COLOSSIANS 2:1-5
I want you to know how much I have agonized for you and for the church at
I am telling you this so no one will deceive you with well-crafted arguments. For though I am far away from you, my heart is with you. And I rejoice that you are living as you should and that your faith in Christ is strong.
I think I prefer to be unraveled!
Knit together sounds pretty interconnected, in fact, intertwined and twisted together. I’ve watched people knit and crochet, bringing different colored yarn together into a beautiful afghan or sweater. That’s fine for inanimate yarn, but I’m not so sure it’s what I want. I’ve got a mind and will of my own, along with values, assumptions, beliefs, and lifestyle commitments that define who I am.
Do I really want to be intertwined with people defined by the same categories but different content? Do I even want to be knit together with people with content very similar to my own? I am with my wife. And that makes life challenging. I am with my children. And that makes for an even more complicated life. I am, sort of, with my siblings and parents. And thank God we are separated by at least 5 hours at 60 miles an hour!
Now Paul wants me to be knit together with other Christ-believers with whom I have no family history; people who, except for their commitment to Christ, are very different from myself. As if this were not enough, in chapter 3, Paul celebrates radical differences like culture, economic, education, religious tradition, and language! Okay, Paul, knit me together with people who share fundamental common ground, and I squirm. But start pulling together those with fundamental differences and I go into spasms!
Without even considering a multi-lingual, multi-cultural, multi-everything else church, truth is, I would be far more comfortable joining the thousands of professing American Christians who refuse to endure the pain of living knitted together with other similar people in the typical homogeneous church family.
Can’t I be a good Christian without doing the church thing!? Apparently not according to Paul. Well, then how about just hanging around the fringe of a church family? There would be fewer issues if the knitting was a super loose, huge loop, connection. Rather than “knit together by strong ties of love!”
My life would be far less complicated – but a whole lot more self absorbed, if the only knitting I had to deal with were the few closest members of my family.
Great Knitter in the Sky, I confess to sometimes wishing the Christian life was more isolated rather than interwoven with people different from me. But I know Paul’s “I want” really is a reflection of what you want for me. So grant me the selflessness I need to live knit together with others who are both a little and fundamentally different, but who share a common faith in you. - Mike Leamon
Infomercial religion
I was duped once by an infomercial. I was a teenager who wanted to buy a car and the ad said if you sent 50 dollars you would be given access to government auctions where they sold cars for pennies on the dollar. I talked my dad into letting me use his credit card and called. A week later I received a manual that told you to look in your newspaper for auction ads and to call your county government to get information on the sealed bid process they use to sell cars. I spent 50 bucks and did not learn anything new. I was taken in by a fine sounding argument.
Well-crafted arguments are pushed at us all day from billboards, op-eds in the paper, TV commercials and talk shows. Paul wanted to make sure the Gospel was never peddled, but proclaimed honestly. The Gospel truth is found in Jesus, for in Christ lie hidden the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
Christ is not a “good deal” he is the truth we have been searching for all our lives: contentment, peace, joy, blessing and love. We don’t have to chase down the too-good-to-be-true myths we are told, Jesus is the final answer.
Jesus, you are the answer to my deepest questions and needs. In you I find wisdom and knowledge. Help me to avoid running after flashy arguments and gimmicks and instead rely solely on what I find in you. - Dan Jones
2 comments:
I absolutely love the beautiful diversity of the bride of Christ! I certainly wouldn't want to be a "cookie cutter" Christian. But, what exactly did you mean by "fundamentals"? If you are speaking of the differences in doctrine among "born again" believers,then Iam beginning to see the importance of being with likeminded belivers. (in doctrine only Iam talking about) I can certainly respect other per-
spectives and have love for the brethern,but if not among likeminded believers, then do you think these differences can manifest in conduct,teaching,
decision making and just the general personality of ones church? I do!
I think God made the different churches for our different personalities, which include one's perspective. I use to think , even a short time ago, that as long as we have the common thread of Jesus, then nothing else matters. But I guess I question that now; And it's not human pride, but just human differences, which is okay.
I guess the question one might have is,aside from the Gospel, what's essential and what's not? Some might answer, "nothing is" to that question, but isn't that then, what some might call human pride? Iam thinking it's left to the individual and not for others to decide.
By fundamental likenesses I am referring to sharing a common culture, language, political values. It is easier to connect with people who diverge from one another only in surface or peripheral ways such as "I like broccoli but you like squash."
Forging a deep bond of spiritual oneness in Christ with a person who, for an election year example, is convinced that the Republicans are the best hope for America while you are convinced that the Democrats are, is a far more difficult test of Christian unity that what vegetables either one likes. Why? This is a more "fundamental" difference.
Post a Comment