August 15, 2006
Battle of Wills
For years a large white gilded Bible sat openly displayed in front of the sanctuary on the communion table. Seldom used because of its size and weight, the King James Version Bible served as the center piece and focal point for the worship service. One would never suspect this symbol of Christendom was in fact a battle field. On one side was an octogenarian sister in Christ who was a longstanding member, and on the other side, the recently hired middle-aged minister. The disputed territory was 1 John 4:7-21. The senior saint, passionate about this portion of Scripture, wanted the Bible to always remain open to this passage. Just as determined, the preacher wanted the Bible opened to the text he was using in the weekly sermon. Week after week the pages would fly back and forth…at least the Bible was getting some use. Eventually the minister won a victory of sorts by removing the Bible from its place of honor. Interestingly the NIV header for this passage of Scripture is ‘God’s Love and Ours’.
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Gail;
----All of the turmoils in the church, whether over major issues or trivial idiocies, come from man's own will. Although God gets His use out of even the turmoil, He is a righteous God, and He does not want turmoil. His Kingdom is a kingdom of righteousness, peace, and joy. So He has given a formula in His Word that should dissolve all but the necessary disputes.
----Jesus said that anyone who desires to be great needs to become a servant to everyone. The rest of the New Testament repeats the theme of serving one another. Romans 15:1&2 states that it is the strong who need to grin and bear it when disputes arise. And this is only logical. Those who are strong in the Lord are those who are to be the examples of godliness. And godliness is about how you treat one another, not to what page a display Bible is opened.
----So, in failing to humor this octogenarian lady and please her by being a servant and turning the Bible to the page she felt was important, he failed to demonstrate that it really does not matter. What he did demonstrate was that trivia matters, and he was the servant in control...by cracky!
----People like to think that they are spiritually stronger than others. So they think their knowledge is important to the scheme of things. But the leaders should continually emphasize the message that the strong are the bearers of the peace through bearing with the weak. Then people would tend more to either not think of themselves as strong if having things their way is really important, or to humble themselves and bow out of sensless disputes if being strong is really important.
----But our leaders have failed to emphasize the rules of conduct pertaining to the new life. Instead, they try to become the peacemakers by becoming the decision makers in settling spats of idiocy. In this they lay down thier nature of servant for that of ruler. And we wonder why there are so many denominations and sub-divisions of denominations and arguments about this and that and everything else within our churches. Most of a church's turmoil would disappear if the leaders would just become deliberate in their humility and obedience to the rules of conduct of the new life as given in the Bible. And the churches would go places we never would have imagined because the Holy Spirit would have the advantage of everyone's importance.
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