Exclusive

Lately I have been struck with the exclusiveness of the Jews in Jesus' day. After all, they were thechosen people, the one's with whom God had a covenant, Abraham's descendants. They were the only ones, the chosen ones. When did problems arise in the early church? When the Jews insisted on doing things the "right" way. The Gentiles could become Christians, but they had to do things the Jewish way. When did Paul have problems with the Jews? When he went into the synagogues on his missionary journeys. Oh, he had success for a while, but when the leaders came in, they made sure that everyone toed the line and followed orthodoxy. Jesus' harshest criticism was for those who "honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me."
So why my obsession with this topic? Well, when I started thinking, haven't those same attitudes been the norm in the church of Christ? Haven't we been exclusive? Haven't we had all the answers? Haven't we excluded so many people because they didn't do things the "right" way? And if Jesus' harsh criticism was inflicted on the Jews of His day for such things, what would He say to us today? We make the circle as small as we can so, I guess, we can make ourselves look better. Instead, we make ourselves seem smaller. God forgive us for such attitudes. Help us to not only enjoy God's mercy and grace, but be the instruments of the same. Have a great day. JW