Monday; September 25

I am not going to get into the politics of sports (or is that sports in politics), but one thing that I have found discouraging is how entertainment has become a way to divide us.  Sports teams are intended to bring communities together, but with all the distractions in recent months it seems like these peripheral issues have called upon neighbors to choose up sides. 
I would like to think that this social phenomena is something new, but I find it interesting that there is a parallel in another aspect of our lives – religion.  From the beginning of time religion was supposed to promote unity.  The foundational principle of Christianity has always been love (which promotes unity); yet, due to humans with self-serving agendas, they have taken something designed to bring us together and made it into something that has been used to tear us apart.  One of the classic examples of how dangerous this can be is what happened in the 1st Century community of Corinth.  There was a divisive spirit in the church that called upon people to choose up sides.  There were people who didn’t get along and didn’t care so when the Apostle Paul wrote to the church he called them out!  He not only derided their disunity, he also went back to the basics of teaching them how they should behave themselves in the church, in their families and in the community.  As the church leader summed up the need to love one other he drove the point home by writing, “But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love.” (I Corinthians 13:13)
What are we allowing to divide us?  Is it worth the price we will eventually be called upon to pay?
          Think About It!

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