Quarrels and My Christian Family

One of the things I learned in my years of pastoral ministry was that quarrels among the people of God are inevitable. The Apostle Paul addresses this issue in the very first chapter of his letter to the Corinthians in this manner:

"I appeal to you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another so that there may be no divisions among you and that you may be perfectly united in mind and thought. My brothers, some from Chloe's household have informed me that there are quarrels among you. What I mean is this: One of you says, "I follow Paul"; another, "I follow Apollos"; another, "I follow Cephas; still another, "I follow Christ."

"Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized into the name of Paul? I am thankful that I did not baptize any of you except Crispus and Gaius, so no one can say that you were baptized into my name. (Yes, I also baptized the household of Stephanas; beyond that, I don't remember if I baptized anyone else.) For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel—not with words of human wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power" (vv. 10-17).

At the same time I found many wonderful and close brothers and sisters in God's family. It has been over fifty years since I first began to serve as a public minister of God's Word. I still receive emails and other correspondence from some of the people I served in those early years. Sylvia and I go back to the congregations we served and are immediately received warmly and with great affection. This is one of the reasons I claim to be among the wealthiest of men. My wealth consists of the love and affection I have received and long to share with those, my brothers and sisters in Christ.

The point is that we who are baptized into Christ become family. Our ties transcend any differences we may have because of culture, race or status. What we have in common is the cross of Christ, that power of God to rescue and save us from our own very human weaknesses and failings. In receiving that free and undeserved grace and mercy, we find a unity unknown in any other area of human life.

There are folks with whom I have great conversations about intellectual matters. We talk about history, science and the natural world at great length. I really enjoy those conversations. But this or that person I have in mind is not my brother.

There are people who help me to manage my money. We talk about the best way to invest, the future of the stock market and our mutual distrust of the IRS. We moan and groan about political matters and decisions by congress. Some of these people are and some of these people are not my brothers.

I attend conferences that discuss writing. I attend conferences that offer insights into social problems and solutions to psychological problems. I learn from the presenters, but I know that many of them are not my brothers and sisters.

There are members of my extended family who send me Christmas cards and with whom we share gifts and even hugs and kisses, but some of them are not my brothers and sisters.

You see what I say? Being baptized into Jesus Christ changes everything. In Him we find our unity, not in intellectual pursuits, social status or political leanings, not even in our family. In Christ we are bound together in a spiritual unity, both in this life and for all eternity. What an awesome revelation. What a wondrous reality.

I like the motto adopted recently by the little congregation Sylvia and I attend. It helps me to think about this matter: "Living Today for Eternity."

Teen Suicide and Faith

When my cousin Eloise and I were children growing up on our families' farms, we'd often play cowboys and Indians while our twin mothers chatted on the front porch. We were always partners in those imaginary battles, saving one another from many imaginary foes.

As I entered my teens I began to realize a different kind of battle and prayed for a different kind of partner. Many teens fight the same battle as I did, a battle for self-esteem, recognition by peers, a growing sense of meaning and purpose. Many continue to lose that battle to suicide.

Suicide is the third leading cause of death for 15-to-24-year-olds, and the sixth leading cause of death for 5-to-14-year-olds.

I still remember the despair I felt when I tried out for the basketball team and found out that I was not on the roster. The athletes in our school were the heroes, the people admired and applauded. Sure I was allowed to play on the B-team, but was even more ashamed and humiliated when I realized I was to spend most of my time on the bench of even that team. I wanted to run away to some place where no one knew me, some place where I could hide, some place where I would never have to feel the rotten feelings broiling inside.

Teenagers experience stress, confusion, self-doubt, pressure to succeed, financial uncertainty, and other fears while growing up. For some teenagers, divorce, the formation of a new family with step-parents and step-siblings is the cause of anxiety and doubt.

I grew up in a farm community and went away to a church boarding school when I was but 13 years old. During the first semester of my freshman high school year I contracted pneumonia. My parents brought me home and enrolled me in our local public high school for the second semester of that year. While there the feelings of isolation and loneliness increased as I spent week after week with kids who shunned me. They knew I was only there for that one semester and would then return to my "private school." It was a wretched experience.

To an adult these hardly seem like reasons to take your own life. Sadly, this is not always so for a teen. The strange reality is that some irrationally believe that death is only temporary, like when Eloise and I pretended we were killed in one of our mock battles. In a few seconds we would rise up again with the words, "I'm a new man," and the play would continue.

From a pastor's viewpoint, I would strongly suggest that we do whatever it takes to keep in touch with our children and to encourage them with the words based upon what the Apostle says in 1 Corinthians: "God, who has called you into fellowship with his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, is faithful." In other words, you can always count on Jesus to guide you through all this stuff. And again in his letter to the Romans he reminds us, young and old, that no matter what comes along, we will always taste victory through Him who loved and still loves us (Rom.8:31-39).

Peace and Fingers

We worship in a liturgical church. Among many other things, that means that we take the time to touch, sometimes hug and greet one another. However, we don't do it in an off-handed or casual manner. Rather, there is a set time in our worship service when everyone present is invited to turn to his/her neighbor and speak the blessing of peace. And we take peace quite seriously, even if not all of us understand the implications of what we are saying.

Peace is a very interesting Bible word. The Apostle speaks his prayer for peace at the beginning of his first letter to the Corinthians as he writes, " Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ." A word or two about peace in that context.

First, peace is so much more than the cessation of war. Many articles about warring nations begin with a comment about the search for peace. For instance, we often read, "The search for peace in the Middle East dates back to the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948." The assumption is that peace can be found by stopping the fighting and building some type of economic ties between Israelies and Palestinians. Peace in the Bible means so very much more than that.

Of course it refers to the cessation of war between nations, but it also refers to concord and harmony between nations, communities and individuals. How vital, for instance, it is for us to be at peace in our marriages and how difficult it can be to bring about this type of reconciliation. I'm thinking this may be one of the reasons why the Holy Spirit ties grace with peace in the greeting.

Grace refers to the undeserved and unmerited mercy of God offered in the work and life of Jesus Christ. Paul writes to the Ephesians, "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast" (2:8,9). And then he goes on to say that Jesus himself is our peace, who has made both Jew and Gentile one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility. No room for boasting when you are saved by grace.

In my years of working with couples and families to restore peace and harmony in their homes I soon discovered that little progress could be made until all stopped boasting and accusing to acknowledge the need for undeserved forgiveness and grace. When all parties acknowledged their faults and contributions to the conflict we began to make progress. We began to move toward peace, especially when the couple or the family members accepted the fact that we are all beggars in the eyes of God and by faith all receivers of forgiveness and mercy in Jesus Christ.

That's at least one meaning of the greeting of peace in our worship services.

If you are looking for reconciliation in your personal relationships, start with taking a good, hard look at yourself. To quote an old canard, "There are always three fingers pointing back when you point your one finger at another." Then accept God's grace, given in spite of the fingers pointing at you and begin anew.

With A Deep Sense of Vocation

Things had really changed for the man named Saul. He had the name of Israel's first king--not a great one, but a king nevertheless. Now he had taken to himself the name of "Little One," Paulos in Greek. It was because he saw himself as the chief of sinners, unworthy to be called a follower of Christ, let alone an apostle.

But here he was--a man with a calling and a purpose! That's how he starts out his letter to the Corinthian Christians: "Paul, called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ through the will of God."

How few of us go around feeling we have a purpose and a calling from God. What a difference it makes when you do. The whole idea of vocation or calling changes everything. The Reformation lifted up the ordinary believer to an exalted position by helping us all to reclaim this teaching. Now each believer can rejoice in the mundane and daily tasks of his or her calling. It is a high calling from God to be husband, wife, father, mother, fireman, scientist, farmer, etc.

Paul, the little one, saw the hand of God reach out to him to bring faith in the cross of Christ. His calling was to proclaim that wondrous Good News most especially to the non-Jewish Gentile world. So he begins, with a proud and deep sense of vocation. The very will of God is being accomplished through him. Listen up!

My prayer is that each one of us may approach the tasks of today with that same deep sense of being called. He who calls, also promises to be with us, to bless and guide as we go about our vocations.

Modern Life and Ancient Corinth

For the past year I've been leading a Bible study with a small group. We've been examining and discussing what the Apostle Paul wrote in his so-called first letter to the Corinthians. He wrote the letter about a generation after Christ's ministry. At that time there were hundreds in Galilee and Judea who had seen the Lord Jesus alive and present with them after His resurrection. Paul makes reference to that fact in the fifteenth chapter.

The Corinthians are so interesting because their problems have so many parallels in modern urban life, as well as the life in contemporary churches. Three individuals in particular, Stephanas, Fortunatus and Achaicus, come to Paul while he was teaching in Ephesus over on the eastern side of the Aegean Sea (modern Turkey). They told him they wanted to assist him with his work, but they may also have been the ones who carried news about predicaments in the several house churches there in Corinth.

I can imagine them saying, "Brother Paul, we have some real headaches, especially with one of our families. This man--dare we call him brother--is living with his step-mother. He claims it's perfectly legal and refuses to listen to anything we have to say. We're uncertain about how to proceed."

Perhaps Paul listened intently, asked some detailed questions and assured them he would be writing a letter. Was there anything else?

"Oh, yes," they replied. "We have a whole list of hurdles. Some are even questioning your right to claim the title of Apostle. They insist they follow Apollos. Others claim to be followers of Peter. And so it goes. They don't want to listen to anything you have to say."

"Interesting," mused Paul. "Continue."

And they did, listing controversies about church leadership, lawsuits, sexual experimentation, prostitution, marriage, idolatry, the Lord's Supper, worship, the work of the Holy Spirit and on and on.

Paul must have prayed for long hours for wisdom. How should he reply? Would they even bother to listen to what he had to say? After such musings and guided by the Holy Spirit, the Apostle wrote this wonderful letter to the believers scrattered around Corinth.

Corinth had a long history as a city and a city state, long before Paul's day. It was the home of more than 250,000 free persons, with nearly double that number of slaves. It was a harbor city, with commerce flowing back and forth across the isthmus upon which it was located. Greek to the hilt, controlled by the Romans, Corinth was home to a dozen pagan temples, many that sponsored religious prostitution. This was a center for open and unbridled immorality. At one time as many as a thousand sacred prostitutes served in the temple of Aphrodite.

In writing his letter, Paul deals with these and many other questions about morality, faith, religion, hope, life after death and the resurrection. As I said, it's a letter packed with vital and meaningful teachings that have scores of applications to modern life. I want to tackle what Paul writes and reflect upon it over the next months. Stay tuned.