While I was driving to school last
week I started thinking about why people draw “lines of fellowship” in the
Church. I remember growing up and we didn't work together or fellowship with
this church or that one because they clapped after baptisms or ate during
Wednesday Bible class. As crazy as that sounds, there were churches that didn't fellowship with us because we were too “liberal”, after all, we had more than
one communion cup.
Maybe you go to a church that is
more “free” in their expression of worship but you have a hard time seeing
people that don’t express themselves like you do, or even think it is wrong to,
as part of the same body of Christ.
I read an article recently that was
an extreme example of this. A church actually picketed, threw rocks through
windows, and eventually split up and stopped fellowshipping all because of the
spelling of the word “hallelujah” (or “alleluia”) on a banner in the church. I
think we have gotten off track somewhere.
While I was in my truck on the way
to school thinking about these things, I remembered a section of scripture in
Romans 14. Paul was dealing with a church composed of people who were religiously
Jewish in their recent past and people who obeyed the Gospel out of a Gentile
context without any organized religious laws. The Jews were fully convinced that
they needed to continue to keep the Sabbath day and abstain from eating foods
that were sacrificed to idols. Then they wanted to impose these things on the
Gentile believers who had no desire or reason to keep those laws. The Gentiles
wanted to be free from the Jewish ways and rightly believed that they could
because of Christ. Sounds like a lot bigger mess than the people in the church
down the street clapping or raising their hands (or not doing that). Paul’s
response was not, “Well you guys better restrain yourselves and keep the Sabbath
and not eat that meat so you don’t upset them.” Instead he said,
“Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. The one who observes the day, observes it in honor of the Lord. The one who eats, eats in honor of the Lord, since he gives thanks to God, while the one who abstains, abstains in honor of the Lord and gives thanks to God.”He also said if it grieves your brother to eat, then we are not walking in love, but he also says not to let what is good be spoken of as evil. The Kingdom is not ultimately about these little issues, but about righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. Paul wraps up by with a challenge for the church:
“So then let us pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding.”Let’s aim for peace and encouragement in the church and unity under Christ!
