Marriage is a total catastrophe in the west because churches do not have the authority to exercise discipline over church members. Independent churches simply allow people to “authority shop” when they want to do something shady in the eyes of the church or God.
I find that there is a large personality factor here. Some people just cannot abide disagreement, whether in religious matters or anything else.
They give lip service to the "agree on the essentials, allow disagreement on the non-essentials" trope, but their short list of essentials grows ever longer as they discover new ideas and new interpretations they had never heard before. Soon, the list of essentials includes just about everything you can imagine. The list of non-essentials has nothing on it of consequence.
Good point. A lot of them also have the view that every issue can be definitively determined and no interpretation is needed. That's just creating division at every turn.
Largely agree. Though I'd like to see some scripture for this idea of "strained fellowship". My reading of the text is you're either in fellowship or you're not in fellowship.
Also, I've heard the old "we don't split the church over the color of the carpet" illustration for many years. It's as old as the hills and I've always found it to be entirely unhelpful as well. Most issues are far more serious/complicated than the "color of the carpet". We ought to use illustrations that are more applicable to what we're actually going through.
Wouldn't most of the New Testament churches that were being warned about their need to change fit in that category? They weren't apostate yet, but they were not in a healthy spot, either.
I didn't use color of the carpet as the old story of a church splitting over it, but rather as a metaphor here to say some will only allow for disagreements that are that inconsequential.
Great message. I remember a pastor telling me once, “Have grace for the non-essentials but demand agreement on the essentials”.
I must confess he was saying this to me because I tend to be a scorched earth, ‘Son of Thunder’ who wants to call lightning down from heaven upon apostates, but he was reminding me that not every error is apostasy.
As you say, there are errors that do not disqualify someone as a Christian and while we should not ignore them, we should address them with grace that preserves the brotherhood.
Marriage is a total catastrophe in the west because churches do not have the authority to exercise discipline over church members. Independent churches simply allow people to “authority shop” when they want to do something shady in the eyes of the church or God.
It’s a big problem. Church cooperation on discipline would be a big improvement on how it’s usually done now.
Great thoughts. Thanks for sharing. I think the church coming to understand this would do a lot of good.
I find that there is a large personality factor here. Some people just cannot abide disagreement, whether in religious matters or anything else.
They give lip service to the "agree on the essentials, allow disagreement on the non-essentials" trope, but their short list of essentials grows ever longer as they discover new ideas and new interpretations they had never heard before. Soon, the list of essentials includes just about everything you can imagine. The list of non-essentials has nothing on it of consequence.
Good point. A lot of them also have the view that every issue can be definitively determined and no interpretation is needed. That's just creating division at every turn.
Largely agree. Though I'd like to see some scripture for this idea of "strained fellowship". My reading of the text is you're either in fellowship or you're not in fellowship.
Also, I've heard the old "we don't split the church over the color of the carpet" illustration for many years. It's as old as the hills and I've always found it to be entirely unhelpful as well. Most issues are far more serious/complicated than the "color of the carpet". We ought to use illustrations that are more applicable to what we're actually going through.
Wouldn't most of the New Testament churches that were being warned about their need to change fit in that category? They weren't apostate yet, but they were not in a healthy spot, either.
I didn't use color of the carpet as the old story of a church splitting over it, but rather as a metaphor here to say some will only allow for disagreements that are that inconsequential.
Great message. I remember a pastor telling me once, “Have grace for the non-essentials but demand agreement on the essentials”.
I must confess he was saying this to me because I tend to be a scorched earth, ‘Son of Thunder’ who wants to call lightning down from heaven upon apostates, but he was reminding me that not every error is apostasy.
As you say, there are errors that do not disqualify someone as a Christian and while we should not ignore them, we should address them with grace that preserves the brotherhood.
Great article! 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽
BTW, I want to wish you and your family a Merry Christmas as well as everyone else here on Church Reset…
🙏🏽🎄🙏🏽
Thank you, and Merry Christmas to you too!