We are… a family
This year I am exploring a few of the things the bible teaches about our identity – not my identity – but ours collectively as we think about our new identity in Christ.
Family is an important marker of identity in our society. I was once introduced to someone in church who seemed to recognise me and yet couldn’t place me… so she asked “who do you belong to?” as in who are you related to or married to… my knee jerk reaction was “I don’t belong to anyone… it’s just me!” which is sometimes how I and others can feel in church… but that is SO FAR from the truth of what the bible teaches… I belong to Christ first and foremost, I am His daughter, His Child, but I am also your sister…
Eph 2:19 says “So now you Gentiles are no longer strangers and foreigners. You are citizens along with all of God's holy people. You are members of God's family.” NLT
I have surrounding me every Sunday a vast number of brothers and sisters – older younger, some like fathers, mothers, aunts and uncles, others more like nieces and nephews. So how should I view and relate to the church congregation?
1 Tim 5:1 says “Do not rebuke an older man but encourage him as you would a father, younger men as brothers, 2 older women as mothers, younger women as sisters, in all purity.”
This way of seeing and interacting can have an enormous impact in people’s lives… for example, I recently read a fantastic book written by a church pastor who struggles with same sex attraction. He writes of some of the challenges he faces in choosing to live in obedience to the bible’s teaching on sex and marriage. His experience has been that when the church has chosen to just define family in biological terms this has increased the pain in his own life as he will never be able to marry and have children. However, thankfully he has also experienced church being family for one another, being a caring community, getting beyond the superficial and inviting him to share life with them and this has been an enormous help to him and to others. It was so striking to be reminded that our spiritual family are to be for us all a place where we can belong, share real life, carry burdens, speak truth, and where we can know intimacy and love. There are so many among us who do not or can not have their own families… whether because they have never met someone or because they have lost someone, whether they are far from their own families or their families are far from the Lord, and there are many who despite having a family close at hand, the pressures and stresses of this life are too much and they need the love and support of others around them. We are called to be family for one another. We have been gifted with one another as part of God’s incredible gift of salvation. Let’s rejoice in who we are and reach out to others in light of them being our brothers and sisters in the Lord.
To read Ed Shaw’s book “the Plausibility Problem; The Church and Same Sex Attraction” – one of the best I’ve read in a while chick here
To hear Ed Shaw in person – he is speaking at the Solas Conference this Saturday at Charlotte Chapel!! Click here for more information
