LOVE THE BROTHERHOOD

Across the country and around the world upwards of three million souls are members of the Church of Christ. Each is a child of God (Gal. 3:26), and as such, all are brothers and sisters in Christ (Matt. 23:8-9). Peter calls this Christian family, "the brotherhood" (I Pet. 2:7). All of us who have been in the church over 20 years remember when the expression "the brotherhood" was a staple of our spiritual vocabulary.  Today among a certain portion of our preachers and writers that terminology has been retired in favor of "our fellowship."

The change grew out of the Unity Meetings between some of our preachers and those of the Christian Churches. Following the earliest meetings, our brethren came home speaking of "our fellowship."  It did not take long to perceive the reason for so doing. If the Christian Churches were acceptable to God, then they too were part of Christ's brotherhood. To avoid offending them and to gently reshape the thinking  of our people to accept other religious groups as our spiritual equals a new vocabulary was needed. "Our fellowship" implies that we are but one segment of the great church of which Christ is head. That of course is the very meaning of denominationalism; one church divided into many segments, each with a different denomination or name.  The pronoun "our" implies that we have a denomination of our own making just as the others about us have.  Not surprisingly after a few years some of those folks began to openly speak of the Church of Christ as a denomination. Of course Scripture condemns the concept of denominationalism in no uncertain terms (I Cor. 1:10-12). In days past our brethren had a very useful slogan, "Call Bible things by Bible names." It would be a blessing to our people if all would restore the terminology which God chose to give us.

That said, we need to be reminded that God expects us to "love the brotherhood" of which we are part. This we should do because:

	The brotherhood consists of God's children;
	Each member thereof is our relative in the family of God;
	The members thereof are, over all the finest folks in the world. They are like Christ;
	We all have a mutual interest in the progress of the church, or kingdom of Christ;
	We have a common task to engage our interest and energy...evangelizing the world for Christ;
	We all have a common destiny.  Faithful to death, we will receive a crown of life (Rev. 2:10);
	It is God's will that we do so.
	Because we love the brotherhood, we should be jealous for the safety and well-being of the church. Paul wrote to the church in Corinth, "For I am jealous over you with a godly jealousy...But I fear...lest...your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity and the purity that is toward Christ" (II Cor. 11:2-3).
	Loving the brotherhood, we should resent, resist and reject any individual or group that seeks to do harm to our spiritual family (Tit. 3:10).
	Because we love the brotherhood, we should join hands and hearts with every other member of our spiritual family to protect and defend it.
	For the sake of our children and grandchildren, we must love the brotherhood and see that it is kept safe and intact for them and others who come after us.