For the Tribe

Today the Body of Christ in America is vastly diversified in theology and practice; ranging from the sublime to the heretical.  There is no centralized authority to maintain order.  Each believer has the sole responsibility to decide what community of faith they believe is optimal for their journey at this time.

Is that good or is that dangerous?

In Acts 15, there was a rumble over the issue of Gentiles becoming Jews before, or at least at the same time, as they became Christians.

The church leadership in Jerusalem took up the issue of the church in Syria and adjudicated on the matter.  Their involvement was pointless in many ways, since Paul was still hacking away at the same relentless issue years later in the epistles to the Corinthians and the Galatians.

The bigger issue is that the Jerusalem leadership ASSUMED the position of centralized power, with the right to adjudicate, and that model of central religious control has remained operant for millennia.

Was that ideal?  Would you prefer to be under a national, centralized religious government?

What if all the apostles had actually been out taking over the world, the way they were commanded to, instead of hanging out in Jerusalem.  What if they had sent a memo to Antioch that they had Paul and Barnabas and Silas and Judas and the Holy Spirit on site so they could sort this out themselves?

Samuel sent Saul to meet the prophets who were coming down from the high place, at The Hill of God, where the Philistine garrison was.

Fun.

God designed a hill with a portal.  It was His.

The Philistines claimed it for themselves, and built a fort there.  Didn’t change the ownership at all.  And it did not change the spiritual deposit in the portal on the hill.

God was so unimpressed with the Philistine’s title to the land, that He deliberately juiced the future King Saul, right there.  It was still The Hill of God.

In fact, He probably got a kick out of flaunting His selection of the king who would cause the Philistines so much grief.

Sometimes people get a little too wound-up over Philistine garrisons on The Hill of God.  All land is still His land.

Paul got in a huff because an over-mothered Servant, John Mark, didn’t have the right stuff.  Big brouhaha.

On the second missionary journey, Paul picked up another over-mothered Servant, Timothy, and spent the next several years trying to grow him up into hard-core usefulness.

Maybe, just maybe, the problem wasn’t all John Mark the first time.

God runs an inexhaustible HR department when He needs to teach us something through glitchy people.