human fallibility

[Dennis Bratcher]

I wonder how those who argue that perfect knowledge is essential to being Christian, or that everyone must have the "truth" (as they define it) to avoid apostasy or heresy, deal with Paul. As much as Paul combats false belief, he certainly seems to place relationship with God and others above any obsession with believing the right things. He also admits the fallibility of human knowledge and calls for us to live a life of mature Christian love (holiness?!) in spite of our human fallibility.


13:8 Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. 13:9 For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; 13:10 but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. 13:11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. 13:12 For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. 13:13 And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.

Now as a minister and an educator, anyone who knows me also knows that I value knowledge and truth. This is no excuse for intellectual laziness, trying to replace good theology with external piety or zeal, or substituting personal opinion as self-declared truth for sound biblical study.

Still, the bottom line is not the quality of our theology, the brilliance of our biblical interpretation, the ferocity with which we defend our ideas, or the zeal with which we dispatch our enemies. The bottom line is how we have lived out loving God with our whole being, and how we have loved others with the same love that God has shown to us.


Ga 5:22-23 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.

Grace and Peace,

Dennis B.

[John Brickley]

Amen. Not much more needs to be said. Why is it so difficult for us to believe that it is a person that saves us, not doctrine, and a person can only be known in the context of a loving relationship. Why is this so difficult, or so scandalous for some? I'll never understand that. I guess it is easier to believe a set of propositions and call one's self saved, than it is to trust one's life into the hands of another person, even Jesus Christ.

[Hans Deventer]

Amen. Not much more needs to be said. Why is it so difficult for us to believe that it is a person that saves us, not doctrine, and a person can only be known in the context of a loving relationship. Why is this so difficult, or so scandalous for some? I'll never understand that.

Fear. Fear seeks control. A Person cannot be controlled, a doctrine can.

[Susan Unger]

Still, the bottom line is not the quality of our theology, the brilliance of our biblical interpretation, the ferocity with which we defend our ideas, or the zeal with which we dispatch our enemies. The bottom line is how we have lived out loving God with our whole being, and how we have loved others with the same love that God has shown to us.

I realized this after spending time with my prayer partner a few years ago. She is a "diamond in the rough" spiritually speaking. Has many weaknesses. In the eyes of many Christians, she'd be considered an 'unredeemed' sinner. But after spending time with her and getting to know her well, I realized her love for God was greater than most 'perfect acting' Christians. She definitely fits the description of the slave mentioned in Luke 7 that the loved most because she has been forgiven most. That's when I realized that she was really a lot more Christ-like than most 'good' Christians who surround me.

[Roland Hearn]

I'm just finishing a series called "How faith works," my primary thesis is that faith is so much more than right belief. In fact I am suggesting that genuine faith is the more the discovery of who we are in Christ than it is the discovery of a correct understanding of who Christ/God is. While I too believe strongly that working toward a good belief structure is important an insistence on correct doctrine as necessary for salvation is a works based theology, even if the works is about faith.

[Dennis Bratcher]

. . . genuine faith is more the discovery of who we are in Christ than it is the discovery of a correct understanding of who Christ/God is.

Well said. It is interesting that in Hebrews 11 faith is illustrated by those who lived a certain way, who responded to God by certain actions. There is nothing there about believing the right things, only about living as people of God.

Grace and Peace,

Dennis B.

[Greg Farra]

I think it's both. The more I learn about God, the more I appreciate him for who he is. A relationship is learning about the other person as well as yourself.

[Hans Deventer]

A good friend sent me this poem. I think it makes a lot of sense.




Credo
John Oxenham

Not what, but WHOM, I do believe,
That, in my darkest hour of need,
Hath comfort that no mortal creed
To mortal man may give;--
Not what, but WHOM!
For Christ is more than all the creeds,
And His full life of gentle deeds
Shall all the creeds outlive.
Not what I do believe, but WHOM!
WHO walks beside me in the gloom?
WHO shares the burden wearisome?
WHO all the dim way doth illume,
And bids me look beyond the tomb
The larger life to live?--
Not what I do believe,
BUT WHOM!
Not what,
But WHOM!

[Roland Hearn]

I think it's both. The more I learn about God, the more I appreciate him for who he is. A relationship is learning about the other person as well as yourself.

That it is there is nothing surer and as we lay ourselves open to Him He does in fact reveal Himself to us, however putting that revelation together in a coherent form is not the essential. Faith is allowing Him to work in us despite not having all the answers. In the modern world a complete understanding was almost essential to faith, thank God for post-modenism where we are so much more comfortable with the unknown. If we could know of all of God, would He still be God.

[Dennis Bratcher]

A good friend sent me this poem. I think it makes a lot of sense.



Credo
John Oxenham

Not what, but WHOM, I do believe,
That, in my darkest hour of need,
Hath comfort that no mortal creed
To mortal man may give;--
Not what, but WHOM!
For Christ is more than all the creeds,
And His full life of gentle deeds
Shall all the creeds outlive.
Not what I do believe, but WHOM!
WHO walks beside me in the gloom?
WHO shares the burden wearisome?
WHO all the dim way doth illume,
And bids me look beyond the tomb
The larger life to live?--
Not what I do believe,
BUT WHOM!
Not what,
But WHOM!

That is why I have said for many years that the Word of God in which we are called to believe is a person, not a book.

Grace and peace,

Dennis B.

[John Brickley]

That is why I have said for many years that the Word of God in which we are called to believe is a person, not a book.

Grace and peace,

Dennis B.

Amen, Amen, Amen, and again I say Amen!