The Doctrine of Guinness
Oct 7, 2005 Print This Post
//MOOD: Thoughtful
//ITUNES: Somewhere from the album “7 Spin Music” by Esjay
OK. The last several posts and the related comments make me feel like I should clarify what I mean on some stuff. This may be a long post, so feel free to skip it if you don’t care.
I believe firmly that we can know what the Bible says. Don’t miss this.
At the same time, we must know that we have been influenced by all sorts of things. Our culture, upbringing, disciplers, church, books we have read, school, friends, family, etc. have altered our view of the world around us. That is what makes interpreting scripture so dang tricky. I also believe it makes “knowing God’s will” tricky. I think we must always seek Biblical interpretation and God’s will with an eye to a few things:
1) We don’t know everything
2) God (IMHO) rarely if ever leads an individual apart from community
3) There are brilliant and godly men and women who have come before us who have wrestled with the same issues in their cultures
4) Our culture is unique
I readily admit that I am probably wrong on a lot of things, and yet I feel I need to make the best effort I can to know about God and his word and his will. That’s why I make such a big deal about interpreting the Bible “normally.” Because the authors had an intent in writing, God had an intent in writing, and that is the message we should be looking for. It’s difficult because we are living in a different culture, speaking a different language than the Bible was originally written in. But that doesn’t mean it is impossible to interpret what the Bible means. If I believed that, I could not in good faith be a Christian or a pastor.
Now, to the cup thing I referred to yesterday. This has huge bearing on all of this.
Some things, we should put in a non-negotiable cup. I love John MacArthur’s points I quoted yesterday, so I won’t reiterate them. I will just point out that this will likely be a small cup (or should be).
What moves something into larger (more negotiable) cups? Here are a few things off the top of my head:
1) Decreasing clarity in the Bible
2) Less acceptance in historical Christianity
3) Has less to do with our eternal position with Christ / eternal salvation issues
4) Are issues more apt to be influenced by our own personal biases (You have alcoholism in your immediate family? You are more likely to be biased. You have a gay sister? You are more likely to be biased in the area of homosexuality.)
For purpose of illustration, let’s talk about some increasingly larger cups. I shall use glasses of Guinness.
This wee little glass represents doctrines that I believe are non-negotiable. I would throw into this cup the following, for example:
1) Salvation by grace through faith
2) Deity of Jesus Christ
3) Superiority of the Apple computer
These are non-negotiables for me. If you don’t agree with these, I have a tough time seeing you as a Christian.
This slightly larger glass represents doctrines I share with the people I pastor with, for instance. We are going to have a tighter agreement on more things than just the previous glass. For instance:
1) Inerrency of (original manuscripts) of scripture
Quick note – Why wasn’t this in the top one? Because I think it is possible to be a Christian and not believe this one.
2) Hermeneutic approach (how we interpret the Bible)
3) Women’s roles in leadership
These are things we have to agree on in order to pastor together. We may not always see exactly eye to eye, but we have to be within close proximity on these cups otherwise it is hard to labor together / lead a church together. There are more things in this cup, but I am just using a few examples in each.
This glass represents the group of people that lead ministries at our church. We may have diverse views on things such as:
1) Charismatic issues
2) Tithing
3) Alcohol
4) Other “conscience” issues
5) Other scriptural gray areas
We are most likely going to be pretty close on a lot of this stuff. However, I am not going to kick people out of our leadership team for disagreeing with me on a heck of a lot of stuff in this category.
This glass represent pretty much everything else that I may agree with or disagree with the greater body of Christ on. For instance:
1) Service styles
2) Translation of Bible
3) Methodology
4) Politics
There is so much I will disagree with other Christians in this cup, but who cares? We are all still Christians. We are going to be in Heaven together. Let’s not fight about stuff in this cup. We can certainly be opinionated and share our perspectives, but we don’t have to be jerks about it.
A friend of mine wrote a great article on interpreting scripture. You can download it here.
OK. Nuff said. Back to surfing the internet for Widgets.
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