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whoever is not against us is for us

kevinhaglund Leave a comment

Continuing my reading through Mark, I came across a passage that I have heard before, but it reads differently now that I am a church planter. Specifically, it relates to choosing whom our new church will affiliate with.

I don’t have to tell anyone that Christendom is splintered into groups, sub-groups, sub-sub-groups, and so on. We divide over some pretty important issues and some, well, just plain ridiculous.

In Mark 9:38-41, the disciples come to Jesus and tell him about a man who was driving out demons in His name, so they told him to stop “because he was not one of us.” Jesus replied, “Do not stop him. No one who does a miracle in my name can in the next moment say anything bad about me, for whoever is not against us is for us.”

So, the next time I feel the desire to be critical about another group who is operating in the name of Jesus (whether they be, in my judgment, more conservative or more liberal than myself), I need to remember Jesus’ instructions. “Whoever is not against us is for us.”

in the world.. not of

kevinhaglund Leave a comment

Our small group has been going through a curriculum written by Ed Stetzer called “Sent.” It is a call for Christians to return to the missional lifestyle and being in the world, but not of the world.

In I Corinthians 5:9-11, Paul writes:

“I have written you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people—not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this world. But now I am writing you that you must not associate with anyone who calls himself a brother but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or a slanderer, a drunkard or a swindler. With such a man do not even eat.”

Paul is saying that we are supposed to hang out with sexually immoral, greedy, swindlers and idolaters–as long as they are non-believers. We are not even supposed to eat with people who claim to be believers in Jesus but who are sexually immoral, greedy, swindlers and greedy.

This is a switch for most Christians. We tend to separate ourselves from the non-believing “sinners,” but end up tolerating Christians with those same behaviors. The call to embrace a missional lifestyle means taking this passage seriously and building relationships with messy people while confronting Christians who are choosing improper lifestyles. That is the challenge we are embracing moving forward in starting browns mill church.