Category Archives: unity

Caged hunting dogs

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I was talking with a coworker yesterday, recalling an illustration by Joseph Aldrich, author of Lifestyle Evangelism. He said that many in the church are like caged hunting dogs. With no birds to hunt, they turn on one another, biting and fighting. When set loose to do that for which they were trained, they work together to accomplish their goal.

When the church turns inward, we can fight over whether that was a gnat or a mosquito that we strained out of our water. When we turn our focus outward, we can find the unity described in the Word.

I’ve found that illustration to be very helpful to me over the years.

People pleasing

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I’m a people pleaser. Much more than I should be. I want everyone to like me. I want everyone to think well of me. Even though I consciously know that’s not possible, I still seek to have the approval of all.

Not that I think offending everyone should be a goal. Nor that insensibility toward the feelings of others is a good thing. Still, I think that too much time spent worrying about what others might think isn’t a good thing.

When differences arise at church, one of the great threats that is always presented is that people will leave. You’re going to offend people with this. People may start leaving.

I’ve come to think that, to some degree, people leaving a congregation is a natural thing. Especially in a town like Abilene, where you have dozens of churches of Christ. And I also think that congregations can be held hostage by a few who wield the threat of an exodus.

When we were in Córdoba, we ran a language institute, an annex of a large binational center. It was a prestigious institute. I’ll never forget something one of my colleagues said once. He said that when people come in complaining about their prices, he pulls out a list of inexpensive language institutes and offers it to them. And he tells them, “If the only factor you are considering is price, you would do well to consider these.”

I don’t have any specific issues in mind, nor am I planning anything controversial. I just got to wondering: how do you decide when to say, “Doggone those torpedoes, full speed ahead!” and when do you say “Unity is the most important thing”? Obviously, our goal is to please God, not to please men. However, we’re also taught to act out of love and to seek peace in the body. When do we decide that something is for the greater good, even when it steps on some people’s toes?

Any suggestions?

Photo by by Petr Kratochvil

Unity, Not Uniformity

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A while back I wrote about the diversity in the church in the first century. I was reading Acts 21 yesterday and was struck again by this story. There’s an idea out there that the early church was fairly Jewish in nature, but that it outgrew that characteristic.

Passages like Acts 21 show that idea to be untrue. Here we are years after Pentecost, years after the “Jerusalem council” of Acts 15, yet James describes the Jerusalem church by saying, “You see, brother, how many thousands of Jews have believed, and all of them are zealous for the law.” (Acts 21:20) Then he says to Paul: “Then everybody will know there is no truth in these reports about you, but that you yourself are living in obedience to the law.” (Acts 21:24)

James not only thinks that many in Jerusalem are living according to the Law, but he feels that Paul is doing so as well. And Paul never corrects him. Instead, Paul agrees to participate in a Jewish vow to show his dedication to the Law.

In the past, I asked one brother on this blog what freedom Paul was talking about in Galatians 5:1 [“It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.” (Galatians 5:1)] That brother said it was Judaism. That makes no sense, given that the Galatians weren’t Jews before they became Christians. And this incident in Acts 21 happened years after the letter to the Galatians was written.

There’s no doubt about it. The early church was much more tolerant of diversity than the modern church often is. It’s an area we need to grow in.

The crabs and the ants

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In Cuba last week, I shared an old sermon illustration about how to keep crabs in a bucket. They say that if you put one crab in a bucket, you’d better have a good lid, because the crab can easily climb out. If you place two crabs in a bucket, however, there’s no need for a lid. When starts to climb out, the other one will pull him back down.

Contrast that with ants. They will pile themselves one upon the other to allow the colony to reach a higher place. When flooding comes, they roll into a ball, a mass of ants that floats on the water. Some of the ants will drown, but the colony survives.

I know which one I think I should be as a Christian.

Liberals and conservatives: a simple definition

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In one of the comments on yesterday’s post, Bobby Ross talked about being called on to define the terms liberal and conservative as regards the church.

I’m sorry I wasn’t there, because I could have made the task easier. The definitions are quite simple: A liberal allows things I think are wrong, a conservative thinks things are wrong which I choose to allow.

This definition is simple because my opinion is that of openmindedness and reason, of careful, objective study. My opinion is that of sound doctrine and veracity. If you disagree with me, you have rejected the truth and strayed into error, be it on the left or on the right. You are unsound. Should you continue in your ways, you will be guilty of willful disobedience.

You have been warned.