Digging Out the Embedded Church - The Maranatha Community

honours the Lord and his Word; the second is that we must have liberty to worship with any
congregation where Christ‟s presence is. He wrote:
„Consider the church at Jerusalem; consider the church at Corinth, how much to be
questioned, how much to be condemned, yet the apostles bore with and reproved, but
separated not. Indeed the more my soul searches into this matter, the more I feel I
cannot formally separate, or openly denounce them whom I do not feel are separated
from Christ, and denounced by him as his enemies. If I were to give up this principle, I
know of none to guide me, but that which I have always seen fail, and which engenders
a spirit more hurtful than could arise from a readiness to endure contradiction to your
own views: this looks more like crucifixion of self, than casting out as evil, those who,
with whatever faults, we cannot but believe are children of the kingdom.‟ 108
Again, in 1837, he continues the thought of not separating from other Christians simply
because they own things we disapprove of:
„I also daily more and more desire to see raised up for God discriminating witnesses,
discerning between things that differ; enduring the evil for the sake of the good, rather
than fleeing from the good for fear of the evil. I am so fixed in this principle, that I
could never give it up, even were those I most love to oppose me in it. It is, to my
conscience, the breath of God; the image of God‟s acting and mind.
What a blessing it is that the Lord‟s heart is so large, that he can help whenever he sees
some good thing; whereas man withdraws, because he sees some evil thing, which is
generally found to mean something that wounds his own self-love in the little scheme he
had set up as perfection.‟ 109
Groves was unusual in his day in his consistent commitment to the principle of unhindered
and open fellowship with all true Christians. Robert B Dann writes in his biography of
Groves:
„There was one quality that made Groves almost unique in his generation. It was his
habit of seeking fellowship with Christians from backgrounds quite different to his own.
His ecumenical spirit, and his freedom from obligation to any particular missionary
agency or denomination, meant that he was open to influences from every direction,
without being required to toe any party line.‟ 110
For his day (and perhaps for ours, too) Groves had a revolutionary view of Christian unity.
He saw our life on earth as a preparation for our life in heaven. Groves wrote in 1834:
„Does it not appear clear that the nearer the principles of the communion of the church
on earth assimilate (ie become similar to) those which must finally prevail in the
kingdom of heaven, the more perfect they must be?‟
108 Lang, G H, Anthony Norris Groves, saint and pioneer, Thynne and Co, London 1939, p 145.
109 Lang, G H, Anthony Norris Groves, saint and pioneer, Thynne and Co, London 1939, p 145-146.
110 Dann, Robert B, Father of Faith Missions, the life and times of Anthony Norris Groves, Authentic
Media, 2004, p 451.
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