December 17, 2008
Friends
I know a lady who I count as a friend, in spite of fact that she thinks I’m going to hell. Now she has never come right out and said I’m going to hell, but she has hinted her doubts about my salvation. One time I spoke of the collective ‘we’ being secure in our knowledge of our salvation and unable to look me in the eye she stammered, “Well…, well… I don’t know. I just couldn’t say.” Bless her heart, she just couldn’t state with any certainty that those outside her denomination have a place in heaven. It’s no wonder Jesus said, “In my Father’s house are many rooms…” He’s probably going to have to send some of us to our rooms until we learn how to play together. (John 14:2a NIV)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Gail;
-----When my schedule allows, I like to attend a men’s gathering for Bible study on Wednesday mornings. There are only about ten of us meeting on any given morning, and there are also about as many different churches represented by those ten. Because I see unity as such an important concept in the Bible, in our discussions, I often discount the importance of doctrinal differences. Sometimes I get so enthusiastic about it, I rather impugn the tight holding of doctrines regarding debatable matters.
-----One morning I tried to emphasize the importance of your brother above the importance of your doctrine. A retired Baptist preacher immediately took umbrage at my idea. He was sure to point out how importantly doctrine is held by the Word of God. After all, the only way to salvation is through Jesus Christ! He is the only gate in the wall. Trying to attain salvation by works, or philosophies, or any other way is failure. That is doctrine!
-----I felt like a fool. But I understood our misunderstanding. Doctrine is like those gag gifts you sometimes receive on your birthday from an annoying jokester. You unwrap the present and open the box to find another wrapped box inside. Of course, you then know another will be inside it, and another inside the next, and so on until you finally unwrap some pitiful little package containing a trinket of not much more valuable than a piece of gravel.
-----Yes, the Bible states clearly and unarguably a few basic doctrines, one of them being that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. The only people in Jesus Christ are the people who have accepted that box. But inside it, important to being able to personally understand it, each of us place several other boxes wrapped by the best of our abilities to understand the Word and life in the Lord. And inside those are others. And the trinkets inside the final boxes may be inconsequential in the eyes of anyone except the one who wrapped them. For this reason, if the trinkets might cause conflict, Paul tells us in Romans 14:22 to leave them wrapped for yourself and the Lord. Find the box in the series of boxes the brother beside you can understand and relate to without conflict. Then, by all means…no…by all command, fellowship. For Paul also wrote in Romans 14:19, “Let us therefore make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification.” It is intolerable to ever wrap anything in your boxes that disqualifies another for what they have found in the basic box they also received from the Lord!
Love,
Steve Corey
Post a Comment