The Hand of Fellowship

Greet all brethren with a holy kiss.

1 Thessalonians 5:26

When the Apostle Paul wrote this, it was a literal statement.  Now we don’t kiss everybody at Church, but this is an example of how we should treat each other. 

When a group of people get together to work for a common cause, there are always people who do not see eye to eye regarding how things should be done.  As a result, people are not always nice to each other.  Working in the Church does not exempt us from this phenomenon. 

As Christians, we are serving Christ and we can work to build fellowship and cohesiveness in the Church by cutting each other some slack and offering words of encouragement to one another, especially in situations where things are not going as planned. 

And, no matter what our differences are we can offer everyone the hand of fellowship.  A handshake is the twenty-first century version of a holy kiss.