i am worried

[aspen]

it is true - everytime i look around the board i see hatred. we are the body of Christ......not the keeper of pet doctrine. i am worried.

i am afriad that doctrinal nuacies are going to deter people from loving others.

Learning to love through injustice is our sanctification

 

[KingJ]

If we were all true Christians who accepted and gave rebuke, correction and exhortation in love from scripture, there would be no friction here. Just a lot of ''bless you brother and thank you for the scripture provided, I will meditate in prayer on this issue, God bless''.

But what we have is false teachers causing strife. I see it on another forum I am on. Amongst false teachers opinion > scripture. They are full of pride, selfishness, irreverance and spiritual destruction. They seek to undermine scripture. Purposely miss-judge God. Encourage many to remove, ignore and twist scripture like it is ancient dogma. This will naturally cause many to get frustrated. Just like Jesus in the temple with money changers.

In this day and age all Christians can be forgiven for having little patience with false teachers!

 

[HammerStone]

You see this in the worship wars and other such battles within the church as well.

There are some very clear delineations where a believer must draw the line when self-pronounced Christians begin to teaching doctrines that question major tenets of Christianity such as the deity of Christ or another core issue. However, many of the battles are fought over what I call open-handed issues. This is just another way of saying that the issues are not central to salvation. Christians will shoot their own more quickly than almost any other group of people!

For instance, it's okay that I worship one way or another. As long as God remains the subject of worship, regardless of medium, then I am worshipping God. However, I see threads, blogs, and conversations devolve into knock-down-drag-outs over this topic.

There are a number of warnings in Scripture about going down the rabbit hole of personal interpretation, preference and itching ears. We do well to heed those and pick the hills to die on.

 

[SolaGratia]

not the keeper of pet doctrine.

Using a derisive label like "pet doctrine" for truths that believers have died for is offensive and wholly inconsistent with love for your brothers and sisters in Christ.

 

[DaDad]

... Christians can be forgiven for having little patience with false teachers!

An interesting Topic, but who would ever think that Christians take the time to research a given concept and arrive to the TRUTH of a matter? Church leaders and members alike seem to believe that if a given doctrine were correct, that GOD would have given it to them directly. And because HE didn't, therefore the doctrine MUST be false.

Take for example David Jeremiah's sermon where he asserted that because the Jews allowed GOD to miraculously destroy the city of Jerico, that the church too should sit back and wait for GOD to intervene. I would argue that Dr. Jeremiah has NO CLUE as to what really happened.

The question is: If the Jews broke down every door and killed every inhabitant, then WHY didn't Rahab tie her scarlet "flag" to her interior door?

I believe it was in the History Channel series "Bible Battles", where a Bible-military-historian accounted that where Rahab tied the scarlet cord to her exterior window, it was so that each time the Israeli throng circled the city, all eyes were on the throng, while five or ten commandos climbed the cord to her apartment. And on the seventh day the throng let out a loud shout which signaled the commandos to come out of the apartment, rush to the gates. kill the men at their posts, and OPEN THE GATES.

Thus the defense (walls) of the city fell.





Another example:

I would argue that where no man knows the DAY or the HOUR, we can know the week, month, season, year, decade, century, and millennia. But who is willing to hear, then research, AND THEN JUDGE?



More examples?!?

How about the fact there is NO seven-year tribulation!
How about that Daniel DIED in the FIRST year of King Cyrus, AND WAS ALIVE in the THIRD year of Cyrus, King of Persia?
How about the fact that sequence of world empires are NOT: 1 - Babylonian, 2 Medo/Persian, 3 Grecian, 4a Roman, 4b Revived Roman Empire, -- but are actually FIVE distinct world empires for which the FIFTH is the "divided" 3-superpowers -- U.S./U.K.; Russia; China, and the fourth United Nations.
... etc., etc.



So I ask: Can this Forum, HEAR, RESEARCH, and then JUDGE whether a teaching is either TRUE or FALSE?!? -- I think human nature works against what Scripture demands.

DaDad

 

[Dan57]

it is true - everytime i look around the board i see hatred. we are the body of Christ......not the keeper of pet doctrine. i am worried.

i am afriad that doctrinal nuacies are going to deter people from loving others.

Learning to love through injustice is our sanctification

Disagreement is not hatred.. There will always be differences in interpretation, but the fundamentals aren't usually points of divisiveness. Loving others is not accepting injustice, but making an effort to teach and correct injustice. Jesus wasn't afraid of deterring the moneychangers in the temple, he displayed a little tough love. Agreeing with a person who completely misconstrues scripture is not love, but a willful act of compliance. I don't think God always wants us to "go along to get along"? jmo

 

[KingJ]

An interesting Topic, but who would ever think that Christians take the time to research a given concept and arrive to the TRUTH of a matter? Church leaders and members alike seem to believe that if a given doctrine were correct, that GOD would have given it to them directly. And because HE didn't, therefore the doctrine MUST be false.
Take for example David Jeremiah's sermon where he asserted that because the Jews allowed GOD to miraculously destroy the city of Jerico, that the church too should sit back and wait for GOD to intervene. I would argue that Dr. Jeremiah has NO CLUE as to what really happened.
The question is: If the Jews broke down every door and killed every inhabitant, then WHY didn't Rahab tie her scarlet "flag" to her interior door?
I believe it was in the History Channel series "Bible Battles", where a Bible-military-historian accounted that where Rahab tied the scarlet cord to her exterior window, it was so that each time the Israeli throng circled the city, all eyes were on the throng, while five or ten commandos climbed the cord to her apartment. And on the seventh day the throng let out a loud shout which signaled the commandos to come out of the apartment, rush to the gates. kill the men at their posts, and OPEN THE GATES.
Thus the defense (walls) of the city fell.
Another example:
I would argue that where no man knows the DAY or the HOUR, we can know the week, month, season, year, decade, century, and millennia. But who is willing to hear, then research, AND THEN JUDGE? More examples?!?
DaDad

On each of those matters it is good to hear you have studied scripture on it and not jumped to an opinion or merely believed what you were taught. You are the exact type of Christian that others want to discuss with. We can edify one another. We can discuss scripture with an open mind. Every scripture we share with each other...we will both acknowledge the fact that it must be dealt with and not brushed aside.

The fact that we disagree before discussion or even after discussion is not such an issue if we have both been honest and sought an answer from scripture with good hermeneutics. The issue I have is that false teachers quote half truths and opinions. We need to always reply as Jesus did in Matt 4:7 Jesus answered him, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test. Discussions are circular and they will never accept defeat consolation or 'arrive at the truth' as they simply not looking for or are interested in finding the truth.

2 Tim 3:6-7 They are the kind who worm their way into homes and gain control over gullible women, who are loaded down with sins and are swayed by all kinds of evil desires, always learning but never able to come to a knowledge of the truth.

 

[Harry3142]

Problems arise when churches try to mold Scripture so that it corresponds to their particular agenda, rather than having their agenda correspond to Scripture. Some have even conspired to make it appear that Scripture is on their side through their taking verses and 1/2 verses completely out of the context in which they originally were, and instead using those individual verses and 1/2 verses as 'evidence' of their own agenda's being the only one conforming to God's will, while all the other churches are not only wrong, but inherently evil.

This is called the knight-works-exegesis argument, and is used by a number of the more radical denominations. It is intended to confuse and overwhelm their targets through presenting them with an 'avalanche' of verses and 1/2 verses which supposedly prove the correctness of their agenda. The logical assumption of their targets is that they must be 'on the level' since they have so many verses to back up their claims. However, if those church denominations were made to quote the passages in which those verses originally were located, it would soon become apparent that the verses' original intent has nothing whatsoever to do with how that particular church is now using them.

 

[aspen]

Thanks for you thoughts everyone. I really appreciate every post - very helpful

 

[FHII]

Using a derisive label like "pet doctrine" for truths that believers have died for is offensive and wholly inconsistent with love for your brothers and sisters in Christ.

Yea... I caught that too. Aspen may have a point, but he's not above having pet doctrines either.

 

[aspen]

FHII - I agree with you. I am worried about all of us, including myself. I am not speaking down to anyone - I am just as guilty.

 

[FHII]

FHII - I agree with you. I am worried about all of us, including myself. I am not speaking down to anyone - I am just as guilty.

Understood....