What has happened in recent years in American Christianity has been called a sorting. We American Christians, rather than do what Paul said in 1 Corinthians 1, verse 10, be unified, we have sorted ourselves into different camps. Has this happened in your church? In your community? It’s very evident in the wider American church.
The trend has been that those who have what is considered today a conservative viewpoint have made sure that they are going to churches who affirm their conservative viewpoint. Those who have what would be considered today a liberal or progressive viewpoint have made sure that they are going to a church that affirms their liberal or progressive viewpoint. Both sets of churches would have people in them who love the Lord and are trying to follow God’s ways. American Christians, generally-speaking, have sorted themselves along those conservative and progressive viewpoints. I believe this is a great tragedy.
I think Paul would call it a great tragedy also. In Paul’s day it would be like the Strong, the people who are free in Christ to eat meat previously sacrificed to idols, saying, “The weak are wrong, and in fact they might not even be Christians, we should not allow those strict legalistic people in our church, because Jesus has set us free from the law.” Likewise, the Weak, the people who believe the eating meat sacrificed to idols is sinful, would say, “The Strong are wrong, and in fact they might not even be Christians, we should not allow those free-wheeling wild people to be in our church, because they are not serious about their faith.”
Both sides, in other words, can be very judgmental about the other. Both sides can say that the only way, the right way, is to think like them, as if their side is the only side that has it all figured out and they know what is best. What inevitably happens is that each side starts to look upon the other as the enemy, disdainfully, hatefully, incredulously. “How can they possibly think like that reading the same Bible that I’m reading? They have to be wrong. They are committing heresy and they are dangerous.”
That kind of thinking is very tempting. It is very possible for Christians to think that way about other Christians, breaking relationship with them, harming the church and the mission of Jesus. So what do we do? How do we have unity?
We could jump to the end of chapter 10:31 where Paul summarizes well: “So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.”
That’s a nice, easy principle, right? “Do all that you do to the glory of God.” Every choice, every action, every thought…glorify God in all of it! Easier said than done, right? If only we could be so robotically faithful to God. I once knew a guy who said he wanted to be a zombie for Jesus. He meant well. Like a zombie is singularly focused on eating human brains, this guy wished that he could do all things to the glory of God all the time. But because we God created us humans with free will, we can sometimes struggle to do all to the glory of God, including handling relationships and conversations with people with whom we disagree.
So what should we do? We should intentionally avoid sorting. We should do what Paul says next in 1st Corinthians 8 & 10, which we’ll look at in the next post.
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Engaging Scripture 