Forget about deciding what’s right for each other. Here’s what you need to be concerned about: that you don’t get in the way of someone else, making life more difficult than it already is. I’m convinced–Jesus convinced me!-that everything as it is in itself is holy. We, of course, by the way we treat it or talk about it, can contaminate it.
If you confuse others by making a big issue over what they eat or don’t eat, you’re no longer a companion with them in love, are you? These, remember, are persons for whom Christ died. Would you risk sending them to hell over an item in their diet? Don’t you dare let a piece of God-blessed food become an occasion of soul-poisoning!
God’s kingdom isn’t a matter of what you put in your stomach, for goodness’ sake. It’s what God does with your life as he sets it right, puts it together, and completes it with joy. Your task is to single-mindedly serve Christ. Do that and you’ll kill two birds with one stone: pleasing the God above you and proving your worth to the people around you.
So let’s agree to use all our energy in getting along with each other. Help others with encouraging words.
Paul from the Bible in the Message version.
You know, I have a really hard time splitting standards (styles of worship, church politcs etc.) with (adultery, abortion) just cause I find Christians fight harder sometimes for the first one than they do the second, I just kinda get caught up in revolting against it that I just classify them all together, which probably isn’t safe, but I just don’t think still that any of those issues are enough to freak out about on each other. Like the United church for instance in the homosexual affirmations. Is that really something that we should throw are hands up and give up on them as Christians? I just think these doctrinal issues (even if some of them are pretty clear cut) aren’t enough to really make us split. I love his line at the end of my quote there ” So let’s agree to use all our energy in getting along with each other.” If we used half the energy that we used in condemning sin and heresy in others and put it to loving those people, imagine the changes we would see. Totally agreed with your points though. I’m glad you caught my false classifications, cause I do that a lot.
Hmm, I see. I definitely think that it’s been a sinful tendancy in the church for a long time to “major on the minors”. I’m not sure I agree with your classifying abortion and homosexuality (things Paul says will keep you out of the kingdom if you “live this way”) with the raising of hands in worship, but nonetheless the point is taken.
I think it’s really idolatry. People get a high out of being better than others (picking whatever standard is convenient, i.e., being more emotional in worhsip, being more intellectual, etc.), but eventually have to make sacrifices to those idols. And one of the first things to be laid at the altar is always church unity.
I just thought that the way that Eugene puts it was very relevant to a lot of things that I experience in and out of churches. We concern ourselves A LOT with telling people they need to stop getting drunk, or need to stop swearing etc. (which isn’t exactly a bad thing at all).
We even take our little tangents. Like i’m Calvinist, i’m Pentecostal, i’m Emergent or i’m postmodern and we make them into these huge issues. It isn’t about who eats meat anymore, that’s not the center of topics that are hurting people. It’s whose homosexual, having abortions, going to the conservative church, raises their hands etc.
I just love it because like he says “God’s kingdom isn’t a matter of what we put into our stomachs.” I don’t just think that’s about our physical stomachs, but our spiritual ones too. It isn’t just about aquiring knowledge to feel fool of intelligence.
There is just a lot of angles that i thought this touched upon, and in a lot of cases i find Eugene’s paraphrase helps point interesting things out.
Any particular occasion that moved you to quote this?