Split up? No problem!

April 14, 2009

Today’s Reading: Joshua 21-22 and 1 Corinthians 1

The other day I talked about divisions in the church, and how they are slowing us down. It wasn’t really worth talking about, really. After all, is it really necessary to discuss how terrible church splits are? It’s sort of been done, really.

Yeah, I’m not really certain what keeps the church from seeing the church as a united entity rather than a group of cells. I suppose this is because the Christian church does not have a singular human leader that covers all denominations worldwide. So while there may be several churches in any given town or city, they will only work together if their leaders choose to.

Physical separation of churches can prevent some serious problems in having them work together. This also was a problem back in Joshua and Moses’ day, when three tribes wanted to split off from the rest of the group and establish on the other side of the Jordan. Man, this almost started a war. I think I may have covered this particular part of the Bible on another entry.

Another controversy began in Paul’s time. Paul talks about how some people were saying things like “I follow Paul” or “I follow Apollos”. A few people had it right and actually said “I follow Christ”.

Doesn’t make much sense, does it? No, Paul didn’t think it did either. Of course, this was probably the beginning of the church with names. It might even have been the start of denominations.

Why do we have those, anyway? Who knows. Actually, I’m sure there is a wonderful explanation, but I just don’t really feel like writing down all the inane history at this point in time.

Rather than spending time concentrating on the differences in whatever churches are around today, shouldn’t we concentrate on the similarities. Namely, the fact that they all have an idea of Jesus, who died on the cross for them? Of course, but I hate to say it, the only thing that a lot of us see in common is a similar culture.

In short, we are a church united, but what are we united around? Hymnals, stained class windows, pews, sermons, and other things that aren’t really in the Bible.

Sadly, this is what most people see when they look at a church. What if they saw more than just a cross, but the one who died on it. Now that would be pretty flippin’ cool.