Taking the Bible Seriously

I have had a number of conversations where in Christian circles where I have brought up the concept of Christian liberty. The concept that unity in small matters is more important than arguing the finest hairs of truth is found throughout scripture.

Almost immediately there comes an objection. The idea brings in relativity. We will keep arguing every tiny detail, because we who are we to decide what is important or not.

At times the attempted piety of persons is an excuse to not take the bible seriously. The bible calls us to seek wisdom. To actually think and make decisions.

The bible calls us to wisdom. It does not call us to mindlessly refuse to decide what is important. The bible calls us to think and discern as image bearers of God.

The bible is not a call to a mindless life of acting as if every thing is of the same importance. We cannot be faithful to scripture if we refuse to seek wisdom.

We are not seeking wisdom if we do not take seriously what the bible takes seriously. The call to unity in the church requires that we seek wisdom.

Of course truth is important. It takes no wisdom to see this. It takes wisdom to see how unity and truth relate. And how not all truth is worth fighting over.

We cannot piously reject the teaching of scripture. And refuse to incorporate concepts into our thought that scripture teaches.

6 Posts on Loving Others

Post by
Michelle Dowell, Contributor

The topic of loving others includes some of the most important things in life: family, friends, and evangelism. Here are six posts describing what loving others looks like:

1. Love Is Active. Love compels us to act.

2. Love for Others. "Love for others includes caring about what they care about."

3. How To Help a Friend in Need. I write about the best way to show love to others when they are in a time of need.

4. Love as the Apologetic. "One of the few truly interesting apologetics Christians have is love. Love in the Christian sense is interesting because it is so counter cultural to the world."

5. True Love is Unconditional. "True love is unconditional. Often we find in the world and church love which has a condition."

6. Liberty in the Christian Life. "... Love also does not insist on its own way. We might prefer certain things in the the church be this way or that way, but we cannot insist on preference or infringe upon the liberty of others because certain things displease us."

Watch for more posts on this topic in the future.

True Christian Liberty

Christian liberty is an interesting concept. It creates a lot of suspicion whenever it is mentioned. It seems clear that Paul teaches that Christians have the liberty to have differences with each other on non essential issues.

Why does such a concept face such strong resistance?

The reality is that Christian liberty faces resistance because there are many who wish to abuse it. For example Christian liberty turns into sexual liberty - clearly this is an abuse of the concept.

How can a person maintain the concept of Christian Liberty without endangering oneself to grave error? I think it is simply the we must always seek to understand and learn and sit under the teaching of the bible.

You will always see two sorts of impulses among "Christians." The one impulse is to sit under the teaching of scripture. The other impulse is to stand over the scriptures and figure out what is actually true in the scriptures.

It seems pretty clear which impulse is correct. If Jesus is who he says he is and has done what he has claimed to have done how can you stand over his teaching.

It is a very interesting state that many people do not reject the existance of God and yet they wish to tell God he is wrong about issues.

It is difficult to understand the impulse it seems to verge nearly on the absurd to say that an all powerful and all knowing God exists and I will tell him he is mistaken on life issues.