I gave my life to Jesus almost 30 years ago in a conservative Southern Baptist church. The church taught solid doctrine and I became (like many new believers) very rigid in my beliefs. Anyone who practiced their faith in Jesus outside of my interpretation of scripture was almost considered “lesser than”.
Those were the days when the SBC was really struggling to figure out who it wanted to be. It was “conservatives verses moderates” with a lot of animosity on both sides. Name calling and public feuding seemed to be commonplace with both sides claiming the moral high ground. (The world looked on with “eyes-rolling” and heads…and we became to many outside the church, a “punchline”) Regardless of where you stood on the issues the conduct of both sides was a “black eye” to the cause of Christ.
What developed out of that (or perhaps always has been) was an ugly “us against them” mentality…
- “Us” against the moderates
- “Us” against the immoral
- “Us” against the drinkers
- “Us” against the lost
- “Us” against sister churches
- “Us” against Hollywood and Disney
- “Us” against anyone who does not act, think, dress, smell like…….well…….US!
Two Key verses give some good insight into what Jesus thought about believers and those who did not yet know Him.
For Believers:
John 13:35 “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
For those who did not know Him:
MARK 6:34 When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So he began teaching them many things.
A Few Quick thoughts:
- Jesus was liberal in His Love for the lost (thieves, immoral, unloved, etc) (Luke 5:30)
- Jesus was fierce in his condemnation of the religious hypocrites. (Gospels, all)
- Jesus said that people will know we are His disciples if we “love one another”. (John 13:35)
- People are not the enemy…they are the objective! If a man who does not know Jesus, behaves accordingly…how can we condemn him for not acting like a Christian?
- Shouldn’t our attitude be that of a beggar who has found food and want to show other beggars where to eat?
As a Christian my job is NOT to find a way to make a “bad person” good … it is to show THE WAY that a dead person can be alive.
I N T E N T I O N A L Marriage 
Andy Severance
March 13, 2011 at 10:40 pm
Good summation…..Shouldn’t’ our attitude be that of a beggar who has found food and want to show other beggars where to eat?
Todd Hope
March 14, 2011 at 9:21 am
Well put. And maybe the SBC was getting too big anyway. There’s got to be a balance in size of organizations so that they are still serving who they started out to serve, with closeness and intimacy, as they did in the beginning of their service. Anyone can see that most organizations that start to get too big, for whatever the reason(s), can easily loose sight of their constituents because they become self serving or indifferent or both.