Sometimes when I am playing tug-o-war with my dog, I drop the toy. It’s not because I can’t win, and it’s not because I didn’t have the superior position (he is a 17lb dog). I drop the toy because I know that in his mind, my dog is prepared to continue pulling that toy indefinitely until there is a “winner”. He will never stop pulling on it until I either twist it out of his jaws, or I let go. Whether “I win” or “he wins”, if I pick up that toy again, he will immediately grab hold of it and try to pull it away again. Letting go is easy when it comes to pet toys, but how do we know when to let go when it comes to pet doctrines?
Over the last couple of years, I have had an increasing number of interactions with people who have very different perspectives on certain doctrines than I do. Like my dog, I have an instinct to start tugging at those differences and try to “win” the theological discussion and bring them over to my side. Each time this happens though, I find myself thinking back on the conversation and wondering: “What was my ultimate motivation for engaging in that discussion the way I did?”. Was it motivated by a love for God and a zeal for His truth, His kingdom, and His glory? Was I truly acting in love for the other person, in hopes that God might be able to use me to help them better understand some critical aspect of God or salvation, thus drawing them into a deeper relationship with Jesus? Was it just my own pride and ego driving me to win an argument and prove that I know the Bible better than them?
If I am honest, I often feel like it is a mixture of all of those things. God has been developing in me a greater zeal for understanding His word, a greater love for Him, and a greater love for other people. God has been laying a burden on my heart to disciple others and to share with other people all the things He has been teaching me. I have spent a lot of time in His presence, pleading with Him for the love and wisdom I always seem to lack. It seems the more the Holy Spirit develops those things in me, the more I realize how far I am from being sufficient in either love or wisdom.
God has allowed me to experience some very humbling situations. He has allowed me to learn the hard way that my pride and ego are not grounded in objective reality. He has clearly informed me that I am not nearly as smart as I think I am. Yet, there is still this remnant of sinful pride and ego that I can never seem to shake. This causes me to often echo the cry of Paul in Romans 7:24 “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” When I look back, I can see that I have taken many steps forward, but the end of the sanctification journey ahead seems to be much farther than I ever imagined when God first initiated that process in my life.
I had a discussion with a brother the other day, where we were (both lovingly and graciously) disagreeing on some minor point of doctrine and making our cases. At the end of the day, we both had valid points, and we really agreed on more than we disagreed on. Another brother in the group finally said: “You two are both biting from different sides of the same apple.” That thought has been rolling around in my head for a few days now. How often do we (as believers) allow the enemy to stoke our pride and ego with these silly arguments, and pit us against each other? How many denominations and divisions have grown in the church over the centuries because of disagreements on topics that have nothing to do with the essentials of the gospel, but really have more to do with our various preferences, traditions, and perspectives on things that God has intentionally left vague and/or mysterious in the Bible?
There are definitely core theological doctrines that we should never compromise on. Things like monotheism, the Trinity, the sufficiency & authority of scripture, the deity of Christ, the Gospel, salvation by God’s grace and not by works, salvation through faith in Jesus Christ alone, the resurrection of Christ, and the future return of Christ. The Bible is abundantly clear about all of the essential elements of Christian faith. However, there are also a plethora of peripheral topics that are not as clearly spelled out for us. Things like spiritual gifts, how a local church should operate (ecclesiology & liturgies), the timing and circumstances of the Lord’s return (eschatology), the methods and timings of baptisms, and all kinds of other things!
So why didn’t God give us clear and detailed answers for all these peripheral doctrines? Why didn’t He just give us all the answers so we wouldn’t be fighting and dividing all the time? If the ultimate goal is for every Christian to be unified as a single cohesive body that is to be the bride of Christ, then why would God leave us so many openings for diverging views and disagreements!
Diverse Expressions of Worship
God is an extremely creative being, as we can see from the vast variety of animals, plants, eco-systems, and other things that we can observe in nature. One of the reasons that I believe God leaves certain topics vague is because it allows us as believers an opportunity to be creative in how we express our worship to Him. One example of this is music. There are a vast number of cultures and subcultures in the world throughout history that have had different opinions on what constitutes “good music”. No where in scripture is a particular type of music declared to be “preferred” by God, but there are certainly people who only resonate with certain types of music. Some people even go to extreme of saying that certain genres of music they don’t like are not fit for worship. Many churches have split up over what songs are played by the worship team, and what instruments are used.
Another way we often vary in our worship is the format of our gatherings. Some churches have a very rigid schedule that every service follows to the second, and other groups of believers are more flexible in their structure. There is a wide variety of liturgies, gathering places, dress codes, and methodologies that various churches employ. There are so many different groups of people in the world, and each one has its own distinct styles in clothing, music, languages & dialects, and other cultural preferences.
I spoke with an indigenous church planter in Asia several months ago, and he noted that his people were actually much more open to hearing the Gospel from him than from people that visited from western civilization. This is because they liked the message of the gospel, but they didn’t particularly care for the way that missionaries from western civilizations tended to bundle their culture into the gospel. The beauty of the Gospel is that it transcends all of our cultural differences with a message that is applicable to all. The goal of the Gospel is not to unite us in ALL of our preferences so that we all look, act, and worship exactly the same. It is to unite us in love for Christ and love for each other, despite all of our differences.
20 To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though not being myself under the law) that I might win those under the law. 21 To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ) that I might win those outside the law. 22 To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some. 23 I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings.
1 Corinthians 9:20-23 (ESV)
So, we should be careful when we are presenting the gospel that we focus on the sharing the Gospel itself, and not attach too much significance or weight into our own personal or cultural preferences.
God is Training Future Leaders
When parents raise their children, it is with the expectation that the children will eventually become capable adults who move out and who no longer need their parents to instruct them on every little thing. We raise our children to know right from wrong, we teach them responsibility, and we sometimes need to allow them to fail or make mistakes knowing that they will learn important lessons from the consequences of those failings. We send them outside to have unsupervised play time with their friends where they invariably have some fight with a friend and need to figure out how to resolve their differences on their own. We know that allowing them to work through these challenges builds the resilience and character they will need to be successful as adults. Children who never get to work out their own problems and resolve conflicts tend to have a more difficult time in their adult relationships and careers.
1 When one of you has a grievance against another, does he dare go to law before the unrighteous instead of the saints? 2 Or do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world is to be judged by you, are you incompetent to try trivial cases? 3 Do you not know that we are to judge angels? How much more, then, matters pertaining to this life!
1 Corinthians 6:1-3 (ESV)
I believe that this is one of the primary reasons that God has allowed many of these peripheral doctrines to remain a mystery. It gives us an opportunity to recognize when we are allowing our egos to put too much emphasis on our own preferences, and our own plausible arguments. It gives us the opportunity to choose to love others, even when we disagree with their perspectives on things. It gives us an opportunity to lay aside our presuppositions and turn to God’s word and pray to the Holy Spirit for guidance. It gives us an opportunity to be more like Christ by interacting with others in humility, love, and grace. It teaches us to trust that if God left it a mystery, then either we really don’t need to know, or we are just not capable of understanding yet. It gives us an opportunity to work out our differences and exercise the love, grace, and wisdom that we will need in order to be effective in our heavenly occupations.
God Uses All Things for Good
Often times we look at certain people who are doing or saying things that don’t line up with how we understand scripture, and we are concerned that they are going to mess things up! They are doing it wrong, and they are going to cause hurt, confusion, and division. We can see negative outcomes, that they don’t seem to be aware of. In those cases, I think we should certainly take some time to open the scriptures and to lovingly try to correct them. However, if they are super resistant, or if they just plain disagree because they are convinced the tense of some verb in the Greek changes the meaning of scripture to align with what they believe, then we need to learn when to drop the proverbial dog toy.
28 And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.
Romans 8:28 (ESV)
We must understand that God can use even an insufficient understanding of scripture to accomplish His will. Often times new Christians, with only a limited understanding of the Gospel, are used to reach people who others with a more mature understanding of scripture would never have any hope to reach. It is not our perfect understanding of the mysteries of God that draws people to Christ, rather it is the love evident in our transformed life that bears witness to the truth and effectiveness of the Gospel. For example, we see in Acts 18:18-28 that Apollos was already effectively being used by God to share what little he knew about the Gospel before Priscilla and Aquila “gave him a better understanding of the way of God”.
God does not expect us to understand all of the mysteries of the universe. In fact, He specifically lets us know that we can’t possibly hope to fully understand them. Even if we misunderstand some minor point of doctrine, God can and will still use us to spread the important message of the essential truths found in the Bible. God will even use our varying views on various topics to reach the people that each varying view resonates with.
18 What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice.
Philippians 1:18 (ESV)
Even if someone comes along who has a misunderstanding about some minor doctrine. Even if their motives for proclaiming the Gospel may seem a little off to you. Even if they attach some undue significance to some minor tradition, practice, or plausible theories on mysterious passages of scripture. As long as the essential doctrine of the Christian faith are being taught correctly, then it is important that we recognize that the Gospel is being proclaimed, and God’s kingdom is advancing. God is sovereign over all of our shortcomings and His plan does not depend on us understanding all the mysteries of God and the universe!
Conclusion
Be careful that it is not you who is the one causing divisions in the church by being so caught up in your own preferences, plausible arguments, and traditions about the mysterious things found in scripture! Learn to recognize when it is time to drop the dog toy, and for the sake of Christian unity, turn the conversation back to what we can agree on. Break the tension by expressing how incredible it is that in spite of all of our differences, God is bringing together people from every tongue and tribe and nation to cry out in unison “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” (Revelation 7:10b – ESV). Also, take a note from what Jesus said when He didn’t have the answer they were seeking.
36 “But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only.
Matthew 24:36 (ESV)
If the topic is regarding something that the Father has intentionally left vague or hidden, don’t presume to think that you have cracked the code and that you have got it all figured out. Be willing to say “I don’t know, but I trust that God has a reason for not making that topic abundantly clear in the Bible!” Feel free to share your insights if you feel God has enlightened you about something, but also recognize when the scriptures don’t explicitly back up your theory and acknowledge that you could be mistaken. Show the love, grace, and patience that Jesus demonstrated to His knuckle-headed disciples who continually misunderstood what He was trying to teach them. There is no need to be overly zealous about convincing someone how your plausible argument is better than theirs. If you can dialogue with a fellow believer in love and mutual respect, have at it. However, as soon as you notice that either you or the other Christian brother/sister is going to aggressively tug at that pet doctrine just for the sake of “winning”, it is time to drop the toy.
Thank you for sharing insights the Lord is presenting to you.