A friend and Christian brother of mine emailed me and today I responded with the following:
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You said below that "...as long as our convictions and beliefs are verified by Scripture, why worry about what others think?" Here's the rub with that statement. It splinters the unity of the church and destroys the message of the gospel.
1. Jesus prayed for the unity or "oneness" of all those who would follow him as a result of the witness of the original disciples. That's you and me man (John 17).
2. When we look around and see numerous factions and divisions in the church and not one of them saying the same thing about the gospel or even the Savior then we have good reason to worry. Our efforts to (over) interpret and (over) explain the Scriptures have led to the break down of a singular real story that the "world" can understand and do something (become Christ followers) with. Our debate about the "message" (the gospel) is communicating to the world a "message" that isn't the gospel.

How can any of us who have come to specific convictions and beliefs know for sure that our individual interpretations of the scripture are right? Isn’t that notion a bit individualistic? What ever happened to mystery? Now I haven't thrown out scripture, in fact I read the word today. But instead of looking for answers that'll help me justify my position, I was looking for a singular story that might change my life.
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I know it is unrefined and not to well thought out. But hey, it just spilled out. I enjoyed listening to the heart of Erwin McManus the past couple of days as he joined us (pastors of the PNW - alliance) at District Conference. I was encouraged and challenged in many ways. It was his heart for the lost and the church, his openess to taking great risks...

But I discovered in myself while we at the conference a missing peice. I mentioned above something about finding a singular story that might just change my life. Either I have lost it... or I never fully had it... or the pieces just haven't come together right..or the mosaic has fallen apart...but in any case I am still searching...

jlb
- posted by Jacob B. @ 3:31 PM