Can’t We Sometimes Disagree?

In Katherine Grieb’s The Story of Romans, she offers an interesting answer to a very interesting question posed by Steve Mosher, a contemporary Christian missionary. Here’s Mosher’s question: “Why would a busy missionary like Paul write a long letter like Romans?” (Grieb, page 14)

For those who have spent time in the world of cross-cultural ministry, that question makes a lot of sense! It makes me think about where in the world he would have found the time.

Grieb has a list of eight reasons in answer to that question. All of them are interesting, but one in particular caught my attention. “Paul wrote to urge the Roman Christians to quit fighting over nonessential matters and live together as a unity with diversity.” (page 15) That sounds like the kind of reasoning that was floating around the consciousness of people like Thomas Campbell when he wrote The Declaration and Address. A more modern example might be Scot McKnight’s A Fellowship of Differents: Show the World God’s Design for Life Together. Then there is Bonhoeffer’s Life Together, never a bad hour-or-so read.

For the immediate readers of Romans, that most likely meant that Jewish and Gentile Christians needed to get beyond the cultural frustrations of worshipping and serving God together and get with the task to which God had called them. That obviously isn’t so much an issue for us, but we certainly know that often the church in our world seems distracted by “fighting over nonessential matters” to the point that it is difficult to “live together as a unity with diversity.”

It is truly amazing to think about how unimportant so many issues actually are when looked at through the essential message of the Christian gospel. So much of what we find ourselves frustrated about sounds so silly when we stop to think more seriously about who Jesus is, what He came to do, and what He has called upon the church, His body, to do in this world.

Obviously, there are things that are important to us, things that matter greatly in the context of our own lives and our own preferences. And that is fine – as long as we discover a way to not make such matters more than they should be.

I’m wondering today that if we are really serious about this whole idea of the oneness of the body of Christ, and if Katherine Grieb is correct in pointing to the reasons Paul actually wrote Romans – then what would happen if we read and studied Romans more, instead of less?

After all, it is in Romans 15:7 where Paul reminds us, “Welcome one another, therefore, just as Christ as welcomed you, for the glory of God.” (NRSV) I’m fairly confident that in welcoming me, Christ has accepted one who isn’t always what He wants. How could I be less to others?

My older daughter and I are at the beach this week. We got up very early to walk one morning – the heat on the Florida panhandle and Gulf Coast is pretty intense. We were talking about an issue that is currently dividing believers in disappointing ways. As we turned off the walking path toward the beach house we are renting, she said, “And whatever happened to that ‘in essentials unity’ stuff?”

Good question. We ought to think more about that.

Photo by Sarah Huxford