Church *of the* Laodiceans

[John81]

I've known various groups over the years who were of the "homo spiritual" mindset. The earliest I recall were some old time Methodists who seemed to be in competition with some old time Baptists in another town for which group could appear the most stern, speak the most pious, look down their noses best at all the "lesser" people.

Later I encountered a group of young Charismatics who came to believe their little group were the only real Christians around. They eventually reached the conclusion that anyone calling themselves Christians who didn't "speak in tongues" couldn't possibly be a real Christian. Besides, any real Christians would be in agreement with them.

I've also encountered many social club Christians. They tend to base their belief they are better than others upon the status of most of their members in the community.

The article should have been more clearly written to point out the difference between Jesus going amongst sinners to share the way of salvation, as well as His willingness to allow the lost sinners to come to Him seeking salvation, and the often wrong notion of Jesus being a "friend of sinners" who hung out with sinners and just accepted everyone as they were. Those who Jesus was friends with were mostly His disciples and they are the ones he "hung out" with. Jesus' openness to approaching, or being approached by sinners was always in the context of what we might call soul winning.

No matter what church, what group, branch, denomination or whatever we belong with or are associated with, we aren't the only true Christians, we aren't the only ones God is working in and through.