What is it that we mean when we say everybody?

In most cases when we think we are referring to everybody, some people will be left out.

When we cast a vision, for what the ideal world would look like, the ideal family would look like, the ideal church would look like, the ideal community would look like. We see the world through certain spectacles that are going to influence our view of what is ideal.

What about all the people who might not fit in what we call ideal? People from different cultures, homosexuals, the old people, the mentally ill? What do we have for them?

There is only one God, and one truth. Most of the ideals that we create are actually based on our upbringing, not from what we read in scripture. Scripture is universal, relevant for all. Soo I want to suggest that when people are rejected, or feel that way, it is not God's fault, but man's fault. So I want to suggest that when people go against what the Bible teaches, they are actually rejecting the way Bible believers have wrongly applied the passages, and brought condemnation on different people groups such as: women, people of color, homosexuals, the poor.

After a class I took yesterday focusing on all that, I realized that sometimes we really do think narrow! When we hear of a theology different than our own, we just want to dismiss it, call it unbiblical and move on. But what about all the hurt that was involved in the development of this new theology? How did it come to be? Why haven't they just simply accepted orthodox theology? I think the answer is that they were mistreated, in a way Jesus would never approve of. I believe that instead of just calling these people heretics, we must befriend them, get to know them, and through our love, allow them to have a personal encounter with the living God!

1 Cor 9 16 For if I preach the gospel, that gives me no ground for boasting. For necessity is laid upon me. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel! 17 For if I do this of my own will, I have a reward, but if not of my own will, I am still entrusted with a stewardship. 18 What then is my reward? That in my preaching I may present the gospel free of charge, so as not to make full use of my right in the gospel.
19 For though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them. 20 To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though not being myself under the law) that I might win those under the law. 21 To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ) that I might win those outside the law. 22 To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some. 23 I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings.