In today’s reading from The Faith-Shaped Life, Ian Hamilton brings up friendships among Christians, or if you’d rather the more faith-filled term of Brotherly Love.
This is of real concern in the church eh?
So many divisions:
When there are so many divisions among believers over what church they belong to, what doctrines they hold true, and so forth. You look at the church denomination that I am currently a member of. The Reformed Church in America, which over time has splinted into the Canadian Reformed, Protestant Reformed, Nederlands Reformed, Christian Reformed, Free Reformed, United Reformed, Presbyterian Reformed, and such like. The splits go on and on. And then even after the splits occur I over hear mutterings between members of the same split that go to different churches within that denomination along the lines of “well, that church is too liberal”, “Did you hear they ONLY sing from the Old Psalter?” and other such rot. Seriously. I know that every denomination struggles with these types of splits.
It Bothers My Heart
It bothers my heart when I hear these types of things from people. And often splits are over stupid things…should Christian School be our primary focus, or can we send our children to summer camps. Are musical instruments allowed in church and if so…. what about drums and guitars or must it only be a piano or organ? Perhaps we should only sing acapella? Can men and women sit together? Can truly believing children have communion? Should infants be baptized or only adults? What about having wine or grape juice at communion? What makes a GOOD reason to have a split in a church?
Should we not have differences?
Listen, I’m not saying that people shouldn’t have opinions and doctrines to hold to. Doctrines are important. Figuring out what works IS important. But it’s also important to realize this fundamental truth. If we believe that Jesus died for our sins, rose from the dead, that the Holy Spirit guides and teaches, that God the Father is God of all and minds us full well. If we believe all this… we are brothers and sisters in Christ. We are family. God declares this to be so.
And yes, families can disagreed with each other but in the end… family is family and we aught to always remember that. Don’t you think?
To often we denigrate one another for believing differently…and I admittedly have to catch myself sometimes when people do things differently than I expect, or don’t think they way I want them to. It’s easy to fall into the “THEY ARE WRONG AND NEED TO BE CORRECTED” trap.. the trap of forgetting to love and accept and remember they are family. It doesn’t mean I have to accept wrong teaching…. and need to be mindful of such. But it doesn’t mean that I have to treat people poorly or authoritarian-like if they think different. It’s called open, friendly, family based discussion.
Let us remember that we are family. Brothers and sisters in Christ, and thereby need to ACT like it.
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