Life in the Tribal Bubble - The unReal world?

[St. SteVen]

Religious institutions, particularly the churches of Christianity, provide a sanitized sterile environment.
A bit like a petri dish in a lab, in which church culture can safely grow.

But, tribe members don't live in the bubble. So they have to travel outside eventually.
They may surround themselves with Christian friends and get a job at a Christian owned company.
All in an attempt to insulate themselves from the real world outside the tribal bubble.

Sermons warn tribe members about the dangers that lie outside the bubble.
Tribe members are armed with the knowledge they need to remain unaffected by the real world.
Everything outside the bubble is evil. The people are evil, their deeds are evil. Evil, evil, evil.

Jesus didn't live this way. A friend of sinners.

Mark 2:15-17 NIV
While Jesus was having dinner at Levi’s house,
many tax collectors and sinners were eating with him and his disciples,
for there were many who followed him.
16 When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees
saw him eating with the sinners and tax collectors,
they asked his disciples: “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?”
17 On hearing this, Jesus said to them,
“It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.
I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

]

 

[St. SteVen]

Excerpt from the OP.

Religious institutions, particularly the churches of Christianity, provide a sanitized sterile environment.
A bit like a petri dish in a lab, in which church culture can safely grow.

But, tribe members don't live in the bubble. So they have to travel outside eventually.
They may surround themselves with Christian friends and get a job at a Christian owned company.
All in an attempt to insulate themselves from the real world outside the tribal bubble.

Sermons warn tribe members about the dangers that lie outside the bubble.
Tribe members are armed with the knowledge they need to remain unaffected by the real world.
Everything outside the bubble is evil. The people are evil, their deeds are evil. Evil, evil, evil.

Jesus didn't live this way. A friend of sinners.

[

 

[Wrangler]

Religious institutions, particularly the churches of Christianity, provide a sanitized sterile environment.

Where do you get this from?

You know I'm concerned about your apparent struggle with your relationship with God and his children. This OP is more of the same.

Did you read my thread asking if I should leave my church?

 

[St. SteVen]

St. SteVen said:
Religious institutions, particularly the churches of Christianity, provide a sanitized sterile environment.

Where do you get this from?

Personal experience and observation.

I was talking to a fellow church member and realized that she had managed to completely isolate herself from the world. She had a job as a church bookkeeper and seemed to never go outside the bubble relationally. Fear?

You know I'm concerned about your apparent struggle with your relationship with God and his children. This OP is more of the same.

I'm fine. God has me here for a reason.

Did you read my thread asking if I should leave my church?

No. I didn't see it. You can link it here if you wish. Thanks.

[

 

[Wrangler]

Should I Leave My Church?

Father's Day celebration. They asked men trivial questions like what color the children’s eyes are, what their pediatrician’s name is. They even asked one grandfather what is the date of his 2 grandchildren’s birthday. When he gave the month and year, the FEMALE interviewer told him that was not...

www.christianityboard.com

 

[St. SteVen]

Should I Leave My Church?

Father's Day celebration. They asked men trivial questions like what color the children’s eyes are, what their pediatrician’s name is. They even asked one grandfather what is the date of his 2 grandchildren’s birthday. When he gave the month and year, the FEMALE interviewer told him that was not...

www.christianityboard.com

Thanks.
I left a message over there today asking what happened.

[

 

[St. SteVen]

Excerpt from the OP.

Sermons warn tribe members about the dangers that lie outside the bubble.
Tribe members are armed with the knowledge they need to remain unaffected by the real world.
Everything outside the bubble is evil. The people are evil, their deeds are evil. Evil, evil, evil.

[

 

[Jericho]

Jesus didn't live this way. A friend of sinners.

Friend may be a bit much. He preached to sinners and even ate with them. But he was friends with his apostles, who he actually hung out with the most. He was in the world but not of it.

But, tribe members don't live in the bubble. So they have to travel outside eventually.
They may surround themselves with Christian friends and get a job at a Christian owned company.
All in an attempt to insulate themselves from the real world outside the tribal bubble.

Is that a fair criticism? I don't know any Christians that are that insulated unless they live in a dedicated Christian community like the Quakers and Mennonites. Most, I would say, interact with non-Christians every day and have no problems with it.

So, the question is, how friendly should you get with someone who doesn't share your faith and values? Can you be friends with, say, an athesist? And by friends, I don't mean just being friendly with them, but having an actual platonic relationship with them. That gets a bit more tricky because friends influence each other. If it causes one to compromise their faith and values, then I would say no. Paul warns us, "Do not be yoked together with those who do not believe. For what partnership is there between righteousness and lawlessness? Or what fellowship does light have with darkness? (2Co 6:14)

 

[amadeus]

Outside of the bubble?

Pr 18:24

A man that hath friends must show himself friendly: and there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother.

 

[St. SteVen]

St. SteVen said:
Jesus didn't live this way. A friend of sinners.

Friend may be a bit much. He preached to sinners and even ate with them. But he was friends with his apostles, who he actually hung out with the most. He was in the world but not of it.

Luke 7:33-34 NIV
For John the Baptist came neither eating bread nor drinking wine, and you say, ‘He has a demon.’
34 The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and you say, ‘Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.’

[

 

[Jericho]

St. SteVen said:
Jesus didn't live this way. A friend of sinners.

Luke 7:33-34 NIV
For John the Baptist came neither eating bread nor drinking wine, and you say, ‘He has a demon.’
34 The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and you say, ‘Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.’

[

True, but I would note that Jesus never called himself a friend of tax collectors and sinners. He's just quoting the criticism that the Pharisees and other religious leaders were saying about him. He also called Judas a friend as he was about to betray him when clearly he was no friend:

Matthew 26:50 But Jesus said to him, “Friend, why have you come?” Then they came and laid hands on Jesus and took Him.

I'm friendly with the people I work with. I talk to them, I've eaten with them, but I don't consider them friends. That is reserved for people I'm close to.

 

[St. SteVen]

Religious institutions, particularly the churches of Christianity, provide a sanitized sterile environment.
A bit like a petri dish in a lab, in which church culture can safely grow.

But, tribe members don't live in the bubble. So they have to travel outside eventually.
They may surround themselves with Christian friends and get a job at a Christian owned company.
All in an attempt to insulate themselves from the real world outside the tribal bubble.

Sermons warn tribe members about the dangers that lie outside the bubble.
Tribe members are armed with the knowledge they need to remain unaffected by the real world.
Everything outside the bubble is evil. The people are evil, their deeds are evil. Evil, evil, evil.

Jesus didn't live this way. A friend of sinners.

[

 

[David Lamb]

Religious institutions, particularly the churches of Christianity, provide a sanitized sterile environment.
A bit like a petri dish in a lab, in which church culture can safely grow.

But, tribe members don't live in the bubble. So they have to travel outside eventually.
They may surround themselves with Christian friends and get a job at a Christian owned company.
All in an attempt to insulate themselves from the real world outside the tribal bubble.

Sermons warn tribe members about the dangers that lie outside the bubble.
Tribe members are armed with the knowledge they need to remain unaffected by the real world.
Everything outside the bubble is evil. The people are evil, their deeds are evil. Evil, evil, evil.

Jesus didn't live this way. A friend of sinners.

Mark 2:15-17 NIV
While Jesus was having dinner at Levi’s house,
many tax collectors and sinners were eating with him and his disciples,
for there were many who followed him.
16 When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees
saw him eating with the sinners and tax collectors,
they asked his disciples: “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?”
17 On hearing this, Jesus said to them,
“It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.
I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

]

It is true that Christians are not taught in the bible to cut themselves off from non-Christians, but Christians are told not to forsake the assembling of themselves together:

“And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as [is] the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching.” (Heb 10:24-25 NKJV)

Local churches at Jerusalem, Ephesus, Rome etc, were groups of Christians who met together to worship God and to hear His word.

 

[St. SteVen]

It is true that Christians are not taught in the bible to cut themselves off from non-Christians, but Christians are told not to forsake the assembling of themselves together:

Needs to be balanced with "Go therefore into all the world...", I suppose.

If you view everyone outside the tribe as evil, you avoid them like the plague.

[

 

[David Lamb]

Needs to be balanced with "Go therefore into all the world...", I suppose.

If you view everyone outside the tribe as evil, you avoid them like the plague.

[

Not so. I know that by nature I was like that. As Paul wrote to the church at Ephesus:

“And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others.” (Eph 2:1-3 NKJV)

Yes, I agree we need a balance.