Prejudice & the local Church

Acts 10:44 -11:1-18

I am not asking is there prejudice found in local churches, but why are we who are part of God’s family, who have received the gift of eternal life, not able to see God’s grace in others who are part of the family of faith in Christ Jesus?  It is not a new issue for the church, for that is what the Scriptures above are addressing.  A story came to mind that a friend named Jim shared with me; he was an elder in his small affluent Methodist church and had come to have a personal relationship with Jesus.  A group of lay people had spent the weekend in what was then called a “Lay Witness Mission” and the power of God exposed the need to many in that local church to receive Christ as their personal Savior.  Jim was not the same man after that time and because I did business with him, I began to see God using this businessman in all aspects of his life, both in his family, his community, and in his church.

Now that was just background to share a story Jim shared with me one day about the elders having a meeting on a big issue facing their church.  It seems that a Mexican family had been visiting and was excited about what God was doing in that local church and felt they were to join.  It is important to share that this was an all white church, and the Mexican people at this time were the ones who worked for them on their farms and other types of jobs like maids and day labors, but not equals, not members of the church.  And yet this family had asked for membership and the elders had to accept or reject the request

Jim had a great sense of humor and also had the Spirit of God living in him, so he told it this way.  The discussion went for sometime on the many reasons why they could not allow this Mexican family to join, and the main reason was that they were fearful that many other Mexicans might also want to join and they would lose control of the church.  The meeting had gone for sometime when one of the elders, not Jim, ask this question: “What would Jesus do” and another of the elders spoke up and said, “Dam, if your going to bring Him into this conversation, it’s all over, and we will have to vote to allow them to join.”  And folks, that’s also very similar to this account given by Dr. Luke in the Scripture listed above.

This is the short view, but please read the full account, when Peter returned to Jerusalem the circumcision party, (or you might say the group that always holds to customs and traditions, we’ve never done it that way group) were not happy with Peter.  This was the complaint: “You went to uncircumcised men and ate with them.”  (Acts 11:3 ESV)  Now that was a very serious problem, Peter had broken a rule of the Jews, it was not lawful for a Jew to associate with or to visit anyone of another nation, but God had shown Peter that they were not unclean.  And so Peter give them a blow-by-blow account of what God had shown him and also what happened with the people who heard the message of the gospel.  This was the question Peter ask the men, also Jewish Christians, who had gone with him; “Can anyone withhold water for baptizing these people, who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?” (Acts 10:47 ESV)

If you happen to be part of a local church where there is prejudice, or bias against another brother or sister in Christ, you might want to pass on these words of Dr. Luke’s account when Peter had finished telling the story of what God had done with the Gentiles; “If then God gave the same gift to them as he gave to us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could stand in God's way?” When they heard these things they fell silent. And they glorified God, saying, “Then to the Gentiles also God has granted repentance that leads to life.” (Acts 11:17-18 ESV)  But the rest of the story is that many of the Jewish Christians from that day on tried to get the Gentile Christians to follow the customs and traditions of the Jews, and that did not bring unity to the church.

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice