We have been starved for body fellowship and doing home church with just us for the last year or so has been great in many ways, but we've felt like a hand deprived of it's body and malnourished in other ways.
Many of the homeschool families go to the PHV protestant chapel. We talked about it, going to one of those institutional church services, I mean, and I had many doubts as the time got closer.
Then Micah and I were downstairs talking about 1 Corinthians 9:22. "To the weak became I as weak, that I might gain the weak: I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some."
I was referencing an unrelated topic but as we discussed becoming all things for all people in order to win at least some from among them, I thought about the context was Paul ministring to other Hebrews and weaker Christians who were legalistic in many ways. As I stated that yeah, like "Paul shaving his head for them, dressing like them in order to have that gateway in"
Many of the homeschool families go to the PHV protestant chapel. We talked about it, going to one of those institutional church services, I mean, and I had many doubts as the time got closer.
Then Micah and I were downstairs talking about 1 Corinthians 9:22. "To the weak became I as weak, that I might gain the weak: I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some."
I was referencing an unrelated topic but as we discussed becoming all things for all people in order to win at least some from among them, I thought about the context was Paul ministring to other Hebrews and weaker Christians who were legalistic in many ways. As I stated that yeah, like "Paul shaving his head for them, dressing like them in order to have that gateway in"
I realized that doing things like meeting in a building, dressing up a little bit, etc., while deemed as required from the point of view of a weaker brother (when actually it isn't required), might also be essential for us to offer the body at large what they need from us, in addition to being able to receive from them what we need.
If I'm stronger in my knowledge of what God requires, then I'm the one likely to need to bend for the weaker and so I should go to the building, put on the slacks, do what's needed to interact with them. Like Paul did. It sounds strange but it was an epiphany for me. It was the tool I needed to be obedient and to reconnect without compromising.
1 comments:
Amen! Our mission in the baptist church is to free our brothers in bonds from the ritualistic monotony of the "baptist religion" and open their eyes to the fulness of a life lived in Christ worshipping God in spirit and in truth with all that we are. I see it much the same as the apostles attending and speaking in the synagogue, which they did regularly. If they wish to continue to devote themselves to "Sunday service," that's fine, but how do you live your life?
Your same name brother :)
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