Slip Away...Not Today.
I wonder what things would look like in the church of Jesus Christ if we were more united?
If we, as different churches and denominations stood together and upheld one anothers judgments and discipline cases.
This way if a person was to fall under discipline and in a worse case be excommunicated by the church, then this judgment call would go with them wherever they ran.
Of course this would be for their good...in order to open their eyes to cause them to see that they can not run and hide from the Lord, the Head of the Church.
This would bring a man to see that if he wanted his sin then he could not have the name of Christian.
And God willing repentance would soon follow.
posted by Dale Callahan at 6:20 AM
2 Comments:
I, too, would like to see the church better united. Not so much to have discipline as a primary result (although that would naturally happen), but that we would be one, as Jesus and the Father are one.
There are few instances in the Bible where we see Jesus praying specifically for us, but John 17:21-23 records just that.
Instead, a lot of energy is expended arguing over who is right and who is wrong. Jesus corrected John for this attitude in Luke 9:49-50: when someone is doing something in Jesus' name, if they are not against you, they are for you.
I'd really like to see this kind of attitude of reconciliation sweep over the entire church body.
I too would like to see unity for the reason you stated Scott, I didn't say that I wanted unity for the primary result of discipline...I only stated that if the church were more united this would be one area that we would see improvement on.
But I do believe that honoring one anothers discipline cases is a start in becoming more unitied.
Many people talk about unity but if you ask any of them if they have ever been members in a church where 'their' beliefs were not believed or practiced then you would very likely see that most of the people who "talk" about tolerance and unity have never gone beyond the point of talk.
Its easy to talk about being tolerant while we stay in our little "black out zone", never stepping outside of our comfort zones to see what others in the Christian church actually believe...having "my" beliefs challenged by others in my own day as well as with the 2000 previous years of church history.
When you actually have to live under the same roof with others with very different views of your own it causes you to have to think...to have to be able to show why you believe what you believe.
I ask a question to us all. These are things I have talked over with friends whom I love dearly and respect greatly in the Lord, but also with men who differ in areas so foundational that I could not plant a church with them, nor they with me.
Here is the question.
Could you plant a church with someone who held a different view to yours concerning baptism and children coming to the Lord's table?
One holds to baptism after a profession of faith and the other holds to that view with adults but also that the children of believers are to be baptized.
Even though it would be very hard to plant a church with a brother who held to very different views of who makes up the church, it would not be hard for me to uphold a judgment case this brothers church made on an adultery case.
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