The BLB Blog

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Don't Get Out of Whack

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This article from Kevin DeYoung is superb. Here’ s an excerpt:

The Lord has been gracious over many years to preserve the unity at our church. So I’m not writing about the members of University Reformed Church. But I’ve seen and heard enough—from other church leaders and from church visitors who end up not staying with us—to know that some conservative Christians can make things that are secondary (or tertiary or whatever words come next for four and five) into things that are primary.

There are Christians who want homeschooling to be the top agenda for the church. Others insist that every church leader must embrace private Christian schools. I’ve met Christians whose number one passion seems to be age-integration in church ministries. Others are adamant that kids should be in all church services and aren’t allowed to draw pictures or look at books. For others, paedocommunion is a must. For some the issue is the Ten Commandments every Sunday or the presence of two services (morning and evening good; two in the morning bad). I’ve heard of other Christians getting up in arms about Christmas trees, the use or non-use of wine during communion, and whether infants should wear white garments or black when they are baptized. And too many have taken the regulative principle, which as a general principle is helpful and scriptural, and made the detailed application of this principle the end all and be all of church life.

Please hear me out. I like Christians who know what they believe and why they believe it (I’ve never been criticized for having too few convictions and opinions). So, I’m not saying the items above are unimportant issues (okay, a couple might be). The problem is not that we care about all sorts of issues or that we want to think carefully about every aspect of church ministry. The problem is we haven’t always thought carefully about how we express and hold to our careful thoughts.

Click here to read the rest.

Christians may disagree on many issues. Oftentimes, they do. However, we cannot disagree on the primary issues: the gospel of grace and the person and work of Jesus Christ our Lord.

What do you think? What secondary issues do you think we can “get of whack” on?

Comments

  1. I think if a church reflected the early churches children would be so enthrawlled they wouldn’t need secondary entertainment. I personally believe man is taking too much of the responsibilty of building God’s church rather than allowing God to do it.

    • I do agree with you Angela, today’s churches are too busy entertaining many and they have shot their eyes on the real thing, that is faith and allowing the Yeshua to do his thing thru us. We don’t seem to remind ourselves, that is the Yeshua thru Holy Spirit that builds the real church and not man. Less we stop driving, He won’t do anything. We must stand aside and allow him to Drive individual church and the real result will be to his glory and not ours.

  2. I completely agree.
    If you could get inside the mind of every single person sitting in just one service of your church you would find that many variant views of God and Christianity. Just as every one would have slightly different views of life in general, or how they’d describe their favorite food, they would all have different relationships with God.
    We are not meant to be clones. In fact, I would go so far as to say that even though we FOLLOW Christ Jesus, we do keep our own identities. We can still wear a suit or blue jeans.

  3. i think other secondary doctrines and theologies that people divide over include: music types, Calvinism/Arminianism, and especially eschatology. If you ask me, I think God cares about every nation, not just America and Israel, like many people think.

  4. Most definitely music! There is as many different types of styles of music than there are of people. We sometimes get so caught up in taking care not to accept certain styles depending on human associations with songs, without taking into consideration the spirit in which they can and should be offered. I believe it is one of Satan’s greatest tools to get believers off the main business of sharing the gospel with a lost and dying world by getting them at odds with one another over trivial matters that likely make no difference to our Heavenly Father!

  5. Ginger Haney has hit the nail on the head so to speak. Some churches have become or are in danger of becoming Synagogue’s of Satan. There is only one thing that should dominate church life,the Gospel,the Gospel,the Gospel.

    Nothing else,absolutely nothing else matters