One Church. One institution of Jesus, the Son of God. Paul writes in Ephesians, "One faith, one baptism, one Lord." Makes sense to most Christians. However...
There are so many types of Christian churches and beliefs.
Why the disparity?
History, both secular and doctrinal, can explain it all too well.
A friend recently prompted me to think and write about this subject, so here are a few of my cents on the issue.
There ought to be one faith in Jesus, despite the billions of us that exist on the planet (and the billions that have come and gone) that depend on individual relationships with Him. Collectively, there ought to be a Way to the Way, Truth and Life.
But of course, because of all our different individuality, we all do worship differently. I worship Christ in practice, deed and devotion differently than my wife, or respective children, even though we all practice the same faith and may sit in the same church pew most Sundays.
We were all built differently, much like our external differences, we are internally sundry as well.
But obviously we do have many commonalities.
We Christian Westerners have a lot in common with Western Jews. Or Eastern Jewish people. Or Muslims. Or Hindus, Buddhists...Agnostics, atheists.
Surprisingly, or not, all of us humans share very common values. We believe violence is abhorrent. We suffer the little children to come unto us, and we are greatly offended when bullies pick on the little runts. Vegetarians or not, we abhor cruelty and unwanton mean behavior.
We all believe the Golden Rule of the Christ of the New Testamant, no matter whether we call it karma, quid pro quo, legal fairness, civil justice, harmonic convergence, so on and so on.
We as a human race can agree to agree about a lot, despite the multitudinous differences of our stated beliefs, practices and lifestyles.
We should be one Church in the Christian camp. Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland and the Isles have no sensible reason to hurt each other, other than pleasing and serving the Enemy. The main Adversary of God.
And that is what we do when we fight and debate, or pridefully or incidentally breed contention about our most cherished beliefs. We can agree to disagree, too.
Politics and economics do get in the way. Sad but true.
I used to read two Christian magazines a lot, more in the late 1990s but I still keep up with them in the 21st century as much as my local libraries provide them . Christianity Today and the Christian Century discuss ecumenicism, the idea of One Church that belongs to Jesus.
My faith's monthly Ensign and the accompanying youth magazines discuss the same prospect.
One faith. One baptism. One Lord.
We can agree that we should agree to agree and agree to disagree. We can be true Christians, fair and decent and virtuous, despite the lack of commonalities that we think arise (and inevitably cause contention and strife) with others of non-Christian lives and cultures.
We can be the Chosen people Jesus tells us to be.
Pray for it. Live it. Hope and have faith in Him. It will be as He promised numerous times in the scriptures. They are holy. They tell the truth.
This has been my Sunday/Sabbath sermon.
Thanks for sharing.
Blog on. EMC.
There are so many types of Christian churches and beliefs.
Why the disparity?
History, both secular and doctrinal, can explain it all too well.
A friend recently prompted me to think and write about this subject, so here are a few of my cents on the issue.
There ought to be one faith in Jesus, despite the billions of us that exist on the planet (and the billions that have come and gone) that depend on individual relationships with Him. Collectively, there ought to be a Way to the Way, Truth and Life.
But of course, because of all our different individuality, we all do worship differently. I worship Christ in practice, deed and devotion differently than my wife, or respective children, even though we all practice the same faith and may sit in the same church pew most Sundays.
We were all built differently, much like our external differences, we are internally sundry as well.
But obviously we do have many commonalities.
We Christian Westerners have a lot in common with Western Jews. Or Eastern Jewish people. Or Muslims. Or Hindus, Buddhists...Agnostics, atheists.
Surprisingly, or not, all of us humans share very common values. We believe violence is abhorrent. We suffer the little children to come unto us, and we are greatly offended when bullies pick on the little runts. Vegetarians or not, we abhor cruelty and unwanton mean behavior.
We all believe the Golden Rule of the Christ of the New Testamant, no matter whether we call it karma, quid pro quo, legal fairness, civil justice, harmonic convergence, so on and so on.
We as a human race can agree to agree about a lot, despite the multitudinous differences of our stated beliefs, practices and lifestyles.
We should be one Church in the Christian camp. Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland and the Isles have no sensible reason to hurt each other, other than pleasing and serving the Enemy. The main Adversary of God.
And that is what we do when we fight and debate, or pridefully or incidentally breed contention about our most cherished beliefs. We can agree to disagree, too.
Politics and economics do get in the way. Sad but true.
I used to read two Christian magazines a lot, more in the late 1990s but I still keep up with them in the 21st century as much as my local libraries provide them . Christianity Today and the Christian Century discuss ecumenicism, the idea of One Church that belongs to Jesus.
My faith's monthly Ensign and the accompanying youth magazines discuss the same prospect.
One faith. One baptism. One Lord.
We can agree that we should agree to agree and agree to disagree. We can be true Christians, fair and decent and virtuous, despite the lack of commonalities that we think arise (and inevitably cause contention and strife) with others of non-Christian lives and cultures.
We can be the Chosen people Jesus tells us to be.
Pray for it. Live it. Hope and have faith in Him. It will be as He promised numerous times in the scriptures. They are holy. They tell the truth.
This has been my Sunday/Sabbath sermon.
Thanks for sharing.
Blog on. EMC.
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