What we see is that in early church’s practice of living together, in their sacrificial generosity, they had unity. And that ties directly to the phrase in 1 Thessalonians 5:13, I skipped over in the previous posts. In those previous posts I emphasized “live…with each other.” Paul says, “Live in peace with each other.”
Peace. In the Hebrew, it is the concept of shalom. Harmony. Unity. Wholeness. Flourishing. Jesus said that he came that we might have life abundantly. (John 10:10) That is the kind of life when people are thriving. Not that life is perfect. There will always be hardships. But in the midst of whatever we are going through, abundant, flourishing life, shalom, is when we are thriving.
Paul says that it is in our relationships with each other in our church family that we experience this thriving, this peace. But let me share a caveat. Paul doesn’t mean that we need to have best friendships with everyone in the church family. That is impossible. Even for a tiny church with 10-15 people. Most people can only have best friendships with about 3-4 people.
Small groups of people in a church family, groups that spend more time with each other, are okay. The word “clique” gets used from time to time, describing groups of friends in a church. In my view, it is normal when some people spend more time with each other and become close friends.
Where a group can cross a line into poor behavior is when they are so exclusive they refuse to include others, do not welcome others, do not talk with others, and shun others.
In other words, it is possible to live in peace with everyone in the church family while at the same time having a closer friend group in that same church family.
This is why I encourage you to get connected to one of your church’s small groups. I encourage you to go deeper with the others in your group. It might be a prayer meeting, a men’s or women’s Bible study, or a Sunday School classes. These smaller groups help you enter into relationships and go deeper. To go deeper, though, you must ask the deeper questions. Then you follow-up. Consistently, persistently. This deep caring interest is how we live with each other.
Another aspect of living in peace with one another is the reality that we will not always agree with one another. We’ll learn what Paul has to say about church family disagreements in the next post.
Photo by Alexis Brown on Unsplash
Engaging Scripture 