It is unlikely that we are going to find ourselves in exactly the same boat as the Galatian church. The issue of circumcision is unlikely to come up in our churches. So, what does the application of Galatians 2 have to do with us? I asked the question at our Life Group one evening and I thought it would be helpful to share some of the responses that came back.
First, there’s the issue of racism. I’ve talked about this already earlier. If we divide churches on racial lines or if we act in a way that excludes, puts up barriers and hinders people because of their ethnic background then we may well be excluding people from the benefits of the Gospel. We can also make judgements about people and their giftedness based on cultural misunderstandings.
Second, there’s the issue of marriage and fertility. Sometimes and even unintentionally, we can give the impression that a mark of blessing is marriage and a further mark is having children. If you don’t fit the “married with 2.4 children” then you may well not fit into the life of the church. You may well hear constant suggestions in conversations, talks, social media commentary and books that imply that something is lacking. This may well be true not just of those who have always been single but those who are single through divorce and a similar message may be communicated to the lasy who has come to faith in Christ but her husband has not.
Third, we can also create barriers on class lines. I would encourage the brilliant book “Invisible Divides” by Nathalie Williams and Paul Brown on this. This is an important point because the issue won’t be that we preach a different Gospel with our words but we can create a church culture which is fearsome and impenetrable if we belong to the wrong class. It’s worth observing that whilst generally, the problem is that our churches exclude working class people, those of us seeking to encourage churches in working class contexts should be careful not to create the reverse image where middle class people would be excluded or looked down on.
Fourth, sometimes we send out the message that faith is based on how much you know, your ability to read and your capacity to follow academic and intellectual arguments. Remember that academic learning is not an indicator of intelligence and even more so is not an indicator of faith.
Fifth, we can make faith itself a barrier if we turn it into a substance we can measure. “Do you have enough faith.” We see this most obviously when we slip into prosperity thinking around health. Even the offer to pray for someone to be healed if handled badly can be experienced as a suggestion that they are ill because they do not have enough faith and so need intervention. Of course, this should not put us off offering to pray but we need to think about how and why we offer. The offer comes best out of relationship and conversation. Indeed, Scripture puts the emphasis on the ill person requesting prayer for healing.
One thing that sums up a lot (not necessarily all) of the kinds of things that come up in such a list is that it’s to do with how we respond to, relate to, welcome, include and encourage those who for what ever reason, rightly or wrongly we perceive to not have it all together. When we do this, we forget that the Gospel is all about the God who loves those who don’t have it all together, including ourselves, draws us into his family and puts us back together.
Faithroots 