Interactive Gospel
- Work as a Family -
by Paul Hazelden
1. Summary
We believe Jesus wants His followers to
work together as a family.
Jesus did many things that were almost unthinkable to the
people of His day. He touched lepers, treated women
as equals, and praised Romans. But possibly the most
unthinkable thing was to talk about God, the almighty creator of
the universe, as His Father.
This was the core of His belief, the conviction that powered
His life. He knew that God, His Heavenly Father,
loved Him, and He taught how His followers could also know that
they, too, were loved and accepted as His children.
So, at the centre of His teaching and ministry, Jesus was
creating a family. He was not setting up an
organisation, but establishing a family, a group of people who
are bound together because they are all brothers and sisters,
all children of the same Father.
It is the nature of families to argue and fight, but these
disagreements do not mean you are no longer part of the same
family. Sometimes one part of the family is so hurt
by another part they refuse even to talk. Sadly,
this has happened too in God's family. But none of
the arguments between those who follow Jesus can affect the
basic reality - we are all one family, and our Father commands
us to love one another, no matter how hard this may seem.
There is plenty of work left for Jesus' followers to do - we
are commanded to take the good news of our Father's love to the
people in every nation. We are to pray and work for
our Father's Kingdom to be established on the Earth.
But He wants us to do all this together - helping each
other, as members of a family should. Neither Jesus
not the people who came after Him expected us to be able to do
it any other way.
A Kingdom of love can only be built by people who are prepared
to love, no matter what. That is what being part of
God's family is all about.
- I'll go along with that
- Please explain further
- I object to what you've said
- What are the alternatives?
Back...
2. Further Details
There are many Christian jokes. One of the standard ones is
a description of Heaven: a newcomer is shown around and
finds the Quakers not talking, the Pentecostals shouting to their
hearts' content, and so on... a variety of denominations, all
with their distinctive ways. And finally, they come to a high
wall, and hear people singing songs behind it. "Who is behind the
wall?" they ask, and are told, "That's the ..." [insert the
denomination of your choice] "- they think they are the only ones
here."
Of course, in Heaven we will not be able to avoid the reality
of sharing eternity with all the saved, from all of history.
More importantly, down here on Earth, while the denominations
have largely failed to recognise and work together (at least,
until recently), individual Christians have often managed to
get together and work on all kinds on useful tasks. Once we stop
arguing about theology, Christians have an excellent track record
in working together and functioning as the single family we
believe ourselves to be.
Back...
3. Objections
What about all those Christian cults we
hear about?
The idea that Christians are called to work together as a
family is so deeply fixed that it makes an excellent test for
deciding who are the Christians and who are the
pseudo-Christian cults.
With all the different groups and denominations, it is hard for
the outsider to work out what is going on in the Christian Church,
or even who is really part of the Church. After all, they all
seem to disagree with each other about so much.
So the simple test is this: if the group recognises the
members of the other traditional Christian denominations as being
fellow Christians - members of the same family - then they are
themselves part of the Christian family. If they don't, then they
are not.
So, for example, my Catholic friends recognise that I am
a Christian and a fellow believer, even if I am sadly separated
from the 'one true church'. But members of the Church of the
Latter Day Saints - Mormons - do not recognise me as a fellow
believer: as far as they are concerned, I need to join their
group in order to be saved. So Catholics form a part of the
wider Christian family, while Mormons do not.
Back...
4. Alternatives
The alternative, to be frank, is what most of the Christian
Church has been doing for most of the last two thousand years:
not working together as a family.
But, as I point out above, not acting as a family does not
mean that we are not a family.
Back...