Tonight our pastor said something in an aside which caught my attention. His comment was along the lines of, "We should give Timothy more credit than he sometimes gets, because he had to deal with all the bad churches." Which is true - Timothy went to Corinth, and Ephesus, and various other places to deal with problems and get things organized.
Here's my conclusion flowing out of his comment: all of the churches had issues, sometimes serious ones. Corinth might be the most notable example, but most of the other churches mentioned in the New Testament had to be corrected doctrinally (ie the Galatian and Colossian false teacher incidents) or instructed further (the Ephesian elders in Acts 20).
What's the point? No local church is perfect, because churches are made up of sinners. So although we should strive congregationally toward holiness (1 Peter 1:17) and being perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect (Matthew 5:48), we won't meet that goal here on earth. So there are also times when we need to cut each other some slack. Not ignoring sin, but letting love cover our pet peeves and personal annoyances with other believers.
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