For the sake of unity
In my recent post, Do You Love God?, I ended with a list of commitments for fostering/preserving unity in the body of Christ (which I pulled from my Aug. 08 Tabletalk Magazine). Well, my friend Nahomi at www.couragetotremble.wordpress.com responded on her blog with three more very worthy commitments.
"I would like to add some more to the list:
"I will endevour to recognise the practices of my church that fall under the nonessentials category. So that we may not ever bind on others or teach as divine doctrine what is but the mere precept of man. I will try to distinguish between application/practice (that came from the minds of godly, albeit fallible, men) and the underlying Biblical doctrine (that came from the immutable word of God).
"I will endevour to impress upon my forgetful and ungrateful heart the fact that I have been forgiven much (and continue to be forgiven much) and must therefore be gracious and patient with those who appear to me to lack in their understanding in some areas.
"I will endevour to use terms like Calvinist, Arminian, Antinomian, Sabbatarian, Anti-sabbatarian, Hyper-calvinist, Dispensationalist, and Covenantalist only for purposes of understanding theological concepts but not to label or look down on any group consisting also of persons for whom the Lord Jesus shed His blood."
"I would like to add some more to the list:
"I will endevour to recognise the practices of my church that fall under the nonessentials category. So that we may not ever bind on others or teach as divine doctrine what is but the mere precept of man. I will try to distinguish between application/practice (that came from the minds of godly, albeit fallible, men) and the underlying Biblical doctrine (that came from the immutable word of God).
"I will endevour to impress upon my forgetful and ungrateful heart the fact that I have been forgiven much (and continue to be forgiven much) and must therefore be gracious and patient with those who appear to me to lack in their understanding in some areas.
"I will endevour to use terms like Calvinist, Arminian, Antinomian, Sabbatarian, Anti-sabbatarian, Hyper-calvinist, Dispensationalist, and Covenantalist only for purposes of understanding theological concepts but not to label or look down on any group consisting also of persons for whom the Lord Jesus shed His blood."
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