This post about church tribes is written by Sam Riviera, a frequent contributor to this blog.
Yesterday’s post introduced to the concept of church tribes. This post looks at the pros and cons of church tribes, and how to be part of Jesus’ Tribe.
Benefits of Belonging to a Church Tribe
There are benefits to belong to a tribe… especially a church tribe.
One of the primary benefits of having a tribe is that it gives us a sense of belonging, a place where we can call home, and feel protected.
We all want safe havens where we are listened to, accepted, and loved. Most of us can handle aggressive, angry, hostile people much better when we know we have a loving, supportive family waiting for us at home, and a loving, supportive group, be it a church or a social club, with whom we will gather to escape a hostile world and support one another.
Together we can accomplish what we could never do alone. We can work on common goals, trade ideas and “have each others backs.” It’s nice to be part of a group where together we can form a united front that tells people, “Don’t mess with us or we’ll stomp on you.”
Even if others think us strange, weird, or crazy, that’s OK. We have each other to tell us that we’re normal and everyone else is crazy.
Disadvantages of Belonging to a Tribe
Nevertheless, there are some disadvantages to belonging to a tribe, and to church tribes in particular.
Most tribes expect those who belong to conform to the rules of the tribe. This is especially true of church tribes. If we want to belong, we must first learn who’s the chief, who are his right-hand people and what we are expected to do to show proper respect to them. We may be expected to show not only respect, but to give gifts of time, money and other items to the “tribal leaders”.
A dog can understand bits and pieces, I suppose, but they have very little idea about speech, electricity, rules of games, logical thought, or many of the other things that make us human.
Before we can look at specific Bible passages regarding the violence of God in Scripture, it is important to develop a framework which helps us understand what is going on within and behind these violent texts. I have six points of this framework, which I call “
In a recent post called “
I am beginning a short series of posts on how to understand the Old Testament passages where God commands Israel to slaughter people. I have an idea “in the works” for how to deal with these troubling texts.
In numerous places in the Bible, God seems hell-bent on slaughtering people, including women and children. One of the most gruesome texts in all the Bible (maybe in all of history) is found in Psalm 137:8-9:
If you haven’t struggled with these depictions in Scripture, either you are not reading your Bible or you are not hanging out with non-Christian people (This is the most common criticism of the Bible from non-Christians).
How can a God who says "Love your enemies" (Matthew 5:44) be the same God who instructs His people in the Old Testament to kill their enemies?
