The Question Without An Appropriate Answer (and more)

I can’t tell you how many times in my past the phrase, “you can’t take one part of scripture by itself but you must put one passage with the other passages to have completeness,” has come up in biblical discussions. My question is simple and does not have a good answer. Why is any one statement by God not complete in and of itself?

The basis for the conclusion above being given is nothing less than an acceptance of man’s wisdom being superior to God! We are not told to add one statement to another and come up with a conclusion but our human ability to understand and reason assumes this practice as the only legitimate method of understanding a topic. I would have the reader notice it is our understanding of reasoning which makes this a necessity.

Typically this discussion comes forward when we consider the importance of baptism in salvation. If I were to quote to someone the passage saying “for God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son and that those who believe on Him shall not perish,” members of my heritage would quickly add the requirement to be baptized because this passage does not mention baptism. The same people who will follow up with the statement made to Timothy concerning all scripture given being available for teaching and admonishment will rarely accept the same scripture when making references from the Old Testament which was available to Timothy and yet demand the assimilation of every passage to draw a “reasoned” conclusion on any given topic.

The reality of our ability to reason and the wisdom of God might best be summed up with a statement made to me as a young musician who believed he understood and knew something about music. One of my teachers offended me greatly when he overheard me making a statement of “fact” about music and told me strongly how I was so ignorant that I had not yet come to the point of knowing how little I knew. Well, brothers and sisters, I would extend this statement into the world of Christianity and claim anyone using his own wisdom, like the wisdom of having to put John 3:16 with Acts 2:38 in order to “level” their ability to reason Gods plan for His creation and salvation, is still to ignorant of the ways of God to fully understand how little we know about GOD and HIS WAYS!

Having been in the field of teaching for 31 years now, one of the things bothering teachers throughout this period of time are the “highly educated ones” who make something simple so extremely difficult. I have little doubt of how much better our school children would be educated if researchers and government officials who keep discovering the “right way to teach” would simply get out of the way and allow teachers to teach. When this is apposed to Christianity, I would suggest those “picking” the bible apart to make and draw specific conclusions of what God wants should get out of the way of the church and let them DO GODS WORK.

When looking at my own life and that of my congregation, I must say it seems like we are afraid to LEAD. Churches of Christ all over our country are discovering, for themselves the things I have spoken of in these blogs and are making changes to reflect Christ as the head of the church and not men. I can’t tell the reader how many times I have criticized the Catholic denomination over the past years for having a Pope who makes decisions for the church and yet, I have regularly given in and recognized the authority of the Pope in our own congregations. In many churches, the elders regularly swap in and out of the “Elder of the Month” or “Papal” position and having criticized the Catholic denomination, I recognize we are not immune to the same criticism. God’s people went to Samuel and told him they wanted a king and we have not changed over all these years. We can’t stand to have Christ as our head but must have a man in a position of being our authority.

Brothers and sisters, what have we done? We are the ones who took God’s plan for elders as being spiritual leaders and crowned them KING. Christ came to bring God to a personal level and we still want someone in between us and God. I just mentioned Samuel and I hope you will go back and read the story because God told Samuel to tell the people of how bad it would be under the authority of a King and sure enough, God’s word was true.

Our/your local congregation is what it has become because Christ is Lord or men are Lord. I have seen too many congregations in my heritage come out from behind the mantle of men being Lord and when they allow Christ to be Lord, they THRIVE. Many have blazed the path for us beginning in Texas with Oak Hills in San Antonio and then Richland Hills in the Dallas area. There were none in the Houston area until recently and then take a look and see which Church of Christ is thriving on the southwest side of Houston. Yes, Sugar Grove decided to study the scriptures for themselves and saw past the shackles placed on our heritage in the form of tradition.

Brothers and sisters, which Church of Christ on the southeast side of Houston is going to throw open the doors with Christ as Lord and cast off the shackles of tradition? It takes the faith of Abraham to step out. It takes the faith of David to step out.

What a COP OUT! It takes the faith of a church to step out!

There are those who read my blogs in disgust and having suggested I pull up stakes and LEAVE, will also be the ones who will be glad to know when the doors of a congregation founded in the Lordship of Christ opens on the southeast side of Houston, I will be there from then on.

My prayer for my own congregation is that we become that congregation on the southeast side of Houston. One or two years, we won’t have enough parking or room to hold all of the Christians who have already made the change of placing Christ ahead of tradition and the building will be crying out for additional rooms to hold everyone during worship services on Saturday, Sunday and any other day of the week needed to meet the needs of our brothers and sisters.