Hurt by Christians: 8 Days to Bring Healing and HopeНамуна

Nothing New

Before we dive any deeper into what it means to be hurt by Christians and how we can heal from it, we need to take a detour and briefly discuss the history of the Christian church.

It’s easy to think about conflict in the Christian church as a 20th or 21st century issue but that is incorrect. The early church was filled with people not only trying to figure out Christianity but overwhelmed with sins and questions about how to follow this Jesus that was being preached to them. There is no doubt Paul and other church leaders had their hands full.

For one, the church was new; they did not have the Bible as we know it today. They had letters written to them and the Holy Spirit to guide them, but they were still figuring things out, like what to do with food offered to idols (Romans 14) and whether or not you need to be circumcised for salvation (Acts 15:1-2).

There were racial tensions between Jews and Gentiles to the point that Paul had to correct Peter, in front of others, saying he should not force Gentiles to follow Jewish customs (Galatians 2:11-15). Peter was the one who received a vision from God that they should be witnessing to Gentiles, and yet there was conflict between Peter and Paul over what customs should still be followed.  

There were a lot of questions among the early church about how to act under Roman rule and aggression. Paul addresses this in Romans 13. Many wanted to rise up and overthrow the government and Paul had to remind them to submit to their governing authorities (v.4).

There were counterfeit teachers rising up in the church and Paul had to warn new believers to not listen to any teaching that was different than what was brought to them, or listen to different a “Jesus” than what was preached (2 Cor 11:4). 

There was sexual immorality in the church, just read 1 Corinthians 5:1-9 for more details. There was disunity, threats of lawsuits among believers, and Christians who did not grow in their faith but stayed on “milk” instead of solid food (1 Cor 3:2).

And yet with all these struggles, sin, and discord, the church grew and grew because of the power of the truth of God. No one could extinguish the fire of the Holy Spirit that burned in new believers.

You could say that the church today should know better since we have a couple of thousand years of practice along with the full Word of God, and you might have a point. However, we have to realize that the main problem is a sin problem and as we will discuss tomorrow, it is a human condition that will not go away until God makes everything new.

Tomorrow we will look at how all humans are born into the sin condition.

Write down some of the problems you see the church and Christians face today. Are these new or old problems? 

What do you think Paul or Peter would tell the church today?