Haha. Sometimes us people have a way of disagreeing, bickering, and making a mess. I remember writing a blog not too long ago about meat sacrificed to idols and laying down freedoms and liberties for those with weaker faith. I kind of knew I'd be tested or pressed in this area.
It's funny. I'm on a family vacation and I have a precious brother in the Lord that has been pressing me about personal holiness and worldliness (i.e. Christian rock music artists that "dance around just like the world.") I've probably had numerous arguments with this line of thinking in my head, knowing exactly what to say when pressed on this, but it's always more of a challenge when you know and care about the person you're talking to. The desire to "blow that person out of the water" is lessened. Hmmm... Maybe there's a lesson to be learned here -- that maybe all people (especially strangers) should be treated with the kind of love and tenderness that we almost automatically afford family members. Not that we can't disagree or make a sharp point, but we can always craft the "hard" words we have to say with "cushion" and kindness.
1 Corinthians 12 12 starts defining the body of Christ as being just like a human body -- "though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body -- whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free -- and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. Now the body is not made up of one part but of many. If the foot should say, 'Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,' it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body...But in fact God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as He wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body."
While it is good to know that we are many parts yet unified, it presents a greater challenge when we are faced with differences. We can't just blow people off. We're pressed to work things out. This pleases the Father, I'm sure.
Posted by Doug Van Pelt at December 27, 2005 01:38 PM