Those of us who have been around “the church” for a whilemay have observed a troubling phenomenon of people pointing to this church orthat and complaining on how things are done. I think the most common of thesecomplaints is drinking. Some churches make you believe that “thou shall not
drink” is the 11th commandment while at the same time Jesus turned
water to wine as his first miracle.
If we look at Galatians 2:14 we can see this was not
uncommon even in the early church:
But when I
saw that their conduct was not in step with the truth of the gospel,
I said to Cephas before them all, “If you, though a Jew, live like a
Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you force the Gentiles to live like Jews?”
We all tend to point at others who do not believe the same
as we do and think they have it wrong. In this instance Paul was trying to
ensure the legalism of the church did not creep into the teachings. And
honestly I think we all tend to get into the does and don’ts of how to be a Christian
when it’s more about a relationship and not how you live.
With that said, this is not your E-Ticket to fun and frivolity,
because doing what is right before Jesus is the key and following the Holy
Spirit. NOTE the word “following” and not “listening” since we all can listen
and choose to ignore.
As we tend to bicker between denominations within the
Christian Church I want to highlight 1 Corinthians 8:13 that clearly states:
Therefore, if
food makes my brother stumble, I will never eat meat, lest I make my brother
stumble.
If drinking is a soft spot, then I will not drink before
him, So while having a beer not be a sin to me, I have many friends I would
never drink in front of because they are alcoholics and therefore it’s a sin to
them. Same thing with following the law vs following the Holy Spirit. If one
feels it’s a sin to eat pork, I am not bringing over a side of ham for dinner.
Now with Paul in Galatians, I may point out of a sin has no
scriptural basis and try to get clarification why they believe it’s a sin. But
if they do not eat pork, nor will I and if they do eat pork, yet I don’t, I
will not refuse their meal and thank God for the food. At the same time if I
was an alcoholic, I would not drink with my friend;-)
This really was a problem with me when I took a Sunday
School class called “Witnessing to the Witnesses” and was bothered on how the “Cult”
label was tossed about. The Witnesses were considered a cult that was going to
hell unless they saw the Way. Well it really bothered me since some of my most
enlightened talks about the Bible was with the Jehovah Witnesses. Sure they may
not practice the same way I do, but they have the Gospel figured out. I really
disturbed me when the “C” word was used with Catholics and Mormons, which I have
had many enlightened discussions with believers there.
My take on the denominations debate is “different
strokes for different folks” and what works for me may not work for my father.
He enjoys traditional music and would not like the noise produced by the praise
bands I like. One church embraces the drunkard to the point where they preach “thou
shall not drink” and that’s ok. Honestly we should not judge the other guy and
do more prayer and reflection inward!!