In 1945 two brothers-in-law opened the first Baskin-Robbins ice cream shop in Pasadena, California. They sold 31 flavors, one for each day of the month. Since then the iconic dessert giant boast 7,500 stores worldwide and have created more than 1,000 unique flavors of ice cream.
Christianity seems to have adopted the Baskin-Robbins business model. Worldwide you have more than 41,000 flavors of Christianity to choose from. If you don’t like one church flavor, you can go across the street or down the road and find another flavor. Each flavor boasts its own beliefs, dress codes, traditions, programs, parking rules, social strata, committees and missions commitment.
Jesus Christ abolished all 41,000 church flavors.
“For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two,” Ephesians 2:14-15
Here (in the “new” man) there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all. Colossians 3:11.
People groups are different. People groups have differing foundations, different belief systems. Differing traditions. Differing interpretations of Scripture. But Jesus never changes. Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever. So is His gospel, full of grace and truth. We don’t need 41,000 flavors of Christianity. According to the Gospel I read there’s only one true church, the body of Christ, His precious, pure spotless Bride.
