2 Churches

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Scripture: 1 Corinthians 3:16–23 (NRSV)
16 Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? 17 If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy that person. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple. 18 Do not deceive yourselves. If you think that you are wise in this age, you should become fools so that you may become wise. 19 For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, “He catches the wise in their craftiness,” 20 and again, “The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile.” 21 So let no one boast about human leaders. For all things are yours, 22 whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all belong to you, 23 and you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God.

*Meditation:
            One thing that frustrates me about the Christian Church as a whole is that it seems at times that there are two churches at war with each other. On the one side we have the gospel of personal salvation folks who act like when a believer accepts Jesus as their personal savior that they have somehow finished their work with that person. Not realizing that the scriptures teach that coming to faith is the starting point for our Christian walk not the end of it.
While the other church pretends that salvation is not that important as long as one does good works one will end up on God’s good side. It is just as futile to walk the Roman road with someone to leave them stranded at the end and say you are on your own as it is to open a lemonade stand at the end and offer no further direction. No wonder the church has lost her power in the world.
You cannot have a gospel of political peace without the Prince of Peace or a gospel of bread for the world without the Bread of Life. Nor can you lead people from a life of sin without showing them a world of sinners in need of salvation. You can’t show people the Prince of Peace without showing them how that Prince can heal an often broken and divided church. Giving people the Bread of Life without giving them bread for their bodies is the worst kind of spiritual malpractice. Jesus would reconcile us not only to God but to each other.
It is the truth that God is love. In God’s wisdom that love runs both vertically between God and humans, and horizontally from human to human. Any gospel that preaches less than that is only half a gospel. Let’s work to reunite the church. And being of one mind let us love all people with a love that deserves to be called “Christian”.

Prayer:
Lord unite us in your love. Make us one as you Father, Son and Holy Spirit are one. Keep our eyes on what brings glory to your kingdom. Give us hands and feet to go and serve the world that your kingdom may both grow and be changed into a place that can be recognized as “God’s Kingdom on Earth.”


*The author acknowledges the book “Abusing Scripture” by Manfred T. Baruch for some of the word pictures used in this blog post. 

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