“Therefore receive one another, just as Christ also received us, to the glory of God.”
In Romans 14-15, Paul deals with the differences that prevailed among the people who comprised the church in Rome. There was an odd assortment of people who came together to make up that church. There were Jews who had been converted to the Christian faith. There were out and out pagans who had been converted. Given the differences in paganism and Judaism, we can only imagine the difficulties that the church in Rome had. The differences there were even more complicated than the differences in paganism and Judaism. In Romans 14, Paul deals with the problem of eating meat that had been sacrificed to idols and put up for sale in the meat market. Suffice it to say, there were myriad problems in the Roman church, centered in the ultimate cosmopolitan city of that day, and made up of people from all sorts of backgrounds. Paul had a simple solution for dealing with those problems: “Therefore receive one another, just as Christ also received us, to the glory of God.” The solution is found in these words, “just as Christ received us…” This was the solution to the problem of differences in backgrounds for the Roman church and for us. What does it mean? It means that we are to receive one another just as Christ received us – just as we were. Unless you are from Mars, you have heard, and probably sung, the hymn “Just as I Am.” The meaning of the hymn is that we come to Christ just as we are in order for Him to make us into what He wants us to be. As it was with the people in Rome, we come from different backgrounds into one church and we have to deal with those differences. Some were raised in the church and it has been the center of their lives all of their lives. Some have come to the church from, for lack of a better word, pagan backgrounds, and the church has had no bearing in their lives until they received Christ. The point is that when each of the church members were saved, they were saved just as they were. They were all sinners who appealed to God’s grace through faith in Christ to be saved. Just as Christ received us just as we are, we are to receive one another. There are probably people in your church with whom you are having difficulties. Probably one of the reasons for the difficulties is differences in backgrounds and outlooks on life. These differences can lead to a lot of complications in church life. For example, today one of the difficulties between Christians, particularly between younger and older members, is the kind of music that is used in worship. I grew up on “Holy, Holy, Holy,” for example, and I really love that old hymn. It has meant a lot to me and has taught me about the holiness of God over the years. However, there are others who have come into the church who are not at all familiar with the old hymns. We just need to remember that Christ received us all by faith in Him, regardless of what kind of music we prefer. We just need to rejoice that we all have Christ in common, who received us just as we were and who loves us all the same. Here is the bottom line on the subject of dealing with differences among church members – “to the glory of God.” The point is that all that we do as a church is to bring glory to God. Christ brought us all together in one church to bring glory to Him, not to ourselves, our forms of worship, or any other peripheral thing that we prefer. What is important is that through all that we do in church, all that we do in our daily lives and in our dealings with the world, that we seek to bring glory to Christ. Our differences are not more important than Christ’s glory. Therefore, we need to ask ourselves if we are bringing glory to Christ in our individual lives or in the life of our churches. If we are not, then we need to change the way we live and the way we deal with our differences. Incidentally, this means “you” and not just “them.” Just Saying! Bro. Joe
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AuthorDr. Joe Beauchamp is the author of this blog and website. Categories
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