Build Each Other Up

As Christians, it is our responsibility to build each other up. There tends to be a major problem about this today. A lot of “Christians” work more on tearing each other down rather than building them up. This disrupts the community and can divide the church. As a Christian, it is our responsibility to reach out to our brethren when they have need and when they are hurting or even sinning. However, many of our brethren gossip about the problems of their brothers and sisters in the congregation instead of helping them. I am not saying all of us are like that, but some are. The church needs to be a community where we all feel safe, not threatened. As you said, “It is our duty to "love one another" as Jesus ordered us.”

For this is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another. Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own actions were evil and his brother’s were righteous. Do not be surprised, my brothers and sisters, if the world hates you. We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love each other. Anyone who does not love remains in death. Anyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life residing in him.

This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.

~ 1 John 3:11-16

"A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

~ John 13:34-35

Modern Souls

I agree with Tippens on many points in the first part of his book. I have seen many of the “modern souls” in this world that are disconnected from their families, churches, and society. In the technologically based world that we live in, this is so easy for many of us to do. We work on sending emails to family members that live far away and friends that we no longer see that we forget there happens to be a world around us that we have disconnected ourselves from. I do not think it is a bad thing to stay connected to people that were close to us, but we need to also reconnect with the world around us. I like the idea of traveling in community, because this is how Jesus traveled. The further Jesus traveled, the larger his community got. This is because he did not go at it alone, and Jesus calls us to a communal way of life.

Like Tippens, I grew up in a church where the body was looked at as separate from spirit, we focused more on the afterlife than the present. My pastor was a fire and brimstone pastor that never preached a sermon that would make a Christian feel good about himself. We were told every Sunday that because we did not look at our bodies as a mere temple, then we were flawed and sinful. Never once did the pastor preach how we could use our bodies to help others, or how valuable our bodies were. Perhaps this is one reason why I had left that church. It seemed no matter what I did, it was, in that church, a sin and it was wrong, even if I was trying to be a good Christian. I think I have, since, gained a great deal of clarity on Christianity, and I am still learning.

All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had. With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And God’s grace was so powerfully at work in them all that there were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned land or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone who had need. ~ Acts 4:32-35

If any of your fellow Israelites become poor and are unable to support themselves among you, help them as you would a foreigner and stranger, so they can continue to live among you. Do not take interest or any profit from them, but fear your God, so that they may continue to live among you. You must not lend them money at interest or sell them food at a profit. I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt to give you the land of Canaan and to be your God. ~ Leviticus 25:35-48

Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies. ~ 1 Corinthians 6:19-20

Religious Addiction

There is such a thing as religious addiction. Some people can get so wrapped up in religion and trying to be so absolutely perfect that they loose sight of the true meaning of Christianity. If we are so focused in being the sight of perfection that we can never attain due to our humanity, then we can loose sight of the community that we have been called to be a part of. Tippens often refers to the dangers of Gnosticism; he tells us that we cannot do everything on our own. Tippens goes on to explain that a communal way of life will be “a long, sometimes bumpy, circuitous, and risky adventure.” He explains by the use of the African proverb that we will get further if we live in a more communal way of life. Christianity requires the unity of people in order to be effective.

Many Christians are disconnected from the world around them. I have a perfect example of this. One of my neighbors a few years ago came over to my home. He told me that because I did not attend his church, I have "built a stronghold around" my family; and on Judgment Day, we would "all be left behind." I told him that I did not attend his church, because I had been there and I did not take kindly to the hypocrisy in his church. Needless to say we were not welcomed kindly in the church, and I never felt so uncomfortable in my life. This man had a twelve-foot cinderblock fence around his entire yard. Not only was his church disconnected from Christ’s message of community, but he had also literally disconnected his family from the world around him.