Friday, March 24, 2006
Walking The Fine Line
Eccl 12:8-13 - "Vanity of vanities," says the Preacher, "all is vanity!" In addition to being a wise man, the Preacher also taught the people knowledge; and he pondered, searched out and arranged many proverbs. The Preacher sought to find delightful words and to write words of truth correctly. The words of wise men are like goads, and masters of these collections are like well-driven nails; they are given by one Shepherd. But beyond this, my son, be warned: the writing of many books is endless, and excessive devotion to books is wearying to the body. The conclusion, when all has been heard, is: fear God and keep His commandments, because this applies to every person. [emphasis added]I am going to run a risk of sounding like something I abhor in this post. What I abhor are anti-intellectual evangelical, often pentecostal, shut-up-and-listen types. You know, the kind that think seminaries the devil's workshop and seminarians demons.
Why am I going to run this risk? Because parties in the Christian blogosphere are at it again as if the actuality of Christ's saving work itself were at stake.
Prov 3:5 - Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.People-People-People, theology is our own understanding - a worthy pursuit, but in the end always unsatisfactory. Can anyone rightly claim that their own sanctification, or anyone else's for that matter, rests on whether they are calvinist or arminian, whether they hold limited or complete atonement? I can't - because to do so would be to place my understanding above God's wisdom.
Does that mean we should not endeavor to try and figure which is best? Of course, not, but it does mean that as we do, we should keep our rhetoric within reason and our egos in check.
I'm not one of those that think we should keep our internicene battles behind closed doors - to the contrary, I think the proper conduct of such discussion in the public view is one of the greatest witnesses we have. Such demonstrates to the world around us that we are different, the witness is in how we are different
- We are different because we always hold the individual with whom we are debating in the highest possible regard
- We are different because we hold God more important than our intellectual understanding of God
- We are different because we find it more important to exhibit the fruits of the Spirit than to be right.
- We are different because we know righteous anger is reserved for egregious sin in God's name, but is inapproriate for mere intellectual pursuit
We do not fail the gospel or God when we hold an errant understanding, but we do fail them when we do not demostrate our difference.
Related Tags: Godblogging, debate, theology, Fruit Of The Spirit
