“A Chritianity which will bear witness to God’s Word in Jesus will be a speaking, thinking, arguing, debating Christianity, which will not be afraid to engage in intellectual and philosophical contest with the prevailing dogmas of its day.”
–Oliver O’Donovan
I say “divisive” quote, because this is the very thing I’ve tried to do in my old church (a Calvary Chapel). I was simply trying to draw people’s attention to a tragically-ignored and misunderstood passage of Scripture (I Corinthians 11:1-15), and see if people wanted to take an honest look at it. But our pastor at that church said that would be “divisive” (without even explaining the meaning of the passage to me). Rather than them even looking at the passage itself, they just looked at “that rag” (their words, not mine) on my head said I was “in Romans 14.” What our pastor meant by this is that I was the “weaker brother” of Romans 14–the brother who hypothetically thinks it’s a sin to eat meat, and therefore in love we should not eat meat in front of him, so as to not offend his oversensitive conscience.
Since that’s how they responded at my old church when I tried to bring up this Scripture, I’ve been VERY HESITANT to bring up neglected Scriptures in our new church. I feel so concerned that I’ll be misunderstood again. Right now everybody there loves me just as I am, which is a great improvement on the last church, and I’m afraid to ruin that. At our church (a URC), I’ve been told I’m “adding to the Scriptures.” That was when I was pointing out from the Scriptures why I am against contraception. I consider “adding to the Scriptures” a grave sin. How do you handle it when you’re just presenting the neglected Scripture verses as they are, and reason from them to their plain and logical conclusions . . . and then hear that you’re “adding to the Scriptures?” Plus, I’ve been wondering if those Bible verses that warn us not to be “contentious” might apply here. So this quote reallly seems to be encouraging me to not shy away from asking Bible questions about difficult passages. . . Yay. I think I’m gaining courage here.
Interestingly, this is printed on a bookmark I picked up for free in our church bookstore (our present church).
LadyInTheLamb 