Featured The difference between unions and associations of Christian Baptists.

Yes, but just shows that we can see as all right what we prefer, but judge all others!

 

My wife and I twice visited Mother Russia , in Moscow, in order to adopt our 2 boys, and would honestly not desire to trust a "pot luck" over there! Might be Ok with plenty of Vodka, beverage of choice over there!

 

First, THANK YOU, Squire R, for sending me Mr. Fall's translation of their statement of faith. I have read it closely.

However, there are several things in it that I disagree with.

The first is that leaving off childbearing is a sin. A couple should NOT deliberately try to have more kids than they can properly raise. They must have enough ATTENTION to go around for each one. They must have enough money to meet their needs & provide food, clothes, shelter, & medical care.

Next is the manner of dress. If a person cannot afford the best clothes, is he/she thus a sinner? If a person received tattoos all over before being saved, does that keep a person in sin? According to the dictates of the consciences of some members of our church, they believe in dressing to the nines when attending a service, while others, such as myself, only believe we should be clean & neat. (On 2 occasions, while I was a volunteer fireman, I hurried to church after fighting structure fires, in soiled clothes that smelled like soot. I stood in the back of the bldg. so as not to stink out others with fire odor.)

As for women covering their heads, this is the USA, not the Middle East, & most women don't cover their heads for anything, but again, it's "each according to the dictates of one's own conscience", & we should respect their decisions either way.

 

I'm not sure where you found this in the Statement. However, as a matter of personal observation, what you read a "best clothes" to the EC-Bs does not mean the same thing as it does to us Americans. To them (at least in the Soviet era), it means clean and well mended. I'll let @Strannik give a better answer.

 

No, it is not USA vs. Middle East, but how we should properly interpret and observe Paul's instructions in 1 Corinthians chapter 11.

 

We are simply not gonna agree on many things. I am 100% American, raised & live in a certain culture.

I see nothing wrong with trying to look one's best in public.

I see having too many kids to give proper attention to each one as wrong. God will let a couple know when enough is enough by one means or another. Here, it's largely the poor who have large families.(Exceptions, of course.) After 2 kids, my wife had her running gears removed. We were fruitful & multiplied; 2 of us, 2 kids).

Here, women don't wear hats that often. No one will convince me that's sinful. I shave my head. No one can convince me that's sinful. In everyday living, I'm governed by the following, among other Scriptures-Colossians 2:14 having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. 15 Having disarmed principalities and powers, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it. 16 So let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or sabbaths, 17 which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ.

Again, Russia & the USA have entirely-different cultures, & neither of them is like the ancient Middle East. The major cause of war is cultural and/or religious differences.

Let us agree to disagree.

 

After reading the sytatement twice, I dropped it, but it was on the page about community churches & general Christian conduct.

And no one-NNE-is gonna convince me that ceasing childbearing when a couple has all the kids they can financially and mentally support is a sin. JESUS did NOT tell any couple to go forth & breed like rabbits.

Again, it's "each according to the dictates of one's own conscience".

 

By remembering whom Paul was addressing at the time. Almost all women of that time/place wore something on their heads, regardless of nationality or religion. And so did many men.

 

Roby, I'll not debate with you about this here -- and there is certainly room and need for biblical debate. But you seemed to pass the issue off as merely a difference in modern cultures. Not so.

 

I was joking, as was saying that some of the food items that we saw while over in Russia might need strong drink in order to put it down!

 

I hope you haven't said foul things like that in front of those kids.

 

Well, OK, but just think-How many women in your church wear hats in the service? How manu have fairly-short hair, especially older women whose hair is often curled & doesn't reach their shoulders? Are they all sinning?

 

So now, if I wear a ballcap, I'm sinning?
We had 2 kids & quit, as (A) We were 39 & 38 years old, respectively, after the 2nd one, (B) Wife's health suffered; Dr. recommended she have her "tubes tied", which she did, & (C) We couldn't really afford any more, financially. So, we sinned by quitting childbearing?

OF COURSE I don't wear anything on my head in church, and, in warm weather, few women do. Are those who don't all sinning, as well as those with short haircuts?

"The times, they are a'changin' !" Paul wrote about meat offered to idols, which isn't an issue in non-idolatrous countries such as Russia & the USA. But in Paul's time/place, it was.

Follow your conscience & I'll follow mine!