the wall. Today, not so much. We still have a home phone number, but we haven’t answered it or checked the messages on the machine since last summer. We just don’t care and don’t believe there is anything there worth responding to. If I want to hear from someone, I give them my cell number. Honestly, I don’t always pick up the calls to my cell if I don’t recognize the number calling. This practice has become common in this culture, even among older, caring, respectful adults.
Getting a call today doesn’t mean what it used to.
The Apostle Paul refers to getting a call a lot at the beginning of his first letter to the Corinthians, a call that should not be ignored. He writes “call” or “called”six times in chapter one. Five of the six refer to God’s call to his people. They are: called to be an apostle vs 1, called to be holy people vs 2, called you into fellowship with his Son vs 9, to those whom God has called vs 24, and the final in verse 26, see it with the verses through 31 below:
Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him. It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness, and redemption. Therefore, as it is written: “Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.”
The calling Paul reveals in these verses is more than just a message forwarded or left on a machine. The calling is an invitation and the invitation is an elevation. God calls us (reaches out) and invites us (ongoing relationship and connection) and elevates us (places us on – or imputes upon us – Jesus level and righteousness). What a call that is! It would be a shame to miss or ignore it.
Pastor John Riley
Jr. High Pastor