Bob Dylan: Is church missing the train?

Is church missing the train? Bob Dylan won the Nobel Prize for Literature by thinking outside the box and challenging people to get on board. He wrote: “They talk about a life of brotherly love, show me someone who knows how to live it. There’s slow, slow train coming up around the bend.”

Christianity should be that train that goes beyond sermon-talk and actually shows us how to live “a life of brotherly love.” But we seem to have derailed, cause a train can’t run on one wheel rolling and Christianity can’t roll on one man talking in a church building.

Dylan sang: “My train is overdue, To your memory I’m clinging, I can’t escape from you.” Christ’s train, the members of His body functioning together in surrender and obedience to His Headship and control, is long overdue! I cling to the written memory of the body of Christ in 1 Corinthians 14:26: “When you come together, each of you has a hymn, or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation.” I can’t escape from that concept that the Greek New Testament calls ekklesia.

A gathering of Christ-followers with only one man doing all the talking is like a train with only one wheel rolling and all the rest frozen in place. To go forward to “a life of brotherly love” we need every wheel (every Christ-follower present in a worship meeting) to speak out in obedience to the Spirit.

“You also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” –1 Peter 2:5. “How does it feel . . . to be like a rolling stone?” Church as usual has most of us so stuck in our seats that we have no idea. Perhaps it’s time to let ordinary people show and tell what God has done when we gather in Jesus’ name.

If Dylan can win the Nobel Prize for Literature, then surely Christ-followers can go beyond church as usual and get on board with 1 Corinthians 14:26.