I’ve got to admit… I have an penchant for taking things too seriously. I don’t know if it’s a debilitating weakness or not, but I do know it can be a weakness if left unchecked.
We have to be careful, though. People can be pushed to the brink. Stories circulate about kids committing suicide because of how Continue Reading…
On certain days I feel like blessings are most difficult to ascertain. The tendency is to believe blessings are only positive- a raise, a newborn child, an answered prayer. And while these, indeed, are blessings, you can’t help but think that there are some blessings or “mercies in disguise.” This is Laura Story’s suggestion, and I think she’s right.
How was Joseph purged of conceit? He spent significant time in an Egyptian dungeon.
How did the apostle Paul learn to appreciate grace? He possessed a physical ailment that taught him God’s grace was sufficient.
How do you rejoice in salvation when you know the greatest man ever to live had to die so agonizingly to make it possible? The blessings of God often come through unconventional, and often painful, experiences.
Take a moment and listen to the powerful words “Blessing” by Laura Story. Think…What if?
In conflict there tend to be issues, interests, and positions. Issues are what underlie conflict, interests are the things at stake, and positions are where we stand in the midst of conflict. As I see it, interests are what drive the positions we take on issues.
Many find themselves reluctant to adopt new ideas because they have a vested interest in the old. Some will always suggest that “the old is better” (Luke 5:39). They possess an interest so significant that they resist anything that threatens it- whether right or Continue Reading…
I grew up thinking the New Testament Church was the model church. I still do; but I couple that thinking with a healthy dose of discernment.
You’d think in its infancy it would be perfect. It burst onto the scene in the power of the Spirit, experiencing astonishing growth (Acts 2). What could be better?
The stunning growth continues (Act 3), but lingering around the corner was something that would signal that all was not well. Could the church, one initially Jewish in origin, come to accept Gentiles who would take on the faith of Jesus?
God had to shake up Peter, an apostle mind you, to get him to see what was breaking in (Acts 10-11). This was a most precarious situation, to be sure. In Acts 15, though, it is clear that a Jewish Church isn’t so comfortable with Gentile converts. Even Peter- the one God sought to assure through the experience with Cornelius- felt pressure to cave to Jewish intimidation, despite what God had already proven to him (Galatians 2). Shoot…Paul has to hold his feet to the fire about it!
The early church struggled with change. I think Jim Woodroof captured this tension well in The Church in Transition. While this book wasn’t universally received among Churches of Christ, it wasn’t because the things he elucidated weren’t true. He dared to question certain thoughts about the early church, and he was excoriated for it in certain circles. But you can’t read the book of Acts objectively and not recognize the issues with which the early church struggled. It was a conflicted church, struggling to embrace the changes God had for it.
As I’ve before stated, conflict is normal. Anytime and anywhere you bring people together you invite tension and conflict into that domain. How it is dealt with pivotal, though. It is a point of transition, a crossroad to be sure. From it, we can go any number of directions.
Paul speaks to the heart of this saga in Romans 14-15. If you think it was incumbent upon Gentile Christians to conform to all the ways of Jewish Christians, you are misguided. It has been contended that in order for there to be true unity, there must be total uniformity. But this simply isn’t so. Romans 14-15, unquestionably, disproves this notion. In order for Jewish and Gentile Christians of Rome to have unity, they didn’t have to agree on every… single… thing. That simply wasn’t reasonable, and what wasn’t reasonable then is no more reasonable now.
This must have been a tough pill to swallow. Maybe this is why, today, the Church is made up predominantly of non-Jews? I don’t know. But what I do know is that the early church resisted the direction God was taking it.
Things are hardly different today. We have yet to learn from the mistakes of our forefathers. Reconciliation, though, begins with acknowledging the problem. If we ever are to achieve unity, we must learn to appreciate the uniqueness of others and accept that other need not necessarily see everything just like I do.
