Heyyyyyy.....

fonz
Originally uploaded by ericblauer.

I am not a hyper-calvinist, who gets mired down in secondary matters, but rather I pray, evangelize and do good works because I believe that the sovereign plan of God is accomplished through me and His people.

It amazes me how quickly we can say "this is what I believe" or "summarize another beliefs in short-statements, catchy phrases or disparaging comments. Where is the grace to listen, to seek understand, to search the scriptures? I can tell you this, if we approach the lost with the same lack of grace as we do each other...we will not find open hearts. Firing off a set of prepositions like a full metal jacket GI on the shores of Normandy isn't the approach we should be aiming at when we share truth. It's not who can cut who's throat first.

It is my hope that as a Christian I can learn to be quick to listen and slow to speak. Especially about issues, ideas, doctrine or situations that I may not be fully educated on. We are commanded to study to show ourselves approved, that means we have to have a commitment to know what we believe, why we believe it and where we find these beliefs in scripture.

I think it is imperative to wed our personal study to a historical tether as well. Understanding what has been taught by the church through out church history is critical to understand the outworking and interaction and consequences of ideas and doctrines. Knowing how and where and why certain doctrines emerged or were codified is essential to walking in humility in the journey with the word of God.

Is one familiar with the historical church creeds and confessions and the reasons those were put down on paper. Are we aware of the different doctrinal heresies that drew together the church fathers to frame responses to the truths being taught or attacked by various teachers?

And even after all of that study, are we willing to bow our intellect and emotions to the the ultimate no-man's land of...mystery?

I quote G. K Chesterton in his great book "Orthodoxy" : Imagination does not breed insanity. Exactly what does breed insanity is reason. Poets do not go mad; but chess-players do. Mathematicians go mad, and cashiers; but creative artists very seldom...Poetry is sane because it floats easily in an infinite sea; reason seeks to cross the infinite sea, and so make it finite. The result is mental exhaustion...To accept everything is an exercise, to understand everything a strain. The poet only desires exaltation and expansion, a world to stretch himself in. The poet only asks to get his head into the heavens. It is the logician who seeks to get the heavens into his head. And it is his head that splits.

In the words of the great preacher of yesteryear:

If, then, I find taught in one part of the Bible that everything is fore-ordained, that is true; and if I find, in another Scripture, that man is responsible for all his actions, that is true; and it is only my folly that leads me to imagine that these two truths can ever contradict each other. I do not believe they can ever be welded into one upon any earthly anvil, but they certainly shall be one in eternity. They are two lines that are so nearly parallel, that the human mind which pursues them farthest will never discover that they converge, but they do converge, and they will meet somewhere in eternity, close to the throne of God, whence all truth doth spring." -Charles Spurgeon

I think no greater words can be said but...only after one has done the work to earn the right to say those words.