True Respect

True respect between people requires an ability for them to disagree without damaging the relationship. We can have fellowship with people who we do not agree with on every point.

There are many essentials in the Christian faith, but there are many non-essentials where we may have liberty. In relationships with respect we can have fellowship with those whom with we disagree in non-essentials.

Too often we find we or others cannot have respectful dialogue or fellowship with those who disagree with us in non-essentials. Often an over zealousness to defend the Christian faith on non-essential issues is a sign of a weak faith.

A weak faith often cannot distinguish what is important or not important in faith. It cannot grasp that not all truth is worth fighting over. Too often we see minor debates over the small meaning of this or that verse become overblown issues.

There are certain over arching essential principles where there must be unity, but there are a massive number of important but minor key ideas in Christianity where we can respectfully disagree with others whom we have complete fellowship because the issues are minor and of not much consequence.

Christianity is about finding what God finds important. If God finds the poor, justice in the public sphere, missions, heaven and hell important then we must find these things important important (and God does find all of these things important).

The Core of Christianity and the Periphery

In theology there is a core and a periphery to theology. All truth is important, but not all truth equally vital.

The distinction is not arbitrary or unimportant. You see that scripture says that if we have all virtue, but lack love then our faith is meaningless. If we have the whole world, but lack faith in God our life is meaningless.

You see faith and love are at the center of Christianity, they fall in essentials. It is of great importance to the church to recognize what is important and what is not so important.

You see many churches in the current day focusing heavily on minor points of scripture which are toward the periphery of Christianity in importance and completely neglecting elements at the core.

Ultimately we need to embrace all of the truth in scripture, but we also need to pay attention most closely to what scripture says repeatedly. Usually scripture repeats what is critical in many places and many ways. Often scripture explicitly says that a principle is vital.

The distinction is lost to many theologians and churches. It seems unimportant. The reality is it is of great importance. Minor debates over the meaning of a Greek word used only one or two times or a single Old Testament text often have as much fervor as debates over the meaning of justification by faith alone.

You see we completely lack an understanding of the structure of Christian theology if we get caught up in the tiny debates of nuance and do not care about debates at the very center of Christian faith.

It is of course completely unmodern to place certain truths at a much higher level than other truths. But the reality is that it makes complete sense and you see many situations where it is the case in life that one truth is far more vital than another truth.

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.