Which faith?
Just about everyone thinks or says our church has "THE faith", and others just lump it all into a big pot of Christianty "stew".
A Baptist is just as convinced on the correctness of his denomination as is a Catholic, Pentecostal, or whatever other "faith" label you might apply over an assembly.
Then there is the old "New Converts Class" where you are implanted with "What WE Believe" followed by The List which is the "doctrinal statement".
This then becomes "our faith".
Or there are many like our old "Inter-denominational" church which accepted anything and everything that said it was "Christian". Accepting anybody's version of Jesus is fine and a good way to build a crowd on Sunday. Even a Muslim can bring his Muslim Jesus to that church and be accepted.
Permit me to state that we do not have a "list". We once did, but God tore it apart and said "You have MY Word". That made us accountable to God to go to Him for HIS teaching, and has it been GOOD!
Once in a while we may have been confronted by someone elses "doctrinal statement" and then we went to our "leader" who assured we are right and they are wrong and points to a verse or someone's book;
-or like one pastor told me when I asked about another sect, "I think they get in through the back door".
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People will absolutely go to war over pet doctrines..
Some will castigate, rebuke, and shake the dust of their sandals against you for rejecting or disagreeing with one or more of their "pet" teachings..
-even when they believe words that are not even written in the scriptures themselves!
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Compare the arguments over the "rapture", "once saved-always saved", tithing, and the actual words in
Matthew 19:21 Jesus said unto him, If thou wouldest be perfect, go, sell that which thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, follow me.
"Well, that was just for that guy", or "for the Jews only", or "what Jesus REALLY meant is....", or "that was just a parable.."
-I can hear the reasonings coming.
What if Jesus really meant "Sell what you have and GIVE to the poor" ???
That is only one verse, there are quite a few others that say some pretty tough things to us.
I have yet to see that verse in ANYONES "doctrinal statement".
Nobody goes to war over that verse, but admit you do not confess the word "trinity" and the fun begins.
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You see, we have enough of a challenge to believe and do what IS in the scriptures without the need to put our faith in the explanations, "reasons why we believe ----", or someones doctrines list.
We ALWAYS accept the scripture for what it says even where we do not have a clear understanding of a passage.
and we agree with ALL of God's wonderful word, even when we do not have complete understanding.
But we reserve the right to not accept terms outside of scripture. Words like "purgatory", "Mass", "Jesus the brother of lucifer", "Jesus is the archangel Michael", "christmas", church service, etc. are all conclusions or blatant additions of man.
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If you will allow me, I cannot in some ways understand how in scripture the Father and the Son can be at times, separate, eternal, Christ begotten from the foundation of the world, and is the firstborn of all creation who created all things, the Holy Ghost came on Pentecost, and is the Spirit of Christ that fills us, yet there is One God and his Name one. -Jesus, Lord of lords, King of kings..
So the problem is always our lack of understanding or revelation of the scriptures in some passages... -never with the scriptures themselves with which we always believe, accept, and agree with.
-and that we do not divide from with those of either view as we realize we are all desiring to come into better knowledge and understanding of the scriptures and what God said about Himself.
That is what Romans 14 tells us.
I hopes that make sense.
In the next post, we will simplify a lot of confusion about which faith the apostles gave to the churches and who we are to divide from.
Believe the WORD, not what someone says about the Word.
