Thought for Today
Genesis 10:25 To Eber were born two sons: the name of the one was Peleg, for in his days the earth was divided, and his brother's name was Joktan.
Genesis 25:23 And the Lord said to her, "Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples born of you shall be divided; the one shall be stronger than the other, the elder shall serve the younger."
Mark 3:24 If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. 25 And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand.
1 Corinthians 1:13 Has Christ been divided?
When I was a young boy in elementary school, people still learned multiplication by memorizing the ‘times tables.’ Like many, my parents bought flash cards with the problems on one side and the answers on the other. I remember sitting at the table after supper while my mom cleaned the dishes and her drilling me on multiplication. I also remember my older brother taunting me by telling me, “Multiplying is easy, wait ‘till you have to learn division.” I remember how surprised I was to learn that division is merely multiplying in reverse.
That childhood taunt is much on my mind right now. Many elements of our society are rife with division. Our churches are divided over many of the social questions of today. Between denominations and within denominations, honest, true Christians are divided over issues like gender identity, abortion, even over the purpose of our religion. We struggle to understand these issues in terms of Jesus’ commands to us to love God and to love each other.
Our college campuses are divided today over the war in Gaza. We read and hear about demonstrations and counterdemonstrations, tent encampments and the efforts to remove them. Students are demanding their ‘right’ to determine how the universities invest their endowments. Professors are defending what some see as hate-speech as merely being our right to free speech.
For several decades, our elected officials in Washington, D.C. have been almost evenly divided over each and every issue that arises. Party leadership works diligently to ‘hold the line’ and keep members voting along strict party lines, eschewing all efforts to find consensus and move ahead. Given the very divergent views of what each party considers best for our country, maybe that division is not such a bad idea. That particular division and the gridlock it produces provide a winnowing of some of the idiocy debated in both houses of Congress.
As a Christian, I cannot help but wonder what Jesus would make of all this division. Would it not be more efficacious in advancing the Kingdom of God to multiply our efforts on its behalf together rather than dividing them? Pooling our resources of time and wealth would certainly multiply their application to solving food insecurity, housing insecurity, mental health and the plethora of suffering and woe we see all around us. In this sense, multiplication is both easier and better than division.
But, such multiplication is only easier when we can agree on which side is correct, which way of advancing the Kingdom of God is the ‘right’ way. The test Christians are called to use involves reading the Bible and listening for the direction of the Holy Spirit. Regrettably, true, honest Christians are doing just that and still arriving at different answers to the question of what is right.
The apostle Paul wrote 2 letters to a divided congregation in Corinth. That nascent church was divided over a host of issues. The verse above was addressed to an issue of leadership and teachings. But, the question remains valid even today, “Has Christ been divided?” Maybe, today, at home, at church and in the voting booths, we need to remember the basics, “Luke 10:27 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself." “John 13:34 I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.”
1 Corinthians 13:13 And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.”
Stay safe, love one another, trust God,
Pastor Ray