Relationships

When I started wrestling with my call into ministry over 20 years ago, I had many ideas about what ministry in church was going to look like. Most of them were way wrong. One of the biggest differences was what relationships would look like inside the Christian world. You see, even through my days in seminary, I continued to see the outline for church world relationships to be Acts 2:41-47:
41Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day.
42They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. 43Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. 44All the believers were together and had everything in common. 45Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. 46Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, 47praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved. (NIV via www.biblegateway.com)

There is some great stuff here. As Rick Warren puts it, the five purposes of the church are right here: Worship, fellowship, ministry, discipleship and evangelism. For me, I kept focusing on phrases like, "breaking bread" and "believers were together" and "had everything in common" and "gave to everyone" and "meet together" and "glad and sincere hearts". This seemed awesome!!!
Now that I have been in ministry for almost 20 years, I still see this as God's goal for His followers, but I have realized something else. This version of the church only lasted a few verses or chapters at best in Acts. By Chapter 5 there are problems with lying (Ananias and Sapphira) and more problems come as more and more people become followers of Jesus Christ. Eventually, most of what the apostles (especially Paul) are dealing with in their writings are problems with relationships within the body of believers.
So, I would like to take a few weeks and discuss the nature of relationships. What do you think? I will be interested to know. How should Jesus' followers relate to one another? How should we relate to those that would say they don't follow Jesus? How do we relate to family? How do we relate to authority? How do we relate to government? How do we relate to scripture? HOW DO WE RELATE TO GOD?

God be with You on your journey!
Kevin