[Mr. Scott Delamater]: There's a very fascinating story in Acts 10. You can turn over there. It's very instructive, and we'll start there today. Acts 10, we'll pick it up in verse 9. So, Peter is... here. It's about noon, midday, goes up on a roof of his house to pray and to get some time alone. And while he's up there, he falls into something of a trance, and he sees a vision. And it's a surprising vision. It's a little bit shocking to him. He doesn't quite understand what it means because even to us, it's a little bit shocking. Verse 11, it says,

Acts 10:11-16 – “He saw heaven opened and an object like a great sheet bound at the four corners descending to him and let down to the earth. In it were all kinds of four-footed animals of the earth, wild beasts, creeping things, and birds of the air, and a voice came to him, ‘Rise, Peter, kill and eat.’” You go "Ah, that sounds awful. I don't want to eat that stuff.” And that was his reaction. He said, “I don't want to eat that stuff.” And he says, “‘Not so, Lord, for I have never eaten anything common or unclean.’ And the voice spoke to him again the second time, ‘What God has cleansed, you must not call common.’ And this was done three times, and then the object was taken up into heaven.” So, here he has this vision that shocks him, and he doesn't quite know what to make of it. But perhaps you know the story. If you go back to the beginning of chapter 10 and verse 1,

Acts 10:1-2 – “There was a certain man in Caesarea called Cornelius, a centurion of what was called the Italian regiment.” Here's somebody who's not a Jew, he's not part of the in-crowd, he's not part of the community. He's somebody who's on the outside of the community. He's very different, and he's an occupier, he's a Roman. “A devout man,” though, it says in verse two, “and one who feared God with all his household, who gave alms generously to the people and prayed to God always.” So, we see that he feared God and loved God. Even though he was on the outside, he was very different. And so as you read through the story, you see that Cornelius, he had a vision, and was told to go find Peter and bring him there. And then Peter receives his vision, his shocking vision, and he goes and meets Cornelius, and he sees him. And while he's there, it becomes very apparent to Peter that God put His Spirit on these Gentiles, these foreigners, these other people that were not part of the community, they were not part of the crowd. And Peter begins to understand that the vision that he saw was about these people. It was not about food, it was about these people. And here he is being shown that these people who are very different, who are not what he expected are also included in God's plan, that He had a plan, God has a plan that includes all people. He sees God's Spirit given to them before they're baptized and then says, “Who can forbid water?” And so he baptizes them.

We see this throughout the Scripture, that God has a very inclusive plan for all people, for all kinds of people. He created all of us in His image, and His plan is for all of us, for all people to be included. Let's go over to Colossians 3. The Apostle Paul understood this and wrote often about it. Colossians 3:11. Here, he's writing to the Church in what is modern-day Turkey. And this group of people was from all over the place. There were Romans, there were Greeks, there were Jews that had come up from the south and Scythians that had come in from the north, and it was just this melting pot of people, all sorts of different people. And so Paul is writing to this group, and he tells them

Colossians 3:11 – “There is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcised nor uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave nor free, but Christ is all and in all.” He's breaking down all these big differences and saying, “These distinctions, they don't matter.” Expositor's Bible Commentary on this verse says, “The various groups mentioned reflect distinctions of national privilege, Greek or Jew, that's one type of distinction, legal or ceremonial standing, circumcised or uncircumcised, culture, which is Barbarian and Scythian. So, the former Barbarian denoting persons who did not speak Greek, that is foreigners, and the latter, the Scythians, were thought of as the lowest of the Barbarians and social caste, slave or free.” So, he's basically taking all of the distinctions that divided these people and saying, “These types of distinctions, they don't matter.” In Christ, in His church, those distinctions become irrelevant.

And later in Galatians, we won't turn over there, but if you look at Galatians 3:28, he even extends it to male and female. He says, “The distinctions between male and female, those become irrelevant in a spiritual context.” When we're looking at spiritual potential, those things become irrelevant. Male and female is the most fundamental even human differentiator. It's said that when you see a stranger on the street, the first thing that you identify about them is their gender. It's the first thing you'll see that you'll notice. So, it's the most basic fundamental difference between humans. And he says, “In Jesus Christ, those things become irrelevant.” The spiritual potential is equal. And I think that we understand that. I think, hopefully, in the Church of God, we understand that those big differences are not the things that need to separate us or divide us. These are large differences. And we easily identify big differences between us and other people. Some people, unfortunately, do allow those kinds of differences to get in between them and somebody else, block relationships, or even to affect their view of another person's spiritual potential. And then obviously, that's wrong. Expositor's continues and it says, “To the extent that Christians do permit these kinds of distinctions to be barriers, they're acting out of character.”

Those things, I think we know, that's out of character for a Christian. We don't do that. We saw that Jesus Christ didn't do that. He didn't have those sorts of prejudices because He understood that His plan and His purpose was coming to die for all people. Back in Acts 10, if you're still over there, Acts 10:34, Peter makes a pretty simple statement. When he realizes what's going on, he says

Acts 10:34 – “Peter opened his mouth and said, ‘In truth, I perceive that God shows no partiality.’” God shows no partiality because His plan includes everybody, includes all people. But here's my question for you, is it actually harder to accept people who are different than we are, or is that just surprising? I think sometimes that's just surprising. You find somebody that's very different from you in God's Church and you go, “Oh, that's interesting. God's working with that person. He's calling that person.” And then you can engage with that person to have conversations with that person. If you've ever been to an international Feast site, it's interesting to meet these people who are so different from you and yet are part of God's Church, that God has called, that's including in His plan that are so different somehow. But it's fun to engage, to talk, and just see here's all the things that make us different. What are your foods that you eat in this culture? What's your music like? And those things are rich and actually not necessarily even barriers. Sometimes those differences help us engage and interact with one another.

The big differences are sometimes surprising more than they are dividing. The harder thing, I think, and I think this has been proven through time, the harder thing is the small differences. And that's what I wanna talk about today. It's the small differences, the minor differences. Here's an exercise. Just a thought exercise that I want you to walk through, and maybe this has actually happened to you. Imagine a new person shows up at services, and you're just meeting this person for the first time and say, “Oh, where are you from?” “Oh, well, I'm new. I'm new here. I've never been here.” And you go, “Oh, great. Tell me more. How did you find us?” You're very excited. It's a new person. And they're coming in there. You're here to learn about the truth of God for the first time and that's exciting. I think all of us would be excited about that. You say, “Oh, how did you hear about us?” Now, you're thinking, “Maybe they saw one of the Beyond Today programs, or maybe they read our magazine, or they saw something on YouTube, or maybe there was another member that said something to them.” You're sort of racing like, “What was it? What connected you?” And they say, “Well, I've been attending this other church over here, and you know that other church.” You go, “Oh, okay. Okay.” You start getting a little judgy maybe, and they tell you, “Well, I've been attending over there for a little while, but then I stopped going for a while. And I didn't wanna go back there because I was afraid of what they might think of me and so I'm here.”

And now, you're thinking to yourself, “Wait a second, we're like plan B? We're your second choice? What are you talking about?” And now, how do you feel about this person that you had been so excited about at first and now you're thinking, “Wait a second, we're option two. We're like your alternate course, your conciliatory prize.” There's a phenomenon that many researchers have described in the last century that Sigmund Freud called the narcissism of minor differences. The narcissism of minor differences. He actually wrote about it in his book, “Civilization and Its Discontents.” He said, “I want to discuss the phenomenon that it is precisely communities with adjoining territories and related to each other in other ways as well who are engaged in constant feuds and in ridiculing each other, like the Spaniards and the Portuguese, for instance, the North Germans and South Germans, the English and the Scotch and so on.”

I think we can relate to this. We can understand how sometimes similarities, closely adjoining groups can butt heads a little more than just groups that are totally different. Others have studied the same idea in connection with the idea of horizontal hostility. It's a similar thing. Horizontal hostility was an idea that was originally used to describe infighting within the women's movement in the 1970s. In his book, “Originals,” Adam Grant describes a study that was done by Judith White at Dartmouth College. I want you to think about this in the context of the church, in the context of the church community as he explains this study that was done.

To explain why this kind of animosity happened, White led fascinating research on horizontal hostility in different movements and minority groups. In one study, vegans and vegetarians evaluated members of their own groups and one another's groups relative to members of the general public. And I guess you could probably imagine where that goes. Vegans showed nearly three times as much prejudice towards vegetarians, as vegetarians did toward vegans. In the eyes of the more extreme vegans, the mainstream vegetarians were wannabes. If they really cared about the cause, they wouldn't eat animal products like eggs. So, the vegans think the vegetarians are scum, and everybody else - they're all right. In another study in Greece, members of the most conservative party judged the most similar party more unfavorably than they did a progressive party. And members of the most liberal party were much harsher toward the progressive party than towards even the most conservative party. Orthodox Jews evaluated conservative Jewish women more negatively than Jewish women who didn't practice or observe religious holidays at all. The message was clear. If you were a true believer, you'd be all in. The more strongly you identify with an extreme group, the harder you seek to differentiate yourself from more moderate groups that threaten your values.

I think maybe if you've been alive for more than 10 years, you've probably experienced some of these things. You've probably witnessed and observed some of these things. These are familiar because this is human experience, this isn't new stuff. This is how humans have always interacted. Let's go over 1 Corinthians 1, because this isn't new in the Church either. 1 Corinthians 1:11. Here, Paul writes to Corinth. Again, Corinth was a very diverse city, people from all over the place, it was a coastal town, a lot of trade, a lot of people coming through, so very diverse city. 1 Corinthians 1:11,

1 Corinthians 1:11-12 – “For it has been declared to me concerning you, my brethren, by those of Chloe's household that there are contentions among you.” We say, “What? Contentions in the Church? Never.” “Now, I say this, that each of you says, ‘I am of Paul, or I am of Apollos, or I am of Cephas, or I am of Christ.’” This sort of narcissism of these small differences is horizontal hostility, this infighting. It happened then, it happens now. It's something that we see because it's just a human quality. And you can imagine these people breaking things down and saying, “Well, I really like Paul and he gave this really great sermon or wrote this really great letter. Everybody should read it.” And the Apollos people are thinking, “Oh, so and so is going to be blabbing about Paul's latest letter this week.” “But Paul's good with his letters.” “But Apollos can really speak. That's the guy that we want to learn from.”

And then, of course, there are the Christ people who are saying, “Well, all of you people in your little squabbles about things. We’re with Christ.” and naturally feeling a little more superior and more elevated. And there's all this weird infighting happening within the church about which person it is they follow. Interestingly, it could also be that... Because all of these people were from slightly different ethnic backgrounds, these could have been even people aligning under ethnic divisions within the church, and he's saying, “None of that.” Verse 13, “Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you, or were you baptized in the name of Paul?” He shoots them down and brings them down a little notch and says “None of you should be elevating yourselves because of these little kinds of differences.” He said Christ isn't divided, Christ is one body. It's interesting because we see these examples and we can observe that it's not the big differences. These were not big differences. Paul and Apollos and Cephas, Peter, and Christ, we're all teaching the same gospel. They're all teaching the same thing. So, it's not the big differences that they were aligning themselves under, they were picking through these little differences to try to make themselves different or better. It's not over the big differences, big meaning affecting salvation. It's these little differences, stupid things, little things that get turned into big things. I think maybe we've experienced some of that even lately where some little things, they blow up into these big issues and we say, “It's just a mask.”

This type of unity that Paul talks about, let's go back to verse 10. He says, “Now, I plead with you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ that you all speak the same thing, that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.” This is hard. That's hard stuff. That doesn't just happen. That wasn't just gonna happen because Paul said, “Hey, guys, let's all get along.” That's not what he was saying. He wasn't saying, “Let's all get along.” This is something that we have to labor. This is something that requires diligence, it requires stirring up God's Spirit, being sensitive to our human tendency to want to scrutinize and criticize when that's really not warranted or necessary. Again, this is not something new. This is not about masks. This is about just humanity. This is what we do is we have these little things that we'd like to pick out and divide over. And when one thing is gone and we've all put it behind us, then it's like, “Oh, let's find the next thing that we can all make ourselves different about and better and elevate ourselves about because that's human.” That's what human nature does.

So, what Paul is pleading with them here to do, “to speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you, that you'd be perfectly joined together in the same mind, that's one mind.” It's the mind of Jesus Christ that we have to be joined together in. And then the same judgment that we're using good judgment, judgment that comes from this book. Not from our own reasoning, not from our own mindset or our own need to feel important, but judgment that comes from the word of God. We have to work for that kind of unity. Our society compounds this tendency that we have to find the little differences and pick them apart. It compounds that with another problem. Compounds that with the aggravating effects of what we'll call individualism.

Individualism is something that is maybe a defining characteristic of our society in our culture in a way that it has never been in human history. Our society, in Western society, and especially in the United States, is so incredibly individualistic in ways that most societies have not been in the past. We pride ourselves on our individual rights and on our individual uniqueness and distinctions. And that's something that is part of our culture. And we take a certain pride in that, in being able to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps. That's a very American thing. But that individualism is unique in a way that it has not been present in most societies through time, through history. Most societies, through history, have been collectivist societies. The societies that are different.

There's a book called “Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes” that I'll quote from a little bit here by Richards and O'Brien. I know we use it in at least one of our booklets we quote from it. Fascinating book, by the way, for opening your eyes up a little bit to a different perspective when you study to maybe be able to understand Scripture from a slightly different point of view, from the point of view that it was written in. They describe societies this way. It says, “Here, the most important entity is the community,” in a collectivist society we're talking about. It says, “The most important entity is the community, the family, the tribe, or the country. Preserving the harmony of the community is everyone's primary goal. A person's identity comes not from distinguishing himself from the community, but knowing and faithfully fulfilling his place.” And we hear that in our American ears go, “Faithfully fulfilling your place in society? You communist? What's going on?” Because we're so individualistic. American society is so individualistic, that we hear that idea and we go, “Just know your role and find your place in society and do your job” feels very foreign to us, because it is. We aren't a collectivist society at all.

But in a collectivist society, that narcissism of small differences takes on a little bit of a different feel, Jew versus Gentile, Sunnis versus Shiites, Bengals versus Steelers. Those are collectivist groups. Sports is probably one of the best examples that we have of really collectivist thinking in our society because we have teams and it's like “Oh, you're a Bengals fan? Yeah. Okay, cool. We're good.” “Oh, you're a Steelers fan? Hmm. Sorry. Get out of here.” It's group versus group. Groups find the small differences that separate them and now we've got this group versus that group. It's still a problem. That narcissism of minor differences is still a problem in collectivist societies, but in individualistic societies, it aggravates it to the point that now we're dividing with individuals everywhere, and then we can't even be a body. We can't be a collective, and that's a problem in a church, where a church is God created to be a body, created to be a collective, a community. Continuing in “Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes.” It says, “The most important entity in an individualistic culture is the individual person. The person's identity comes by distinguishing himself or herself from the people around her. She is encouraged to avoid peer pressure and be an independent thinker. She will make her decisions regardless of what others think. She may defy her parents with her choice of a college major or career or a spouse. The highest goal in virtue in this sort of culture is being true to oneself. The supreme value is the sovereignty of the individual.” That sounds very comfortable to us in our society. That's how we think. That's what we value. We even teach people to value that. We teach people to value being able to avoid peer pressure and think independently. And there are some good things about that. And I'm not saying individualism is wrong or collectivism is right, but it's important to recognize the differences in our culture, and sometimes the negative things that come from those differences. We value this independent thought. “Think for yourself.” We value people who will go out and do whatever they want to do because they set their mind to it. And again, there's virtue in that, but there are some problems that can come with that, too, when we primarily value ourselves over our community, over our people. And I think in the church, we understand that.

In the book, the authors, they demonstrate our individualism in a very interesting way, in a way that fundamentally we take for granted and that is very instructive. So, it demonstrates how individualistic we are. They talk about our names. All of us generally have a tripartite name. We have three names, and that actually comes from the Roman system. The Romans had a tripartite name. We have a tripartite name. You get a first name, just generally the name that you go by, or you have a second name and nobody is really sure, but we have that name. We think it's mainly to make for interesting conversation at dinner parties. And then our third name is our family name. That's the name that associates us with our larger family group. That's our tripartite name: first, middle, last.

But the Romans, we borrow from their system, they had a tripartite name, but their system, their names were very different. That's not how their names were structured. They had a praenomen, a nomen, and a cognomen. That's what they called them. And they actually emphasized the family name and minimized the personal name. Often they would just use an initial for the personal name. So, we'll give you an example. Everybody knows who Julius Caesar was, probably. Julius Caesar, we go, “Ah, Julius Caesar.” Well, that's just two of the names. We say, “Oh, Julius Caesar. What was his middle name?” Julius was his middle name. His first name, his personal name, his nomen was Gaius. It was Gaius Julius Caesar. Gaius was his personal name. Julius was actually the larger family name. Caesar was the smaller family name. And so all the Juliuses were related, all the Caesars were related, but the Caesars are more closely related than the Juliuses. So, Julius was not his first name, Julius was the large tribe name. Caesar was the smaller family name. And then the personal name, Gaius, was kind of like... most of us probably didn't know that Gaius was even in there. It was just this thing on the side. That's what his close friends maybe would have called him, but Caesar was his name. That was the one that was emphasized.

In their society, the personal name is the one that was de-emphasized. And the family, the collective is the one that was emphasized. In our society, the name that is emphasized is the individual personal name. And then the family name is the one that's a little bit of a differentiator, and then the middle name is just there to make your signature look nice. So, it shows that there's a big difference between... and it's just one thing that demonstrates these differences between individual societies and collective societies. Collective societies are very much focused on the group, on the family. And I think maybe we understand that a little bit in the Church. We are used to thinking of this as our family, and we should. In an individualistic society, though, the minor differences, they become very small. They become borderline ridiculous, almost. In an individualistic society, we break things down into stuff that doesn't even matter. That's where these individual minor differences really get aggravated. There's an article called “The Narcissism of Minor Differences” by Brett and Kate McKay. It says, “Our egos fear those moments. When we look at the people all around us and catch a glimpse of this truth, the realization that while we're Apple fans and they're Windows people, we're really much the same and we aren’t very special after all. This phenomenon is particularly heightened in communities that share more in common than the general population. Take the Christian College, for example. Here, you'll invariably find those students who wanna make sure others know they're not like the conservative, hardline conformist Christians that walk around campus advocating for Pharisaical rules. They're not Christians at all, but Christ followers distinguished by their open-mindedness, subscription to relevant magazine, and skinny jeans.” Their words, not mine. Individualism drives us to find things to distinguish ourselves. That's what happens in an individualistic culture. It drives us to find these things that make us different, that make us unique because being unique is what's valued. Being a part of the collective is not necessarily what's valued. Being a part of the collective, you're just one of the sheep. And in our society, we use that term as a derogatory term. All those people, they're just sheep. We might look at other cultures, that other countries that operate in the more collectivist way and we say “Ah, those people are all just sheep.” And we use that as a derogatory term. This book doesn't use sheep as a derogatory term. So, we need to maybe adjust our thinking on that some granted. Sometimes the people that we look at and say, “Those people are sheep,” they're following shepherds that are not worth following. That's a problem. That is a real problem, but that sheep-like quality is something that the Bible actually places a lot of value on.

Bible says that being sheep-like, being part of a community following a shepherd, that's incredibly important. That's a part of our identity. That's a part of how we're supposed to operate as a church. And I think we do. I think we understand that a little bit, maybe a little better than most in an individualistic society will understand it. And I'll give you an example. If you've ever met somebody who is married, who had their marriage arranged for them, that sounds pretty foreign. But when you dig below the surface a little bit, it actually will get a little bit more familiar for you. I had the privilege of working with a few people from India who we had a great relationship, we talked about all these things, and you find out that those arranged marriages were there to ensure that the two people that came together were part of the same community, had the same values. They're often from the same village, the same town, the same area, they were within the same class or community. And if you think about what we teach in the Church, this makes sense. We understand that at least as a collective, as community people.

There were times when I was young. Before I was married, I'd be out with friends and I'd say, “Go talk to that girl.” I think, well, there's no reason for me to talk to that girl other than maybe is there some interesting conversation? That's not why they wanted me to talk to that girl, they wanted me to talk to that girl to see if it would go somewhere. And I'd say, “There's no point of me talking to that girl. It's never going to go anywhere, I'm not gonna marry that person.” And they say, “Why not?” “She's not part of my church,” I said. “Well, so?” I said, “Well, I don't think you understand how important that is to me.” We understand that. We understand that principle of being a part of this community is incredibly important. And the Church of God understands that maybe in a way that a lot of people in our society do not. But we're still influenced very heavily by our individualistic society. And our society's extreme individualism is often at odds with what the Bible teaches about the Church. Let's go over to John 17. John 17:20. Sometimes there can be this idea that “It's just me and Jesus. It's just me and God, and that's all right, that's all I really need. I've got that connection, and we're good. And that's it. And this is optional. I don't really need a church.” Some people have been burned by organized religion, as they call it, and they go, “Ah, I don't need a church. It's just me and God. It's just me and Jesus.” But that's not what Jesus wanted. John 17:20,

John 17:20-21 – “I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word.” And we've always taught that that means us, that means those who have come down the line through their teaching through the years. That means us. Verse 21, “That they all may be one, as you Father are in Me and I in You, that they may also may be one in Us.” Not one silo, not one individual here and there, that the group may be one body. The way that Jesus Christ says that He is one with His Father, that's the oneness that He's after. That's the community that He's after. But again, our way of thinking in our society sometimes puts us at odds with that to say, “Well, I really just need a relationship with God, just me and God,” and that's good. That's not enough. We're gonna fall apart if we're out there doing this on our own. We need each other, and that's why He gave us His Church. Let's go to 1 Corinthians 12. 1 Corinthians 12:24.

1 Corinthians 12:24 – “God composed the body...” Jumping in the middle of verse here, “God composed the body having given greater honor to that part which lacks it, that there should be no schism in the body, but that the members should have the same care for one another."

I think we maybe feel this a little more through this pandemic that we really are a body, we really need each other, we really need to care for one another. When we get to come back together as a community in this way that we have been now for a few weeks, it's so much more meaningful. We realize, “Ah, I needed this. I didn't want to be just as one-off alone in my house. I wanted to be together as part of a community.” And so we feel that. As as you feel that and sense that, remember that because at some point, theoretically, things will go back to some sort of normal, and we'll be on the verge of maybe taking this for granted again. But this is amazing that we get to be together. We need each other. Again, from “Misreading Scripture,” on this verse, it says, “If we're not careful, our individualistic assumptions about church can lead us to think of the Church as something like a health club. We're members because we believe in the mission statement, and we want to be part of the action. As long as the Church provides the services I want, I'll stick around. But when I no longer approve of the vision, or I'm no longer being fed, I'm out the door.” This is not biblical Christianity, they say. Scripture is clear that when we become Christians, we become a part of the Church.

And it's interesting they use some terminology here that feels like our terminology, feels like Church of God terminology. They say “we become a part of the family of God,” emphasis on family there, “with all the responsibilities and expectations that word connotes in the non-western world.” As part of the community, there's a familial expectation here. There's an expectation that when we come together, we are family. And they continue because as you might know about your family, you don't get to pick your family. It says, “We don't choose who else is a Christian with us, but we are committed to them, bound to them by the Spirit. And we are not free to dissociate our identities from them mainly because once we are all in Christ, our own individual identities are no longer of primary importance.”

It's not saying individual identities are not important, but individual identities are no longer of primary importance. Paul used the metaphor of a body to emphasize that all the parts belong to and depend on one another. That's what he's getting at. That's what he's saying. We're a family, you don't get to pick who else is here. There are times that we would love to. “Why is that guy here? Why is she here? God's calling that person? What? Why?” But God has brought those people into the family, and we can look at that and we can embrace that. We should embrace that the way that we should embrace our own physical families as people that we have obligations to and commitments to. That's the kind of body that God has put us in.

Ephesians 4, you don't have to turn over there. But Ephesians 4:11, Paul talks about “building each other up to the unity of the faith, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.” A single body, that's what He's called us to. That's what He wants us to be building each other up to, is to be one. The point is just this, our society's extreme individualism, it fuels our focus on minor differences in a very unChristian way. And I think we see that playing out in society right now, in politics right now. That sort of individualism, our enemies are even using to get in and divide us and tear us up. Within the Church even, we can mentally tear each other apart over silly things, over clothing, over diet, over child-rearing, over money, over how we keep certain commandments, any number of issues. And the Bible does have specific things to teach about all of those issues and principles that we all are learning. But we shouldn't use those things to differentiate ourselves, to elevate ourselves, or to degrade other people. I think because the key here and I think the important thing that we've got to always remember is that we are all learning. We're all learning how to live this way. All of us are coming to understanding about things as we live.

Let's go to 1 Corinthians 8. 1 Corinthians 8, there's a great example of this. Some people in Corinth were still learning. They were still learning about things. And so there were people who had differences about some little things, and Paul is gonna address some of that here. They were starting to have this schism about this meat being offered to idols and some people would eat it and some people wouldn't eat it. And so now, there's this little thing that's getting in there and starting to divide people up and separate people up. And he has some interesting observations here. In verse 7 chapter 8, he says,

1 Corinthians 8:1-13 – “However, there is not in everyone that knowledge.” He talks about the fact... Well, let's just go back. Verse 1, “Now, concerning things offered to idols, we all have knowledge. Knowledge puffs up, but love edifies. And if anyone thinks that he knows anything, he knows nothing, as yet he ought to know. But if anyone loves God, this one is known to Him. Therefore, concerning the eating of things offered to idols, we know that an idol is nothing in the world, and there is no other God but one. For even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth is there are many gods and many lords, yet for us, there is one God, the Father of whom are all things, and we for Him and one Lord Jesus Christ through whom are all things and through whom we live.” So he says, “Here's the basic fundamental understanding.” And Paul is teaching them here and saying, “There is one God. Idols are nothing.” And he's going to explain to them that meat sacrificed to idols is nothing. If it was being sold in the marketplace, you didn't have to say, “Oh, is this sold to an idol, or was it not?” But he says, “Not everybody understands this.” “Not everybody has this knowledge,” he continues. Verse 7. “However, there is not in everyone that knowledge, for some, with consciousness of the idol, until now eat it as a thing offered to an idol. And their conscience being weak, is defiled.” Here, were some people who were still learning. They had been a part of this idolatry. They had been very conscious of this idolatry that they had maybe participated in and now they were coming out of it. And they were learning. And they were coming along and starting to understand some things, but they still had a problem with meat that maybe had been offered to an idol. And so Paul teaches them here. He says, “Yeah. There's a difference here among you. Some people have knowledge of the fundamental fact that God is God, and some people are still learning.” Verse 8, he says, “But food does not commend us to God for neither if we eat, are we the better, nor if we do not eat, are we the worse.” They were still learning. And we need to recognize sometimes that we're still learning, that other people among us are still learning. Before we cast judgment or start picking apart over minor differences, we can recognize that we're all still learning here. And we need to give people room to grow and room to learn. I think generally, we do a pretty good job of that. Verse 9, “But beware less somehow this liberty of yours become a stumbling block to those who are weak. For if anyone sees you who have knowledge eating in an idol's temple will not the conscience of him who is weak be emboldened to eat those things offered to idols. And because of your knowledge shall the weak brother perish for whom Christ died.” He asked him, “Are you using your knowledge and your understanding? Are you using it recklessly to the parallel of somebody else, and in a way that's going to trip other people up?” Maybe there is something that you have learned that you understand that maybe somebody else doesn't understand yet. We need to give each other room to grow. And even more than that, if you look at what Paul encourages them to actually do, verse 12, “But when you thus sin against the brethren and wound their weak conscience, you sin against Christ.” He said, “If you use your knowledge, even if it's right knowledge, if you use it in a way that makes other people stumble, you've actually sinned against Christ.” And he sets an example for us here. “Therefore, if food makes my brother stumble, I will never again eat meat lest I make my brother stumble.” He says, “Take the learning that you have, that's a knowledge and understanding that you have, that's a liberty that you have, that's a freedom, a right that you have even.” He says, “Take that individual right, that individual freedom that you have and use it, but not as a way to make other people stumble.”

Sometimes don't exercise your right if it's in the interest of the other people. That's in a collective body in a group. That's how a society functions, that's how he encouraged the Church to function. If you read the rest of chapter 8 and chapter 9, you'll see Paul sets a fantastic example. He asserts himself, he asserts his rights in ways that sound very American. “Do I not have the right to do this? Am I not free? Could I not do these things?” He says. But he actually takes his individualism and his rights, and he puts them aside. He says he has not used his rights. He “endures all things, lest we hinder the gospel of Christ,” he says. We want to make sure that we are using the things that we learn as a way to advance the gospel of Christ, not to hinder it, that our example is not one that's going to put other people down, push other people aside, divide other people, especially divide up the Church, but as something that can be used to unify, to bring people together, to advance the gospel of Jesus Christ. Brett and Kate McKay in their article on “The Narcissism of Minor Differences,” they sum this up very nicely. They sum up our human nature in a way that's a little bit stinging. “Humans are naturally drawn to conflict and latching on to minor differences to bolster our sense of self is really just a submerged form of aggression and hostility.” It's pretty rough when you think about what they're saying.

Our desire to distinguish ourselves from other people, to elevate ourselves above other people over these trivial things it's a submerged form of aggression and hostility. “Standing out is essentially a competition for status, one that allows us to feel distinct and superior to others.” But let's not let our cultural individualism drive us apart. We recognize it in the Church, we are one body. Let's go to 2 Corinthians 10. We'll close up there. It's not really appropriate to try to define God's family exclusively as collectivist society or as an individualistic society. It's not an either-or thing. If you go through and you study the Bible, you'll find both aspects. You'll find that often it's treated as a collective, but there are also times that we are addressed and treated as individuals. We need to see that, to recognize that it's both. But in our society, the individual aspect is so heavily emphasized that we can lose sight of the collective. We can lose the fact that we are a body. We need to be aware of the effects of individualism on our view of God's Church and our human tendency to want to differentiate ourselves over trivial things because God has drawn us all together. God wants us to run this race together. The more that we internalize that, than we fight our tendency to focus on petty differences and we focus instead on our common faith, the stronger we're all going to be. We should be able to hear Paul's words to be able to see each other in this way that he describes. 2 Corinthians 10:7, he says,

2 Corinthians 10:7 – “Look at what is before your eyes.” Look at each other. “If you are confident that you belong to Christ, remind yourself of this: that just as you belong to Christ, so also do we.”