![]() Make sure they find a seat or offer a seat on your row. Invite those sitting by themselves to sit with you. Get up and walk a few pews away to greet someone who is new to you or who is sitting all alone. Turn around and warmly talk with others attending church. We cannot greet everyone in any given week…but we can greet some! Sitting in my pew, hoping others will not come to me, does not fulfill this exhortation.Īvoiding making connections with anyone before or after a church service, really makes it hard to fulfill an exhortation that was meant to be fulfilled when gathered together as a church.Ĥ. Sitting in my pew, waiting for others to come to me, does not fulfill this exhortation. You cannot be known by your genuine love and kindness to others in the church unless you actually interact with them. The greeting was to be so clearly loving and kind that the custom of the day (a “holy kiss”) was used among the Jewish community.ģ. “Greeting one another” was to be practiced while assembled as a local church.Ģ. Take note of 4 Bible Realities for greeting one another:ġ. It is about treating them as God has treated and is treating me! It is about not just telling others about the love of Jesus – it is about showing others the love of Jesus – because Jesus means that much to you! I John 3:18. For as I do unto others, so I do unto God! We cannot honor God and mistreat those who bear His image. Please hear this! Treating others with genuine love and kindness (greeting them at church) is about seeing them as those created in the image of God.just like I am. It is not about appearing holy, and it is not about greeting others because others are greeting them. It is not about being better than another believer. It is not about others seeing me as super spiritual. The church should be treating people in such fashion – better than any local grocery store or major corporation! It is not about customer service training. Luke and Hannah were more prone to return to that store because they were treated with such kindness by EVERYONE…and not just by the store manager. Those employees understood how to treat people as people (and not another customer). Every single employee he and his wife came across greeted him with a warm “hello!” and “welcome to _ store.” One employee even saw they needed a cart, and he told them he would be right back with a cart! Their response was something like, “Where in the world are we?! Do they think we are someone famous and important?” Our son was traveling recently and went inside a local grocery store around 10:30 at night. ![]() ![]() However, this does not exclude us from this exhortation of greeting one another…of being known to one another through genuine love and kindness through purposeful actions. This is the call for the Christians to show genuine love and kindness to one another in the church with specific action.Īlthough the practice of a “holy kiss” has been practiced in some modern-day foreign nations among believers (I heard of such practices in Russia, but the story was related about church meetings in the 1990s) – the holy kiss has not taken root as a custom in our current day in the USA. The description of a “holy” kiss was to exhort the believers to guard against any improper familiarity or scandal. What draws our attention is the last prepositional phrase – “with a holy kiss.” A greeting kiss was a common Eastern (oriental) – and especially Jewish – custom…specifically among Christians. In other words, this greeting was not to be seen as from Paul as a third-party delivery system. This was to be reciprocal and from their own action. 13:12Īfter Paul finishes his personal greetings, he instructs the church family to greet each other in a friendly, Christian way. It is crucial for the church to greet each other with genuine love and kindness. They never went back to that church and the church eventually folded. Some chatted with others, but many families were not greeted by anyone. During this time, they realized that the man who opened the door for them was the pastor. They found a seat and sat through SS and the worship service. They followed him to the doors of the sanctuary and heard him say, “They hate it when I interrupt them” and then left them standing there all by themselves. The door was opened by a man who spoke no words to them. ![]() Here is a true story related to me by the family who lived these experiences.Ī family walked into a Baptist church.
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