The Conversation

My apologies for not blogging more this week. I'll get back on track if I can.

Here is the bottom line of what is important to me:

• No one is perfect because of sin
  
• God is perfect
• Imperfect people cannot approach a perfect God
  
• There has to be a penalty for sin
• Jesus was that penalty for sin offered to the world
  
• God sees us as perfect if we turn away from our sin and follow Jesus
• Those of us who are now seen as perfect can approach God
  

There it is. That is the gospel as I would explain it in its most basic form. There is a ton of stuff in each of those bullet points, but that's as far down as I can boil it without changing it, I think. If you haven't bought into this, please consider it. I won't get into all the details of how I think the mechanism of salvation (the ordo salutis as we learned in Systematic Theology) works, but do consider this if you haven't.

Why do I bring this up? One reason is that it is a good reminder for me. Another is that I get sickened with all the stuff I see online. Basically, the blogs I frequent seem to be more interested in being right than in being loving. We can be both, but I think that the church takes enough heat for its stance on being right. It doesn't need help with that. Instead, let's focus on getting down to these core truths.

In other words, I don't want to make my life mission about converting Arminians to Calvinism, though I think that would be great if they did. They think I have a flawed reading of Scripture as I think they do. It's a question of hermeneutics, and that's another whole area of discussion.

I'm not going to make my life mission about looking for heresies in the church, though there is some value in that. If you're into that, please check out this site or this one. It's good to hold the church accountable, but what are we doing in our own churches and our own lives?

I'm done with my phase of being worried about being more right than someone else. I know what I believe. If Scripture tells me to go in a different direction on something then that's what I intend to do. There is a lot of junk out there that needs to be avoided (i.e. the whole Word of Faith movement), but there is also some good in places like Rick Warren's work.

In the end, we need to study to show ourselves approved. All this fighting among the body of Christ has got me a little down.