Simplify, Simplify.

Labels abound in theological circles.  Some go by the name of their denomination; other take pride in their no-denomination status.  Some call themselves liberals, or conservatives, or moderates.  Evangelical and orthodox are a couple of others.  Sometimes the labels are worn proudly and other times a label might be thrown upon someone's shoulders in derision.  The one thing labels are almost guaranteed to do is divide and separate. 

 

Perhaps, it is an inevitable phenomena.  After all, we may feel so strongly about what we believe and how we express our belief that we do not want to be confused with someone of a lesser religious value system.  The truth is there is room for all of us with our different labels under the umbrella of God seekers.  The Church that was jumpstarted in Jerusalem on Pentecost was at first unsuccessfully put into a box labeled Jewish, but it was not a church for a box.  It was a church for the world and all of its peoples.  As the Church finally moved away from the box and toward the outermost ends of the earth, the label Christian seemed to be the label which identified the Jesus people.

 

One of the things with which we struggle in our day is a mindset that declares the Church cannot be so simply understood or described.  Like those first century legalist against which Jesus struggled, we tend to impose our interpretations and opinions upon the life of the Church as if those personal views equal the written Word of God.  There was a day when it seemed to a young Christian that everything was simpler.  Maybe it never was true.  Maybe simple was never the right word.  Maybe it should be.  Just maybe the Word itself is all that is needed to move the church forward.  But, then if such were to happen, labels would have to be forsaken so that folks who are Jesus people would simply be known again as Christians.