1Cor 1:10 I appeal to you, dear brothers and sisters, by the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ, to live in harmony with each other. Let there be no divisions in the church. Rather, be of one mind, united in thought and purpose.
From interpreting verses in the Bible, to enacting legislation that is “constitutional” or trying to figure out how NOT to get cited for violating Foster Care Standards, I keep running in to the same problem: The writers of these long ago/old/obscure documents are not around to check in with. They also sucked at contingency planning.
Unlike interpreting the constitution (Hey T.J! Can you elaborate on that whole separation of church and state thing a little more?) at work, we have our very own licensing representative. We can call her, anytime, Monday thru Friday from 9am to 5pm and clarify what she thinks the licensing standards meant to say. This may or may not be how the licensing investigator understands the standards, in which case we have a misunderstanding. We get cited, though the severity and degree of this citation is also subjective. Clear as mud. Let’s use an example:
Let's say the rule is no eating chocolate cake*. Ok….but what about vanilla cake? Or brownies? Or lemon cake with chocolate icing?? Several different camps spring up. One group says it’s ok to eat cake just as long as it’s not chocolate. Therefore, cheesecake, pound cake, and pineapple upside down cake are all fair game. Another group says that it's ok to eat chocolate cuz eating cake is really the problem- so lets just stick with cookies, doughnuts, and maybe the occasional brownie. Another group might take this a bit furthur and infer that the rule prohibites chocolate in cakes, so it would be best to stay away from chocolate all together. They use only vanilla: Vanilla ice cream, vanilla shakes, vanilla-chip cookies.
This kind of thing happens in churches all the time. It's a way for Satan to distract us from our real mission. As various groups pick and choose what parts of the Bible to emphasize (cuz let’s face it, it’s too long to emphasize the whole thing!) we lose sight of what our purpose really is. I read a really great article on this and if I could find it again I’d post the link right here:
The point is we all sin & fall short of the glory of God (Rom 3:23) It's just soooo much easier to identify the ONE thing we're NOT doing, find a group of people who are, and pick on them. This makes non-Christians want to run away screaming when you talk to them about Jesus. They think we're just trying to recruit more people to pick on those other folks who have already been picked on enough. So let's recap. Jesus summed up Christianity like this:
Rule #1 Love God
Rule #2 Love His kids (That means ALL of them!)
Rule #3 Nuff said- see above
*this is not really a rule- I was making it up to get my point across.
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