By William Hale, The Pastor of Saint Paul AME Church - Richmond, Kentucky
October 9th, 2008
Testing Scripture Links:
Micah 6:8
Luke 8
Romans 13:8
This is an ongoing test, which I’ll leave active over the weekend to "tweak" it… thanks for your patience.
The opinions expressed by the participants/bloggers of the Richmond Area Ministerial Association ("RAMA") are theirs alone, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of RAMA or any of the other participating members/clergy/churches/congregations, thereof. RAMA is not responsible for the accuracy of any of the information supplied by the authors and all contents published in this blog are the intellectual property of the specific author and should not be reproduced or copied without permission and/or without giving credit. See our Disclaimer for further information.
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By Andy Rutrough, The Pastor of St. Thomas Lutheran Church - Richmond, Kentucky
October 4th, 2008
Very often, people ask me why we have so many different churches when we worship the same Christ.
Some of the answer has to do with the fact that human beings in general have a tendency toward divisiveness, aggression and selfishness. Sorry to disappoint you, folks, but being a Christian does not cure us of this. You know the old truth that Christians aren’t perfect. They’re just forgiven.
Ultimately, this is the only real response we have to the fact that we are divided: to serve Christ together with the best of our integrity and ask God’s forgiveness for the rest.
That being said, I think it would be a mistake to try to make all Christian congregations the same. There’s a difference between unity and uniformity. Uniformity is where everybody thinks the same. Madeline L’Engel in her Christian science fiction classic A Wrinkle in Time, describes a world which is thoroughly ruled by demonic forces. In it, everybody thinks the same, looks the same, does the same. God doesn’t want that.
The New Testament, on the other hand, presents many different pictures of the same Christ. In the letters of Paul, Jesus is the one who takes on the consequences of our sin. In the Gospel of Mark, Jesus heals the world by dying for it. In Matthew, Jesus is the fulfillment of Moses’ law. In Luke, Jesus is the bringer of compassion and good news for the poor. The list goes on and on.
Scripture presents many different aspects of the same truth. Sometimes I think that when we’re at our best, the churches nowadays do the same. We may disagree on important questions about how we are saved, how we should live, how we should worship. We may emphasize different New Testament presentations of Jesus himself, and so disagree about him. But the foundation of Truth is not what we say about Truth. The foundation of Truth is a person, alive, and present with us now. That person’s name is Jesus, and Jesus is the one who makes us Christian.
Actually, we are unified, because true unity doesn’t come from agreement. It comes from community—in this case, community with Jesus.
So it’s about him, not us.
The opinions expressed by the participants/bloggers of the Richmond Area Ministerial Association ("RAMA") are theirs alone, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of RAMA or any of the other participating members/clergy/churches/congregations, thereof. RAMA is not responsible for the accuracy of any of the information supplied by the authors and all contents published in this blog are the intellectual property of the specific author and should not be reproduced or copied without permission and/or without giving credit. See our Disclaimer for further information.
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By William Hale, The Pastor of Saint Paul AME Church - Richmond, Kentucky
October 3rd, 2008
Welcome to “CanWeTalkAboutThis.Org”, the Blog for the Richmond (Kentucky) Area Ministerial Association… RAMA [www.ramaky.org]! We’re just getting started, but soon the members of our fellowship will be posting articles and topics that relate to Christian issues, unity and our Great Commission. I hope you’ll be a regular “reader” of our Blog as we seek to bring the Church together in relational unity… With God’s Help!!!
The opinions expressed by the participants/bloggers of the Richmond Area Ministerial Association ("RAMA") are theirs alone, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of RAMA or any of the other participating members/clergy/churches/congregations, thereof. RAMA is not responsible for the accuracy of any of the information supplied by the authors and all contents published in this blog are the intellectual property of the specific author and should not be reproduced or copied without permission and/or without giving credit. See our Disclaimer for further information.
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