"Behold how they love one another..." 1

Brace yourselves. This is a long-winded "Tirade in Four Parts". Sounds like a Sonata. A potpourrie of questions and pondering.

I thought this was a passage from Acts. It was Tertullian, not Acts.

A few weeks ago I was thinking about love and hate - not the love where anything goes but the love where we lay down our lives for someone. If I'm luke warm I don't hate, but I probably don't love much, either. Passionate people know how to love and they know how to hate. Scripture says there's a time for love and a time for hate.

The mark of the early church was that they loved one another. Even the heathen noticed. It's scripture. It's history. Christ called the Church to love one another. Christ Jesus, God Himself, prayed for that. I'd venture that even the heart of the Law is more about how you treat God and other people than it is about keeping rules for the sake of keeping rules. But it's a tough lesson. Even after giving us all those laws, God still had to send His son to teach us how to love.

You try to find ways to love people or minister to different needs (probably needs that aren't already being met). Maybe you provide Sunday School. Maybe you include kids in adult worship. Maybe you look for middle ground.

Inevitably when creative believers try to do something new (probably because the old way isn't working) people polarize:
"This is right."
"This is wrong and this is why."
"Don't change that!"
"How can you possibly not change that?"

And the church divides.

Do we grow when we divide or do we die?