preaches-ness (Xanga repost)
"I won't lie, it completely revolutionized the way I feel about God.
I really don't care what other people might say in disagreement. It's between me and God."
From a comment on the Stuff Christians Like post about The Shack.
Why is this attitude dangerous? Because God can only be understood in community, and to say "This is what I feel and no one can tell me different" is to cut oneself off from the reproof and correction and teaching of that community, the community that exists only to help us become the kind of people God has called us, as Christians, to be. The Holy Spirit was given to the Body of Christ, not just to individuals, for the building up of the body, right? (1 Cor 12, Eph 4, Php 1:27)
Another way to look at it is this: If we are all living our Christian lives according to our own ideas, what is the point of the Church? How does it help us if there are no theological truths to be contended for or taught? It helps us feel better? To "feel God" on Sunday mornings and Wednesday nights and whenever we get together with our Christian friends? Use-less. I'd rather stay home and sleep in. Similar thoughts cross my mind when I hear such things as "What right have you to judge me? You haven't lived my life." What right have I to speak the truth of Scripture to one who has declared him or herself a Christian and therefore under Christ's leadership? The right of loving such a one so much that I would rather they be at one with Christ and unhappy for a time than happy now and found apart from God, because those found apart from God will be burned up (Jn 15:6). Because I am charged to "[speak] the truth in love, that we will grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ," (Eph 4:15). Now of course, this only applies to those who have voluntarily placed themselves under Christ's leadership, but if you have accepted Christ as Lord and Savior according to the Scriptures (love that phrase! Paul uses it in 1 Cor 15:3&4), you have to accept the Church as a governing and teaching authority; it's clear from Scripture.
"So this I say, and affirm together with the Lord, that you walk no longer just as the Gentiles also walk, in the futility of their mind, being darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart;"
How do the Gentiles live in the futility of their mind? They lean on their own understanding instead of trusting the Lord with all their heart (Pr 3:5), right? They assert their own right to do it "their way", right? When "hardness of heart" is mentioned in the Bible (most famously about Pharaoh in Exodus 7 and on), it is over and over linked to not listening to people God sent with His Holy Spirit, or at least that's how I read it. (2 Chron 36:13, Dan 5:18-22 refers to Dan 4, where Nebuchadnezzar is warned by Daniel but does not listen to the warning, Zech 7:12, Mt 13:15 and 19:3-10, Mk 6:52 and 8:17-18 and 16:14, Heb 3:7-8) Does that make sense to anyone else out there? And if the singular Holy Spirit is given to the entire church as the Body of Christ, instead of little individual Holy Spirits in each of us, doesn't that mean that each of us is dependent on everyone else in order to properly understand and interpret Scripture, and since our bodies and brains are still fallen and our minds still try to invent excuses and justifications for our behavior, don't we need each other to help keep us honest, to speak the Truth to each other?
I'm not trying to crush anyone's individuality. Anyone who has spent at least an hour with me will know that I am quite individual and that I hold my individuality as a prize, and maybe a little too much. I believe with C.S. Lewis that as we become more like Christ we become more like our true selves, more specifically different and special than before, even if less separate from each other! So this is about theological and ethical Truth (and ethical truth proceeding from theological truth). It's not about dogma or forcing everyone to think the same, except with the mind of Christ, which seeks the best good of each of us first. And the best good is to know God and be united with Him as fully as possible! And this we can only do when we are instructed by those who know Him better than we do. Just as I must seek correction from those who have known Christ longer and deeper than I have, so must we all be teachable by the Church. Because we're part of something bigger than ourselves. It's not just Galen and Jesus (or any one person and Jesus), out here on a journey, it's Jesus and the Church, because I am not the Bride of Christ. I am just a member, and if you claim Christ, so are you. God is doing something through His Body, His Bride, that is about His Kingdom, the Kingdom of Heaven that Jesus talked about so much!
Anyway, this is me being all preachy.
Love.
Galen
I really don't care what other people might say in disagreement. It's between me and God."
From a comment on the Stuff Christians Like post about The Shack.
Why is this attitude dangerous? Because God can only be understood in community, and to say "This is what I feel and no one can tell me different" is to cut oneself off from the reproof and correction and teaching of that community, the community that exists only to help us become the kind of people God has called us, as Christians, to be. The Holy Spirit was given to the Body of Christ, not just to individuals, for the building up of the body, right? (1 Cor 12, Eph 4, Php 1:27)
Another way to look at it is this: If we are all living our Christian lives according to our own ideas, what is the point of the Church? How does it help us if there are no theological truths to be contended for or taught? It helps us feel better? To "feel God" on Sunday mornings and Wednesday nights and whenever we get together with our Christian friends? Use-less. I'd rather stay home and sleep in. Similar thoughts cross my mind when I hear such things as "What right have you to judge me? You haven't lived my life." What right have I to speak the truth of Scripture to one who has declared him or herself a Christian and therefore under Christ's leadership? The right of loving such a one so much that I would rather they be at one with Christ and unhappy for a time than happy now and found apart from God, because those found apart from God will be burned up (Jn 15:6). Because I am charged to "[speak] the truth in love, that we will grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ," (Eph 4:15). Now of course, this only applies to those who have voluntarily placed themselves under Christ's leadership, but if you have accepted Christ as Lord and Savior according to the Scriptures (love that phrase! Paul uses it in 1 Cor 15:3&4), you have to accept the Church as a governing and teaching authority; it's clear from Scripture.
"So this I say, and affirm together with the Lord, that you walk no longer just as the Gentiles also walk, in the futility of their mind, being darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart;"
How do the Gentiles live in the futility of their mind? They lean on their own understanding instead of trusting the Lord with all their heart (Pr 3:5), right? They assert their own right to do it "their way", right? When "hardness of heart" is mentioned in the Bible (most famously about Pharaoh in Exodus 7 and on), it is over and over linked to not listening to people God sent with His Holy Spirit, or at least that's how I read it. (2 Chron 36:13, Dan 5:18-22 refers to Dan 4, where Nebuchadnezzar is warned by Daniel but does not listen to the warning, Zech 7:12, Mt 13:15 and 19:3-10, Mk 6:52 and 8:17-18 and 16:14, Heb 3:7-8) Does that make sense to anyone else out there? And if the singular Holy Spirit is given to the entire church as the Body of Christ, instead of little individual Holy Spirits in each of us, doesn't that mean that each of us is dependent on everyone else in order to properly understand and interpret Scripture, and since our bodies and brains are still fallen and our minds still try to invent excuses and justifications for our behavior, don't we need each other to help keep us honest, to speak the Truth to each other?
I'm not trying to crush anyone's individuality. Anyone who has spent at least an hour with me will know that I am quite individual and that I hold my individuality as a prize, and maybe a little too much. I believe with C.S. Lewis that as we become more like Christ we become more like our true selves, more specifically different and special than before, even if less separate from each other! So this is about theological and ethical Truth (and ethical truth proceeding from theological truth). It's not about dogma or forcing everyone to think the same, except with the mind of Christ, which seeks the best good of each of us first. And the best good is to know God and be united with Him as fully as possible! And this we can only do when we are instructed by those who know Him better than we do. Just as I must seek correction from those who have known Christ longer and deeper than I have, so must we all be teachable by the Church. Because we're part of something bigger than ourselves. It's not just Galen and Jesus (or any one person and Jesus), out here on a journey, it's Jesus and the Church, because I am not the Bride of Christ. I am just a member, and if you claim Christ, so are you. God is doing something through His Body, His Bride, that is about His Kingdom, the Kingdom of Heaven that Jesus talked about so much!
Anyway, this is me being all preachy.
Love.
Galen