Focus: Avoid Mixups

Text: 1Cor.10:32

"Give none offence, neither to the JEWS, nor to the GENTILES, nor to the CHURCH of God."

Paul charges us to make the glory of God the goal of all we do as Christians. We live for God's glory. Glorifying God is paramount in everything we set out to do as God's people in the earth, and truly nothing else is as important as that.

Paul then goes on to mention three groups of people that we should do nothing to offend, namely, the Jews, the Gentiles, and the Church of God. These three groups cannot be lumped together. They do not mix. Israel and the Gentiles are different from the entity or body called the church.

The church is made up of people from all races, Jews and Gentiles included. They are redeemed men and women from every ethnic group in the world. So the church is neither a racial nor a cultural group of people. In the church, the issues of culture, class, color, ethnicity, sex, and language are practically de-emphasized. Christ alone is the center and circumference of our faith and all it entails. Christ is our focal point and our allegiance is to Him alone. The early church experienced a big crisis of a radical kind, according to Luke in Acts 6, and the Apostles did something immediately to arrest the situation and nipped it in the board. The church as a body does not play the world's politics. The church does not take sides with any nation. Our sole interest and mission is to see souls saved by the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ. We do not carry arms to fight like the nations do against each other. No! Not at all! We only fight spiritual battles by spiritual means. Our weapons are not carnal. We don't use human methods, nor engage in physical war of words. We go on our knees and call on our God. We do not join one nation to fight against another nation. We are in the world, but certainly not of the world. We do not pray for one nation against another. We pray for all nations for global peace.

God says, "For mine house shall be called an house of prayer for ALL PEOPLE" (Isa.56:7). Our Lord Jesus Christ says, "Is it not written, My house shall be called of ALL NATIONS the house of prayer?"(Mk.11:17). Concerning our mission mandate, Christ says, "Go ye therefore, and teach ALL NATIONS… And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among ALL NATIONS, beginning at Jerusalem" (Mt.28:19; Lk.24:47). In Act.1:8, the Lord Jesus Christ says, "Ye shall be witnesses unto me both in JERUSALEM, and in all JUDAEA, and in SAMARIA, and unto the UTTERMOST PART OF THE EARTH." The world is the church's parish.

The church is a unique entity in the world. Christ, the Head of the church, is from Israel, and the church, which is the body of Christ, is from all the Gentile world, and also from Israel. Even when we consider the earthly roots of Christ, we find Gentile blood in His veins, especially, Rahab and Ruth. Isn't that amazing? Both Christ and His church are for all men.

The church is not Israel, nor is it Gentile. We are taken from the world to save the world and fulfill the mission of Christ. God says to us, "Come out from among them, and be ye separate." Let's avoid mixups.

by Bishop Moses E. Peter