C'mon people now, smile on your brother...

I received a phone call this week from a very nice lady. She was interested in knowing if we had a woman minister in our church who would like to attend a monthly meeting with other women clergy to discuss race relations in our community. We only spoke for a short time, but what I remember most was that she indicated the meetings were not designed to discuss doctrine.

It got me to thinking about something that I experienced years ago.

Remember Promisekeepers? I was invited to a PK meeting many years ago at a large local church. The place was packed with people. One of the speakers was encouraging the men at the meeting to reconcile with our black brothers. I remember thinking, "No kidding.!?"

I mean, should this really be a novel idea for Christian men to be told to love our neighbors, black OR white? The Apostle John put it very straightforward in his first epistle. "If anyone says, "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother who he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from Him; whoever loves God must also love his brother." (1 John 4:20-21).

This doctrine of loving each other trumps any reason some careless brother could come up with for justifying bigotry of any sort.

As believers, receiving doctrine is our daily bread. If we place more emphasis on our experiences and community instead of biblical doctrine, we will become discouraged when our experience and community doesn't live up to our expectations. But when we place our trust in what God has said in His Word ("Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth." (John 17:17)), we can have confidence we are on the right path.

Hatred towards others is evidence that we are against God. It is also evidence that we aren't Christians if we persist in this hatred without repentance. This isn't what I say - it's what God says in the bible.

I'm sure the woman I spoke with means well, and I believe any dialogue is probably better than none. But shouldn't a Christian discussion of how we treat our neighbor begin with "Let's see what God has instructed us from His Word..." rather than, "What's your opinion?"

How willing are we to accept God's Word as truth instead of trying to figure out ways to justify our sin? Let's not claim to have the Scriptures as our authoritative guide and then choose to defy it, especially when it comes to loving our neighbor as ourselves.

Perhaps more to come soon on this topic later.