JFox1 said:
In a sermon, my pastor blamed the liberals for errors entering the church because they don't believe in biblical inerrancy, they believe in women pastors, and homoexuality is not wrong. But if that's the case, how do errors creep into more conservative churches?
Pride?
One can be so inbossed in mind and soul with inerrancy, that the enemy can even use that mind-set, and methodology to trip-up the alleged, "mature" saints.
The Bereans would immediately go to their scripture to make sure that Paul or others were not leading them astray.
The church, in it's desire to be "sola scriptura", can stumble over the block of stumbling, in it's desire to be "right" with God.
Some say "white", others say, "black" while others say "gray".
There is no "gray" in God's economy, though God in His incredible grace allows some to flail-away in the "in-between" of scripture, and man's liberalism in His wisdom, that goes beyond our finite minds.
Balance is needed in the Christian life...........Prayer must not be sacrificed or minimized to emphasize worship, and worship minimized to emphasize scriptural literacy, and scriptural literacy minimized to emphasize the before-mentioned.
Paul said that all the gifts were good, but they were also very "dead" and like clanging noisey bells, if they weren't under-girded with "LOVE"/"CHARITY".
This I believe can be applied both to the very liberal, and very conservative Christian. Both can become so enamoured in their view, that they lose contact or close relationship with the "founder" of their faith.
One quenches the H.S. through a cold, legalistic approach to their birthright in Christ, while the other, quenches the H.S. through their testing of the grace of God via their new found freedoms.
I think that the church suffers so much both on the corporate level and the individual believer level, because of a very skewed understanding of the nature of God.
We carry so much baggage of the world into our new life in Christ, and try so hard to apply it's principles and tools as a means of validating our faith.
We don't let God be who He is, but let Him be what we "expect" Him to be through "filtered" lenses formed by earthly parental experiences.
God becomes in some ways, that skewed and imperfect parental model of our earthly life's upbringing. If we were loved conditionally, we see God as this exacting, strict, omnipotent One, with a leather strap, or switch, that will bang us in the rump or slap us in the face if we falter in our perserverance. We end up calling this, "The Fear Of The Lord", erroneously.
The flip-side, is the believer that takes liberty to such a point, that they are constantly testing the bounds and limits of God's grace. They justify their actions or inactions based on a freedom in Christ, that is also a skewed understanding of the "peace, rest, and security" side of God's promises.
God has expectations, yet He also knows that we are but leaky, clay vessels.
If we are to be a vessel of grandeur, or a common vessel, it is God's perfect wisdom being applied.
I think that the very conservative church and the liberal end of the Christian church have much to learn from each other, and also need to start focusing on the relational part of the Christian life.
We've been given a birthright, from God. It is irrevocable. Awe and trembling need to be part of this understanding. Why? We, are who we are because of the incredible grace of Who? Why God, and through His Son's life, and that alone, and nothing else.
I used to be so critical of music in the church, how often communion was done, modes of baptism, and so many different things, that were just the periphery, of the Christian life or relationship with God.
The more that a church focuses on their totally inability to "please" God, the more that church starts to rely on God's truth to compass their way in this world of so many abhorrent teachings, both covert, and openly taught. The more that the believer relys on God, with the Berean attitude of testing, the more that doctrinal error will not make enroads.
It is very dangerous to believe that a church that sticks to 1950's and older hymns, and follows a particular mode of worship, that goes back to early times is the "safe" church. Doctrinal, is important and a "must", but if the doctrinal church lacks the undergirding of "LOVE", then there is an insidious sickness within that body.
Remember that the Pharisees and Scribes fastidiously followed myriad of laws from the time of Moses, yet lacked, "life". They were white washed and clean on the outside, yet they lacked substance/life on the inside. Their eyes darkened, their inner man, a shallow grave, of self-deceived piousness.
Liberality breeds liberty that pushes the envelope of grace, and leads to sin. Super conservatism, pushes the envelope of grace to the other extreme, and replaces freedom in Christ with exacting, legalism, and judgementalism.
There is a happy medium that isn't gray, but is doctrinal, and doesn't throw out the Spirit of the Word, with the bath water of man's invented ideology, both liberal and conservative.
