Tag: church division

Galatians 3:23-29 – A Ministry of Equals

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Exploring Church Ministry Blog, Year BLeave a comment

Until the time when we were mature enough to respond freely in faith to the living God, we were carefully surrounded and protected by the Mosaic law. The law was like those Greek tutors, with which you are familiar, who escort children to school and protect them from danger or distraction, making sure the children will really get to the place they set out for.

But now you have arrived at your destination: By faith in Christ, you are in direct relationship with God. Your baptism in Christ was not just washing you up for a fresh start. It also involved dressing you in an adult faith wardrobe—Christ’s life, the fulfillment of God’s original promise.

In Christ’s family there can be no division into Jew and non-Jew, slave and free, male and female. Among us you are all equal. That is, we are all in a common relationship with Jesus Christ. Also, since you are Christ’s family, then you are Abraham’s famous “descendant,” heirs according to the covenant promises. (The Message)

Ever since the fall of humanity, people have had the predilection to organize themselves in groups that keep them distinct from other groups. Whether it is high school peer groups or office politics; whether class warfare or church cliques; there has always existed a tendency to think better about the groups we identify with, and to look down and believe the worst about those we don’t understand or just don’t plain like.

Jesus is the person who changes it all. Faith in Christ Jesus is what makes each of us equal with each other, whether Jew or a Greek, in bondage or in freedom, a man or a woman. The cross of Christ not only brought deliverance from sin, death, and hell; the work of Jesus Christ ushered-in a new egalitarian society.

I’m not sure the English translations of the Apostle Paul’s phrasing to the Galatian Church can truly capture his emphatic pathos about this issue. For Paul, Christ’s cross has done so much more than bring personal salvation; it has completely eradicated prejudice, discrimination, and division. 

Therefore, the Church is to be the one place on earth where divisions no longer exist. It is to be a foretaste of heaven. The Church is to be a new society, a community of the redeemed, based in equity, diversity, and inclusion, from every people group, race, ethnicity, and gender. Together as one, just as God is One, the Church lives the kingdom values of Christ’s words and ways in a fragmented world.

Since the ground is level at the cross, we are to live into Christian unity with a humble attitude and loving actions. To do otherwise is to be immature. We (hopefully) expect kids to be kids and not be like adults. They need teaching, training, and tutoring to learn. When kids grow up and get into adulthood, we then expect them to be like an adult. If they continue in childish behavior, they are immature.

Many adult Christians are still stuck in spiritual childhood. The evidence of this is seen in trying to stratify church society into insiders and outsiders, those who have always been in the church and newcomers who haven’t, the committed servants and the lax pew sitters.

Rather than all of that dividing of people, energy is to be placed with living into the egalitarian society inaugurated by Jesus (and Paul). Not taking women’s leadership seriously, avoiding relationships with the poor, and being xenophobic all come from a place of immaturity. It is childish behavior. Jesus expects better.

Embracing an egalitarian society neither means we are all the same nor should act alike. The diverse backgrounds and experiences of people help make a rich mosaic of support for one another in the Body of Christ.

Being egalitarian means all people are created in the image and likeness of God – no exceptions. All persons, therefore, deserve morally equal treatment, respect, and justice. A just and good Christian ethic ensures all believers are handled with love, given sound instruction, and are free to explore their gifts and abilities within the church.

Church, at its heart, is a community of equals. Thus, the church, as an egalitarian community, must actively reject racism, sexism, and all forms of discrimination while purposefully seeking ways to create and maintain a unified community without divisions.

Jesus reached out to the misfits and marginalized in society who were suffering from political, cultural, gender, and religious oppression and discrimination. The community of persons Christ formed included people of all ages and backgrounds. Children were welcome. Women sat down with men to learn and became active participants alongside one another.

Christ’s conversation with the Samaritan woman at the well, the parable of the good Samaritan, and the healing of the daughter of the Canaanite woman, all illustrate that ministry is to reach beyond our own familiar group. In short, Jesus practiced a radical hospitality.

Christians would do well to emulate their Lord, as well as take their cues on ministry from Paul, who grounded both his theory and practice in a Trinitarian theology of equals.

Gracious God, you have abolished barriers through the redemption of Christ.  Prevent me from erecting walls that would divide and use me to be a bridge so that others may experience equality in Jesus.  Amen.

Philippians 4:1-9 – The Way of Peace

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year ALeave a comment

Welcome, friends! Click the video below and let us today worship God and enjoy Holy Scripture.

Lord, grant us your peace and make us peacemakers in the church and the world.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1sYhOyiJEA

May the peace of God which transcends all understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.

The Church Playground

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Exploring Church Ministry BlogLeave a comment

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At first glance, when you drive by any school at recess the whole thing looks like a bunch of random kids descending into chaos bordered by a fence to keep it all from spilling out into the streets.  But there’s much more going on than the quick peek tells you.  There are all kinds of petty little groups that make up the playground.  It kind of reminds me of church.

The Presbyterians head outside into recess and can’t believe the lack of order going on.  They try their darnedest to get some organized games happening, but the Baptists aren’t having it.  They’re too far separated from all the other kids to care about playing with any of them.  Besides, nobody is playing by the rules and if there’s one thing Baptists can’t stand is a lack of legalism.  The Pentecostals all seem completely oblivious to anything that’s going on.  They’re just having too much fun going as fast as they can on the merry-go-round to see that the Catholics are totally aghast at their lack of guilt feelings over hogging the equipment.

The little group of Episcopalians are lost in some funky inferiority complex and retreat into their liturgical games while the popular kids, the Non-denominational group, break out singing Chris Tomlin songs so loud that the Methodists go scrambling for their Book of Discipline to see what to do about it.  The Lutheran kids are so busy fighting each other about who is the true Lutheran that they can’t hear the non-denom kids anyway.  And the Reformed are those annoying kids who keep acting like the teacher instead of just enjoying being a kid on the playground.

There are two things about the church playground: the groups of kids don’t play very well together; and, the entire playground thinks it’s the only one in town.  They don’t realize there are other playgrounds with all kinds of other kids.

We live in a big world.  How we interact with that world is going to determine if the school gets shut down, with no more playground.  After all, what parent wants to send their kid to the school where nobody gets along with each other?

What’s more, how we interact with each other on the playground of Christianity says a lot about our view of God.  For far too many groups, God is the high and lofty Principal who’s only seen when something goes wrong, not realizing that he is really the encouraging teacher who’s daily in the classroom offering kind words and self-sacrifice that changes your life forever.

Instead of lamenting that Christendom has vanished from its grand position in society and that the moral fabric of our country is down the toilet along with the janitor’s cigarette butt, maybe we should stop giving the other kid a swirlie long enough to see that our bullying and belligerent ways are anything but the words and ways of Jesus to a world who needs spiritual care, not spiritual abuse.

I’d suggest we use our detention time to think about what we’ve done.

Remove the Negative Influence

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Exploring Church Ministry BlogLeave a comment
 
 
“I urge you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and put obstacles in your way, contrary to the teaching you have learned.  Keep away from them” (Romans 16:17, NIV).
 
            Almost every word used in this Bible verse is in the strongest possible language — 
–“Urge” has the force of “beg” (as in the blind man crying out and begging Jesus to heal him). 
–“Watch out” has the meaning of marking someone as if to keep constant eyes on them.
–“Divisions” are human created arbitrary lines (described in Galatians 5 as an act of the sinful nature). 
–“Obstacles” comes from a word in which we get our English word “scandal” (which is caused by judging another person, as in Romans 14:13 – “Therefore, let us stop passing judgment on one another.  Instead, make up your mind not to put any “scandal” in your brother’s way”). 
–“Keep away” is not simply a passive avoidance, but literally means to fling yourself away from a danger (think: Joseph running out of Potiphar’s house and away from the seductress wife).
 
            Here is my own translation:  I beg you, brothers and sisters, to identify people in the church who create man-made divisions and offensive scandals as if they were as important as the gospel.  Get yourselves as far away from such persons as you can.
 
            If this was a professional wrestling match, the Apostle Paul would be in a cage match against the Jewish Christian Bruiser who has been talking trash for months about the Gentile Christians.  In the church at Rome, there were actually three primary groups of people: 
1)      Gentile Christians who had come to faith in Christ from their pagan backgrounds and were delighting in their newfound change of life;
2)      Jewish Christians who had come to faith in Christ and liked their old religious traditions, but were willing to change in light of the church being established by the Holy Spirit at Pentecost;
3)      Jewish Christians who had made professions of faith in Christ, and not only wanted to keep their centuries old traditions of Judaism, but valued them to such a degree that they would preserve them at all costs.  In other words, their agenda was to make Jews of the Gentiles and they would do anything to make sure that happened, including using every ounce of influence, power, manipulation, and negativity they could to hold on to those traditions.
 
            Paul, as a Jewish Christian himself, trained in the ways of Judaism from his youth, clearly understood what they wanted and what was at stake.  Paul’s insistence throughout the book of Romans is to argue for the priority of the gospel, the good news that sinners find forgiveness based in grace alone through faith alone in the finished work of Jesus Christ, apart from circumcision, Sabbath observance, Jewish liturgical traditions, feast days, and everything that went into making a good Jew a good Jew. 
 
            The Jewish Christian Bruisers felt justified in doing whatever they could to stand against a change in their traditions.  They tried to negatively influence everyone they could.  And if they could not get anywhere with Paul, they would go underground and be as subversive against him that they could.  But Paul remained consistent in all of the churches about the reality of God’s grace in Christ.
 
            Paul understood that negative people only create more negative people.  Which is why he said to Titus, after having talked to him about the priority of being justified by grace:  “Warn a divisive person once, and then warn him a second time.  After that, have nothing to do with him.  You may be sure that such a person is warped and sinful; he is self-condemned” (Titus 3:10-11).
 
            When a passion for power and tradition trumps a passion to see people come to faith in Jesus Christ, then that is a character issue.  Trying to create a surge of negativity against biblically-oriented, Spirit-directed change is demonic – and the real test of it is a constant stream of negativity that is secretive, remains in the shadows, relies on gossip and slander for its fuel, and hates being in the light.
 

 

            It takes two to tango.  Negativity cannot survive if there is no one to listen to it.  We are to stop being negative, and are to stop listening to negative people because it creates divisions and scandals.  If there are people who chronically have negative speech and can never seem to say anything good about someone or something in particular in the church, Paul says to stay away from them.  Have nothing to do with them.  Do not participate in the divisive speech.  Refuse it.  Rebuke it.  Redirect it.  Uninstall the negativity because God does not want us participating with evil.