Further Conversation Over My Post on Essentials

The first collection of replies:  The Facebook Conversation Over My Post on Essentials

The original post:  A Proposed Minimal Set of Essentials

Grady replied:

The people in the book of Acts that reieved the Holy Spirit pre baptism, what was the context of those incidents? Jesus breathed the Holy Spirit on his disciples He sent out, was this before their baptism? Absolutly the Holy Spirit is the seal, and the judgement is not a judgement of comdenation (to hell), the judgement is the one that we make a decision aas to if a person has obeyed and become. The scripture is very clear on this. When people hear us say you have not become a Christian yet, they are very quick to assume we are making a judgement of comdemnation against them, and use it because of what the common thinking is concerning judgement (don't judge lest you be judged). Sp to our marching order's...if we are to make disciples (and we are) then what do we teach as to how that happen's...the truth of the matter, no matter what others may teach. We are to teach those who would to believe in the gosple, belive Jesus as God's Son, that He died for the sins of the world, and that when this is accepted, we teach that they need to turn from their sin, confess Christ and then to be baptized (first fruits!). Then when they have obeyed we teach them of the promises of the Spirit, and then comes the how to walk.

In the initial post you asked about "In essentials, unity. In opinions, liberty. In all things, love." And said you had never heard anyone give explanation of this. That is what I was addressing.

You may have forgot what Paul said to always interact with one another in a spirit of humility, gentleness, patience, and love. Without that, our message is lost, this is true, he also said to preach the truth.

You can feel free to teach something different as to the essentials of the truth, but I will not. I teach the scripture, not my opinion. It is our JOB to teach them first to become before we teach them how to be, once we have done this then to be is the true course. If wew don't teach them the path of conversion, it is not I who will do any judgement of condemnation (thankfully not my job to do so).

Hey got to run to my people, God bless your day, may He convince you of His truth in all things. Love you! 

 Regan replied:

Ultimately, we just disagree about how one can receive the Holy Spirit through our understandings of the teaching of Scripture, especially the book of Acts. I feel that the Holy Spirit only comes at baptism crowd has "contextualized" away every difficult passage that disagrees with them. Maybe you also do that. Maybe that is the right approach. I am not comfortable with that approach. Those exceptions are there to show us that there are exceptions. Until either I state that baptism is the only place you can get the Holy Spirit or you acknowledge that those exceptions were given to show that there can still be exceptions, we will just be running around in circles if we continue. That is the crux of our disagreement.

We also disagree on separating what we teach from what are the essentials. I will teach that a person should be baptized after giving their life over to Jesus. Baptism is the normative place for people to receive the Holy Spirit, but that does not mean that I will exclude people who show fruit and acknowledge Jesus as Lord from fellowship. Our movement started with open fellowship and open communion. On the frontier, circuit riders could only make it once a month or once a quarter. People were not allowed to take of the Lord's Supper until the circuit rider came into town. What happened was people started gathering for communion without the clergy. They started baptizing people without the clergy. But they joined together as people who wanted to study the word and living under Jesus' lordship.

Over time, we, who started as a unity through Scripture movement, just became as divisive as the denominations we were trying to bring together. Instead of ending sectarianism, we just added another sect to the fray. Over 150 years later, the denominations have stopped being divisive, non-denominational (locally led) churches are flourishing, and nearly everyone is baptized as adult believers except for in a few mainline denominations. We are fighting battles that were fought for us over 150 years ago. We're like Civil War reenactors remembering the battle, but instead of it just being a hobby, it's really damaging to the Kingdom of God.

The men who started the Restoration Movement, from which the modern Church of Christ/Christian Church come, both took this stance.

Alexander Campbell said:
Should I find one [baptized as an infant] more intelligent in the Christian Scriptures, more spiritually-minded and more devoted to the Lord than…one immersed on a profession of the ancient faith, I could not hesitate a moment in giving the preference of my heart to him that loveth most. Did I act otherwise, I would be a pure sectarian, a Pharisee among Christians.

Barton Stone said:
None of us are disposed to make our notions of baptism, however well founded, a bar of christian fellowship. We acknowledge all to be brethren, who believe and obey the Saviour, and, who walking in the Spirit, bear his holy image; yet, in the meekness of Christ, we labor to convince such of their duty in submitting to every ordinance of the Lord.

My list of essentials came from the same vein that the Church of Chirst/Christian Church was founded on. We teach baptism, yet we do not make it a test of fellowship. Who am I to say that a person who is not baptized but is more faithful and fruitful is saved? God knows their heart. Paul wrote, "A man is not a Jew if he is only one outwardly, nor is circumcision merely outward and physical. No, a man is a Jew if he is one inwardly; and circumcision is circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the written code. Such a man's praise is not from men, but from God." I will teach them the Scriptural teachings on baptism, but God knows their heart and their lives show evidence of the Spirit.

I believe I teach Scripture. You can call it my opinion; it is. So is what you teach. Each one of us teach our opinion of what Scripture teaches. Some day we will know fully as is taught in 1 Corinthians 13:12. Until then, everyone filters Scripture, hopefully in tune with the Spirit, through their own brains, experiences, etc. So we always teach what we believe is the truth, but we must always do it as Paul taught, with humility, gentleness, patience, and love.

Do you really believe that every person not immersed as an adult believer does not have the Holy Spirit? How do you reconcile those verses that I mentioned on how Jesus and Paul taught us how to know who are Jesus' followers?

Regan replied to Dan's previous reply: 

It is a biblical explanation of why we can work with people who are not from our particular background on furthering God's work and accept them as brothers and sisters in Jesus where they are, but in a way it also deals with who is saved and who is not. But it does not deal with what I would teach to someone who wants to be saved. I have no qualms saying that the ministers I consider my friends from other denominations are my brothers in Jesus. They don't have to be brothers in Jesus to be my friends, but I see the love of Christ in their lives, the fruit of the Spirit growing in them, and they share my proclamation that Jesus is Lord. It does not mean that we just leave things rest and don't dialogue with one another on our differences. It's just that I think that dialogue should happen in the context of accepting one another as a brother and sister in Christ. I think they have as much to teach me as I do them, as long as we keep the Bible as the center of those discussions.

As for the rest of what you wrote, I agree wholeheartedly. "The church is probably in the state it is in because we love judging outsiders and refuse to collectively judge those inside the church. We have completely backwards maybe because we have not challenged each other's motives." I agree that we have the whole judging people backward. Those outside of Jesus, I do not judge. Those inside, I judge, but in a gentle, patient, and loving way to help them be who God wants them to be. They should do the same to me. Together, we spur one another on to reach the prize.

 Laura's response:

Yeesh, I tried to read all those, but I'm getting sleepy. I'll leave the scholarly talks to you guys...I just felt from the heart that forcing a list isn't what's needed. God could have made the Bible much clearer, shorter, more compact. He... could have used lists and numbers or used only a few writers to keep us from "discussing" what THAT writer intended. He didn't. It requires us to rely heavily on the Holy Spirit to interpret it and over time and seasons and experiences, we see things we'd never seen before. Is this because we were just wrong before and now we are right, or because God gives us these things in His time? I just don't think a list is necessary. I think we can deal with things as they come and have the answer at that time. If I come upon someone and I want to decide if they are a brother or not, I can look at a list. That sounds convenient. But I could also decide in that moment what the Holy Spirit is trying to tell me-through the Bible, through other believers, through experience, and always with love. Or decide over a period of time, etc...

I'm not automatically against lists or creeds or church goals, etc... but sometimes I wonder why we need to put things in OUR (by "our" I mean mine and whoever agrees with me) own words apart from scripture. Call me floppy, but I don't have hard and fast rules about certain things (or most things, for that matter), and I don't think you're wrong for wanting to clarify, for the sake of unity, the essentials. But I don't know that it's best either. I've used catch phrases of the church and have found them helpful to me and to others, but I don't think they were necessary.

 Regan's reply to Laura:

My list was a list of Scriptures and not my opinions. But I understand your hesitancy because it was my opinion that chose which Scriptures to include. How does one decide what Scriptures would be used as a test of fellowship? Do we use all... of Scripture, and they have to agree with us on everything? Do we use more than what I used or less? You would say that it is up to the Holy Spirit. That's what I think I was saying in a more structured way. If they have the Spirit, I can discern that, and they claim Jesus is Lord and follow the greatest commandment, then they are brothers and sisters. The problem is that those who refuse to have a list like this often are the most divisive and sectarian. I'm not saying you are, but I have experienced that. They typically have lists, that if written out would be longer than any denominational handbook.

Would you accept someone as a brother who said that Jesus is not Lord, showed absolutely no fruit of the Spirit in their life, did not strive to live a life of loving God and loving God or loving their neighbor? I am pretty sure I wouldn't. Even in the moment. But the list was focused more on us being able to have fellowship with people in the community who might not go to a church with the same name on the sign as our church or all of the same beliefs as our church.

The four Scriptures I chose were selected to help my local church pull back from all of the divisiveness and sectarianism that our movement in this geographic area struggles with, focus on the essentials, and move forward to minister to our community from there.

Also, in the local context, we are involved in starting a community youth center with other churches. A few struggle with whether that should be done because they were once taught that people in those other churches are not Christians. We make this judgment call whether we want to or not. I laid this out to show what the essentials are and how we are to evaluate whether a person is a Christian or not. I could ignore there frustrations and just say that I think they are a Christian and that should be good enough, but it's my job to teach. So these essentials were more of an explanation of why we can be involved with other churches in a youth center. Not a list to exclude people. I don't think this list would exclude anyone who wanted to be considered a Christian. It's a minimal list of essentials. It's frustrating to some because it includes too many people, not enough essentials. The discussion centers around whether it should be broader, not narrower.

And I understand where they are coming from; we should just teach the Bible. But unfortunately, the issue of who to accept as a brother or sister is an issue that our church was struggling with. So I attempted to teach on that through Scripture. It was a list because I tried to deal with the passages that talked about who to accept and what are the greatest teachings. I could have called it something other than a list, but it was a list nonetheless, whether I called it by another name or not.

How would you teach someone who was saying people are not Christians that those people are in fact Christians? Or how would you teach someone who thought certain people were Christians who you thought were not? Unfortunately, just leaving it alone would not have helped the church move forward, so that really wasn't an option.

The Facebook Conversation Over My Post on Essentials

Facebook seems to be the breeding ground for comments rather than the blog, so I thought I would copy and paste the comments on here for posterity's sake.

The original post:  A Proposed Minimal Set of Essentials

Grady posted:

‎? should not the death, burial, and resurection be a part of those essential beliefs? How about forgiveness of sin, the how that happens as proclaimed from the scriptures? How about living a life after Christs example? Should not these all be a part of the "essentials"? Just questions not debate, have the answers they are in the scripture, just trying to decern your thinking on these matters.

By the way, I continue to pray for you and your family, be blessed in this day, love you!

 Regan replied:

I like to focus more on what it means to be a Christian rather than how we get there. The church is littered with debate and division over the latter. We get hung up on it and miss the former.

And when teaching what it means to be a follower totally surrendered to Christ, the basics of conversion are covered. They just don't remain the focus. I know people who are just baptized and never become disciples; same with people who say the sinner's prayer. But if you love God, love your neighbors, love one another, show the fruit of the Spirit (which would imply you have the Spirit, the seal of Salvation), and declare that Jesus is Lord, then you are Jesus'. It's about the maximum Christian life of total surrender rather than the minimal ritual life of baptism and church.

And this list is more of a "who can we accepts as brothers and sisters in Christ." What are the "essentials" to accept someone as a brother or sister? The "essentials" we will allow ourselves to be unified in. The Spirit of God is the sign of a follower. And that Spirit doesn't just come at baptism, or I would have had that in my essentials.  How People Received the Holy Spirit in the Book of Acts?

I did not address doctrinal essentials in this post, but I will. Although, we still need a minimal list. That Jesus rose from the dead and was God in the flesh would be on that list. 

 Dan wrote:

When you say "what it means to be a Christian" are you only talking about the actions of the Christian? Are you including the why some one does these things?

One clarification: you say "Jesus said that He did not come to judge (John 12:47).  If Jesus did not come to judge and condemn in regards to eternal life, then we to avoid our natural tendency to judge others in that light." While I agree with judging eternal salvation of some is dangerous, aren't there are some the church is supposed to judge? Also, in using this verse, does that mean we need to save since in that same verse he says he came to save the world? What about the next verse(s) where he does point to the Judge (presumable himself as seen in these places: http://bit.ly/d8tB81)?

 Laura wrote:

I'm not reading all this, but I propose not making a list of essentials.

Regan replied:

@Laura - That way we can have it change and be whatever we want depending on the mood we are in? Because whether we have thought it out enough to write it out, we do have a list.

@Dan - Besides me missing the word "need", here is responses.

Oh, yes in regards to judging. We are supposed to judge people to teach them, to help them out of sin, etc. But judging about eternal salvation is not something we can do because we do not know their heart. And as for saving, we do play a role in passing Jesus' salvation to the world. Through us being Jesus, we can show people Jesus and be part of the process of salvation. Although, we do not save by ourselves, we play a role in the salvation of the world. 

I am not including the why. We, in the position of accepting someone as a brother or sister, cannot know someone's motives.

Obviously, we are incapable of being a judge when it comes to eternal salvation at this point, whether or not Jesus does that judging. Although, I think he was clear that is not the reason he came. He came to save. And when we deal with the world that does not know Jesus, we are not judge. We are to be used in sharing Jesus' love which will hopefully lead to their salvation.

Unless, of course, we narrow salvation down to a prayer or baptism. If we do that, we can judge. But I think salvation is much more that that. 

I tried to deal with all of your questions. If I missed one, feel free to ask again. I'm not trying to avoid any.

Grady replied:

How can you focus on what it means to be a Christian before you get there, it is ok for those of us who have become a christian according to the scripture , but leaves those who haven't hanging out to dry trying all on there own with out the spirit of God providing for the walk of a Christian. Hey the whole book of Acts addresses this, why would you "like to focus on something other then what the scripture focus's on???? It is the Church's responsibility to focus on the "HOW", it is our marching orders. We are going to not have unity with the world, and if some one wants to come and accept the grace God has given then they would be free to do so and become united with the church. And when that happens they recieve all the bennifits associated with being in Christ or apart of the ones called out. What does it take by the way to BECOME a CHRISTIAN?

 Regan replied:

@Grady - I actually shared a link with you of a Bible study of the book of Acts that showed people receiving the Holy Spirit at different points. People did receive the Holy Spirit outside of baptism. And the Holy Spirit is the seal of s...alvation. If God gave us examples in Acts of people receiving the seal of salvation outside of baptism, who am I to say that it could not happen again?

Does that mean that we no longer teach baptism? Of course not. But it does show that we cannot be as legalistic as we would like on the subject of baptism. The Holy Spirit is the seal of salvation. Jesus and Paul did not tell us to check to see if people were baptized to know that they are Jesus' followers. They told us to examine their fruit and to see if they claim that Jesus is Lord.

Our marching orders are to make disciples, to baptize them, and to teach them follow Jesus' commandments. I don't think we disagree on that. The issue I was addressing here was not about our mission. It's about our judgmental attitude about other people's salvation; it's about how we discern who to accept as brothers and sisters in Christ. Our judgmental attitude has made many of the churches in this area ineffective at going about that mission. We often behave in such a way that nobody is tranformed by Jesus' love lived out in our lives. We have forgotten the major, love, and focused on the minor, baptism. In the end, we have created a lot of fruitless baptized people who think they are saved because they participated in the "salvation" ritual.

We have forgotten Paul's teaching to always interact with one another in a spirit of humility, gentleness, patience, and love. Without that, our message is lost.

What I will teach is a different topic than what are the essentials to accept someone as a brother or sister. I realize that everything that I believe Scripture teaches is not an essential. My understanding of all of Scripture is not completely accurate, although I currently believe it to be. I will teach Scripture unabashedly but in a spirit of humility, understanding that my interpretation could be wrong.

When it comes to who I will accept as a brother or sister in Jesus, I will stick to the passages I cited in my post on how Paul and Jesus taught we could tell if someone is a follower of Jesus.

This post was not a conversion message focused on how to be a Christian. If it was, I would first encourage people to surrender their heart to Jesus and become His disciple. Then, the next step is repentance and baptism, followed by living a life of total surrender to Jesus and His will. All of it is meaningless if their heart is not given to God.

Will I judge people to hell for not following the path of conversion I understand Scripture to teach? Jesus' taught that we will know His followers by their fruit. Paul's taught that they will claim Jesus is Lord. God will judge people's hearts. I will accept people based on Jesus' and Paul's criteria. And I will teach my understanding of Scripture to the best of my ability. In the end, God will be the judge; for now, I will teach the conversion message of Scripture and accept people as brothers and sisters based on the criteria of Paul and Jesus.

Dan replied:

I hope I wasn't coming across divisive. I just wanted to see how you clarified some things that I didn't think you meant. The big point is how we reach across walls of denomination right and not quite who is saved or not right?

But one thing... I would caution is one of the roles/fruits of the Holy Spirit is to Glorify the Son and the Father as the reason for we do what we do. Because of our identity, we do what we do. We don't do X to become Y. We are Y so we do X.

If we do not attribute glory to him as the why behind the what we could be practicing a form a works righteousness that is no difference than the elevation of baptism seen in Christian Church circles and may not have the Gospel. WE should call each other to examine ourselves to see if we are in the faith if we see this going on no matter what (which is something we take for granted). Obeying out of Love and obeying out of fear of Going to Hell are two very different why but can produce very similar whats to an untrained eye. Jesus treated those people differently than the "pagan sinner" who may not have known better. The church is probably in the state it is in because we love judging outsiders and refuse to collectively judge those inside the church. We have completely backwards maybe because we have not challenged each other's motives. Is that enough to disfollowship with someone? Not at first but over time maybe not.

But at the same time we are slaves to Christ and one another so that means we don't give up on people but bear together a fuller understanding of the Gospel.

 More of the conversation can be found here.

Losing my way on my way to the doctor

I was heading to the doctor the other day and got off course.  There was detour after detour, taking me way out of my way, and I eventually had no idea where I was.  I was lost because the path I intended to take was obstructed. 

We can get lost from being who God wants us to be when things in our life don't go as planned.  Sometimes bumps in the road or drastic detours get in our way.  We eventually have no idea where we are and how we got here.  But if we quit seeking we'll never find our way. 

I figured that I had to head west.  I had to look at the sun and determine which direction west was.  At times like that, I wish I was like my Grandpa Nate who always had a compass on his dashboard.  Eventually, heading in the right direction, I found the road I was supposed to have been on in the first place, but I was late to my appointment. 

Another thing I could have done was to choose another car and start following them, not even knowing what their intended destination was.  We can all easily recognize that following any, old car when we are lost is not a good idea because we do not know where they are headed.

As Christians, I think this is one of our biggest problem, and we don't realize how stupid we are being.  We begin to get distracted from our destination.  We will start to look at those around rather than the example of Jesus.  Our critical eye begins to pick apart others on how they aren't who God wants them to be, as if we have already arrived at the destination ourselves.  We get hung up on little, pet doctrines while ignoring the great commands to love God and love our neighbor. 

The key to finding our way is to keep our eye on the sun and follow his direction.  We need to always remain focused on Jesus and His will for our lives.  That will be enough to get us through, even when we feel lost.