Whether we are discussing homosexuality, creation, end times, women in ministry, (etc...) we should all note that there is one truth for each issue. Meaning, either homosexuality is wrong, or it is not always wrong. Either the creation was a literal seven days, or it was not. The end times passages are merely literary exaggerations, or they are, in fact meant to be taken literally. Women have a place in public worship, or they do not.
The thing that is unsettling to me in discussing any of this is that Christians can land on different sides of all of these issues. What has gone wrong? What is happening? I know a great deal has to do with the fact that we are human - strong willed, often narrow-minded, undisciplined at times...- but we are Christians! Jesus says He is the Way, the TRUTH and the life. He also says that "if we abide in His word we are truly His disciples, and we will know the TRUTH and the truth will set us free."
Our God is a God of Light that delights in truth. In my mind, He would be pleased to reveal truth to those who really want to know it and seek Him as the source.
I know there are many things that we will not know on this side of eternity, but I believe too often we stop seeking "absolute truth" to keep peace. Maybe sometimes we aren't completely sure of what we say we believe, so we qualify our statements with the phrase "I believe..." or we don't want to land on any side so we stay neutral instead of seeking out the truth. How different would our conversations go with unbelievers if we changed our statements from "I believe there is a God" to "There is a God."
We need to be compassionate and loving, but consider the way Jesus talked to the Pharisees ("You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?") or the Sadducee's ("You err because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God.") He knew their upbringing - he knew they thought they were doing a good job being religious. But He also knew how to call a spade a spade.
So my question is, do we keep the peace with fellow Christians who distort the scriptures we know to be clear? Or do we seek the Lord more to become confident in our faith with Biblical truth to back it up? May our great Counselor give us wisdom as we move through this life. May we never sacrifice truth for peace.
"May your conversation always be full of grace and seasoned with salt so that you may know how to answer everyone." Colossians 4:6
As we go through our lives, we will undoubtedly run in to people who sound wise and hold the same Bible we hold, yet seem to know a different god. A god who accepts unrepentant sinners, a god who didn't mean the things He said, a god that didn't really inspire the Bible. I pray we never let someone else's titles cause us to waver from the truth the Holy Spirit reveals to us in His Word.
Seek Truth! There is One right answer with God, He is NOT schizophrenic!
Love you all, good discussion!
Jana, I liked your statement, "I know there are many things that we will not know on this side of eternity, but I believe too often we stop seeking "absolute truth" to keep peace." Because of work relationships, school friendships, friendships, family relationships, etc. we are always trying to keep peace because of our ties to them.
ReplyDeleteWhen you have announced that you are a Christian and make absolute statements like your example, "There is a God" you might offend your friend or cousin. They then might not want to talk to you because they think that you are close-minded and you don't really know how the world works. So you have to keep the peace for two reasons 1)You don't want to make them mad 2)You are trying to plant God's seed in them. Most of the time we tell ourselves it's #2 but really it's #1. This challenges me to keep my absolute truths and combine #1 and #2.
Jana - I meant to reply to this a long time ago! I really enjoyed reading what you wrote, but it caused me to think about myself: I amy not always waver in what I have to say, but I don't have very good reasons at times for what I believe. Well, I think they're good reasons, but I don't articulate very well and I ramble (as you can see, hehe). So the challenge for me is to do some more digging so I have some substance to back up what I believe.
ReplyDeleteKayla, I also liked what you had to say. I have been trying to figure out when to stop preaching and when to just love because for the moment I've said everything there is so say. Case in point, Noah's side of the family. I've been feeling convicted for placing what I've considered boundaries (but I think may be ways to avoid them because I'm frustrated with them). But it's hard to work out how to interact with them as they've called themselves Christians but clearly aren't living that way, yet still reach out to us. I guess the same would go for people on our side of the family. When and where do we draw lines? I'm seeing it is so not black and white and what it's coming down to for me in this situation is repsonding when the Holy Spirit prompts me. Aaagh, so much to weed through!!