Viewpoint Brief Bible Study #74 |
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JESUS calls US to be |
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The Christian religion is the worship and service of Jesus Christ. It’s not Mary we worship, but her Son. We worship neither saints, angels, a law code, nor even God’s Spirit. It’s JESUS who is to be honored. The Bible is our guide. |
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Do ALL Christians Agree
On Everything? Asks Doug Oakes
Christians in Lamar, Missouri are trying to work together in several ways toward evangelizing their community for Christ. One of the ways is by a joint Sunday evening service the day before the community Fair opens in Lamar. This year the gathering was held in the building of the Christian Church. Think with the preacher there as he writes in his church newsletter --
This past Sunday evening was an example of the "Restoration Movement" slogan, "In Matters Of Opinion, Liberty." The Fair Service is a true example of how Christians can gather, join in fellowship, work together in a ministry to the less fortunate, and just in general COOPERATE with one another.
Are there differing opinions? You better believe it!
But there is an even greater motivation to override our opinions with the willingness to work together in the love of Christ.
We do not demand (nor expect) every believer or minister [evangelist] to share the same opinion. God does allow for distinctiveness and diversity. But I believe He is not honored when we make our opinions a matter for not working with and having fellowship with other believers. There has been too much of that in the past.
And the world doesn't understand us as Christians when we bicker and stand aloof from other Christians because we have different opinions on the work of God.
The heritage of our Christian Churches/Churches of Christ is one of unity and a desire to have believers be "Christians-only." But the rest of the slogan from the 1800's was that we also recognize that "we are NOT the only Christians."
Sometimes we've acted like we thought we WERE the only Christians.
To our shame as a unity movement, we have given the impression to believers in other churches that we doubted the sincerity and validity of their faith in Jesus. That was flat-out wrong. We are not to judge matters of eternity (see Romans 2:1-6 and John 5:22-27). God will handle that through Jesus as the "righteous judge" just fine.
Most of the problems in the Christian community have come over our opinions and over our becoming judgmental about those opinions. That is not our area. It belongs to God!
Am I asking that we accept just any doctrine that any believer in Christ decides to hold and proclaim? By no means. Obviously, we must remain true to the essentials of God's Word. We need to be like the Bereans described in the book of Acts who would "search the Scriptures daily to decide if these things are true."
The only standard we have to go by (to know whether practices are practical or doctrines are desirable) is God's Word. But we must constantly be on guard against allowing the opinions of men (even our own opinions) to supplant the truth of Scripture. In matters of opinions . . . there must be LIBERTY. It's the basis for unity.
That's my opinion, -- Doug Oakes
Brief Bible Study #74 from Ray Downen. To go back to Viewpoint's first page, click < here. Or here to go on to Viewpoint Study 75. For Ray's concluding remarks, click HERE.
