My posts on drinking alcohol and Halloween brought up some interesting thoughts to me. One woman commented that what is wrong for one Christian to do is wrong for all other Christians. In other words, there are no gray areas, just black and white, right and wrong. I disagree. I think there are some gray areas ~
I am of the opinion that if my precious little grandbaby dresses up as Tinkerbell and trick-or-treats at a few houses in her neighborhood, she is not sinning.
If my husband and I want to have an occasional glass of wine with dinner, we are not sinning.
If I am convicted about homeschooling my children and my sisters send their children to public school, they are not sinning.
Some women feel convicted to only wear dresses. I respect their conviction, but I am not sinning if I wear pants.
Birth control is a gray area. One woman I know has several beautiful children but has been told it could kill her to have more children. It is not a sin if they decide not to have any more children to potentially save her life.
Some are convicted that watching movies and television are not right for them. However, it is not sin for me to watch Chargers play football or Little House On The Prairie.
These are just a few gray areas I could think of but I know there are many more.
Galatians 6:19-21 make it very clear what walking in the flesh{sin} looks like ~
Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness {inclined to lustfulness}, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance {being inconsistent}, emulations {wanting to be better than others}, wrath, strife, seditions {discontent or rebellion}, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like...
Sin is clearly spelled out in these verses. These are definitely to be avoided if you are a believer and want to walk in holiness. The other things I mentioned above are not clearly spelled out in Scripture and must be left to each believer's conviction.
Walking in the Spirit produces ~
love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance...Galatians 6:22,23
These virtues are what we must focus upon and grant to all those around us, even those who disagree with us in some interpretations of Scripture. Above all, the Lord wants us to be at peace with all men, not arguing about own personal convictions. {I am absolutely fine if you disagree with me and share it in the comments section as long as you do it in a loving, nonjudgmental way.}
If it be possible, as much as it depends upon you, live peaceably with all men.
Romans 12:18
P.S. My husband wrote a letter responding to a woman who was commenting in a forceful way because of my opinions on alcohol, Halloween, and gays. I have published this letter in the comment section if you are interested.
Romans 12:18
P.S. My husband wrote a letter responding to a woman who was commenting in a forceful way because of my opinions on alcohol, Halloween, and gays. I have published this letter in the comment section if you are interested.
Logging you in...
Sarah Jane · 702 weeks ago
I AGREE with everything that you have written in this post. I was going to bring up the 1 Corinthians post, until I saw that you put it in your original post. I am glad that you are willing to say that you drink wine and celebrate Halloween. I believe these two things to be matters of Christian liberty. Hope people are willing to actually dialogue civilly about it instead of putting you down.
Ken · 702 weeks ago
This is Ken, Lori's husband. I have asked Lori to delete all of your comments from her blog and to bar your IP address at least until we can have a sane dialogue about your seemingly endless attacks of negativity. It is OK for Christians to disagree, although you do not seem to share this point of view. If you want others to listen to you and learn from your perspectives, you will need to be willing to listen to others and learn what charity is all about.
The early church was filled with people like you, they called them Judaizers. These were Jewish Christians who were sure that God wanted Christianity to stay within the Jewish customs and traditions. Not only did they know that the Apostle Paul taught clearly against forcing Judaistic customs on new believers, they went so far as to run to towns outside of their own areas to cause havoc and dissensions in the churches. They were sure that God would not have it one way for one Christian and another way for another. How can all new Jewish believers be circumcised and yet Gentiles not to be circumcised? The Spirit inside of them told them that they needed to be circumcised and to keep the Jewish customs, so all other Christians must do the same! The Spirit of God cannot be divided... so they must be right.
This is exactly the way you are treating Lori and it is wrong and sinful for what you are doing. Where is grace? Where is charity? When you comment on Lori's blog you are writing in a demeaning and demanding way, and based on your age, a very disrespectful manner to an older godly woman who is trying to teach you some of the things that God has taught her.
Ironically, you and Lori are probably very much alike. You are both "black and white" people who see very little gray in the way you look at scripture. You are both controlling and probably bossy, wanting to argue and have your own way. Lori was very much your way years ago, especially when it came to things like Halloween, gays, and alcohol. You are like the school master who runs around making sure no one has a smile on their face when they are supposed to be studying.
I thank God that Lori has become a truly godly woman instead of a woman with a strong personality who wants to always be right, and make everyone else believe what she believes. God has taken Lori through many trials of poor health from being sandwiched between to semi-trucks on the freeway, to parasites and a sickening stomach for 20 years, to a brain tumor seven years ago and spinal fusion two years ago. It has only been the last 12 months that she has started to feel well. Through it all, God was good to keep us together and to grow us both up in the knowledge and love of our Lord Jesus.
Lori has learned many things as she has read everything she could on Christian marriages and has been in the Word of God studying, even as she suffered greatly. Her suffering has drawn her closer to God and godliness. Lori is one of the most godly women I know, if not the most godly woman I know. She truly desires to do ALL things God's way, with no exception.
When you accuse her of watered down theology you make an unfounded and unfair accusation against someone who would put you to shame in both your life and marriage. I do not know you, but I can surmise from your hardness of words used, and black and white approach to your comments, that you have relationship problems in your life, just the way Lori used to have in her life. No one wants to be around someone who enforces the law with little or no grace or love.
Christ blasted the Pharisees for such behavior and the Apostle Paul did the same to the Judaizers. Believers who would take God's Word and use it like a whip to whip everyone around them into shape. "Do's and don'ts" were most important and "my way of seeing the scriptures and the Christian life."
_______, as your brother in Christ, I exhort you to prayerfully consider what you are doing on Lori's blog and perhaps on others where you are leaving comments. Not only are you wrong in the way you are commenting, but I believe you to be wrong in what you believe. It is not that you are not in tune with the Spirit inside of you, you just need some godly believers to mentor and teach you what it means to:
"Live in harmony with one another" (Romans 12:16).
"And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil" (2 Timothy 3:8).
Ken · 702 weeks ago
Lori has strong opinions and she shares them with her blog, but she also has a big following because she tries to show grace and love to all people. Yes, we love gays, but we hate what they do and how destructive it is to society. But I have no problem sharing a dinner and some enjoyable times with my gay acquaintances and friends, even as I beg them to go to church with me.
Yes, we believe that drinking a glass of wine is not sin, because the Bible does not forbid the drinking of alcohol. Is two glasses sin, perhaps, and maybe even one glass is sin for some smaller framed people, but for us, a glass of wine does not make us drunk, and we are not sinning.
We have been against Halloween at one time and now we believe that Halloween is a great time to shine the light of Jesus to an evil world. In the midst of the evil, we want to be there telling others about Jesus so we will pass out candy and tell the children that "Jesus loves you."
You act like Lori and I are so far outside of Christianity and we need to repent of our evil ways... and yet you have zero proof for your positions and you ignore what Lori is really saying. What Lori is teaching you, should you and your spirit choose to accept, is that God has called us, and many other fundamentalist believers to throw off the cloak of "I know it all" and move towards shining Jesus within the culture we have been placed.
We live all week long like typical Fundamentalist Christians, perhaps even stricter than you are when it comes to following God's word and abiding by it, and yet, when we go out into the culture we stop preaching and we start loving and accepting others. If you are so right... so be it... love us for where God has us and pray for us that God might change our minds on these minor issues of scripture. But please see that they truly are minor issues, especially compared to "love."
For too long Lori and I looked like the clanging symbol in this important verse:
"If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal."
We knew it all, but we did not have the love and grace for others and each other to allow them to be right, even when we were sure they were wrong. What we discovered is that there is a whole world out their in the Christian life that is to be lived in liberty for all things that are not explicitly taught in the scriptures. We love the ministers who teach strongly and decisively the Word of God, be we also know that we must never major on the minors.
If Lori teaches anything that is outside of sound doctrine, I invite you to admonish her. But if she teaches something that is a minor issue, and one you know many true believers disagree on, then bite your tongue and use your words to build up and encourage instead of trying to prove without ceasing that somehow you have the Spirit of God inside of you in some special way that gives you and only you and people who believe like you the whole truth.
Stop clanging and start loving in every area of your life, not just with Lori's blog. And if you like, you can take this admonishment as if it came from the Spirit of God, for that is how powerfully and deeply I feel about what I am writing to you.
You obviously know God's Word and you obviously love God. Now you must learn how to harness those two most important things to actually be used by God in a powerful way. I have every hope that after a few hours or days at being upset over my words that the Spirit who is inside of you will begin to work mightily in this important area of your life.
In one day, or one month or one year, you pick the time frame, you will begin to speak positive words of affirmation to others and find the things they are doing right and praise them for it. You will stop being a watch dog for God and instead will embrace a new perspective of the following verse:
"So then we pursue the things which make for peace and the building up of one another" (Romans14:9).
My prayer is that God will use your strong personality like he is using Lori's to mentor hundreds of people who need to discover both God's truth and God's love and acceptance... at the same time. Please accept my strong words in a spirit of exhortation and charity. You are welcome to respond to me by email if you wish to continue the dialogue.
You are in our prayers,
ken
Melissa Bradley · 702 weeks ago
Melissa Bradley · 702 weeks ago
An Observer · 702 weeks ago
To Ken: you are an excellent husband; your support of your wife is a reminder and example to me, and your response is so perfectly precise that I pray the Lord will indeed take it and stab where stabbing is needed, wound where wounding is needed, and heal where healing is needed.
To Lori: You sound remarkably like Paul! "Each one of us will give an account of himself to God. Therefore let us not judge one another anymore, but rather determine this—not to put an obstacle or a stumbling block in a brother’s way. I know and am convinced in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself; but to him who thinks anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean. For if because of food your brother is hurt, you are no longer walking according to love. Do not destroy with your food him for whom Christ died." (Romans 14.13-15)
An Observer · 702 weeks ago
Kath · 702 weeks ago
Kelly Howard · 702 weeks ago
I hope G-d will reveal the truths of His Word to you and your husbands hearts and I pray that He will show you how wrong it was of you to post this today!
Carrie · 702 weeks ago
Rightthinker · 702 weeks ago
I can say for us, Halloween is not an appropriate use of time, money or focus. Yet, I fully support, and we attend our churches "Harvest Festival" because I believe that the message of the gospel is going forth to children who may ONLY HEAR it, if there is something "in it for the parents". God Bless the children!
For others, wine may be inappropriate, and we are called to not stumble a brother! The culture of alcohol in our nation is disgusting. Yet, my husband and I-who are mature adults with 6 children we are raising, may partake in wine together, in the evening, without sinning. The sin would come from the lifestyle of living in drink. I do not expect those who are convicted against drink, to drink! Please refrain, and if you come to my home for a nice dinner, you will not find a stumbling block here!
Christ must show through us. He did not spit on the adulterous prostitute! He reached out His hand and extended forgiveness. While it is difficult to live this way, because it's always a balance between condemning sin in our apostate world, we must continue to love people that sin, and not condemn those who are not sinning but choose differently than our own convictions-even Christians.
My husband and I are convicted about allowing as many children as God sees fit to fill my womb. Yet, I know the path it took to get where we are. I don't expect the whole world to view God's plan for us the same. I must reserve my haughty pride in this area and give it to the Lord! I am not more holy because we choose this way..in fact, if I USE it as a tool in which to look down on others, I must question if the conviction comes from the Lord Himself, or elsewhere!
We celebrate all the "Christian" holidays, because it's a heart issue. My heart is choosing to thank, worship and celebrate the Lord, not paganism. I respect those that refrain, yet it seems those who do refrain like to take the time to slam Christians who use the day to celebrate the birth/resurrection of Christ as heathen pagans. What a sad reflection of the heart issue on that!
God Bless, and I pray that I may be the salt and the light..always clear about the things God called sins, always pursuing sound doctrine, yet always extending grace and love for the "non-essentials" of faith that represent people at different points in their own walk with Christ.
Emily · 702 weeks ago
Ken · 702 weeks ago
This is from Ken.
Your link http://www.revelations.org.za/Passion.htm has much in it that is considered heretical by orthodox Christianity. It's premise is: Paul's "preaching and his letters are profitable as spiritual records, but none of his statements should be used as a foundation for replacing the ‘System’ and Law of YHVH, Creator God." Paul scriptures were not inspired like the words of Christ and the gospels.
You need to follow your own admonition, and "Prove all things." Just because you disagree with a fellow believer does not make you right. Argue your position from the scriptures, all scripture not just what you have picked and chosen.
If you degrade the words of the Apostle Paul and say that "Paul was God's vessel, but not inspired" you go far outside of orthodoxy. You live outside of orthodoxy when it comes to the church for you have continued in the Judaism rejecting much of what the Apostle Paul has written, or discounting it severely.
We believe the whole of scriptures are profitable, just as the apostle Paul teaches, but you find him to be second class, or worse, you believe that he has actually led many astray by his lax teaching on grace.
Why do you believe this? It seems it is because you want to do exactly what the Apostle Paul teaches against. Do you want to hold onto legalism and do you find comfort in following the "do's and don'ts of scripture? Do you not believe Jesus when He says, "Do not put old wine in new wineskins?" The church is much different than Judaism in that it lives in the grace of what Jesus has done, not the law. The law is followed out of a desire to please God and thank Him for what Jesus as done on the cross, not out of compulsion. Please notice I did say, "we follow the law," but it is the law of liberty, "that is written on all believer's hearts." The law of love, the law of trying please God out of a thankful heart.
Kelly, you are welcome to your opinions even as you wipe out the Apostle Pal's clear teachings, and we can love you as a sister in Christ, but please stop posting your non-sense on other people's blogs. You are so far outside of mainstream Christianity when you believe that the words of Paul are his own and not inspired by God. Admit it. You have thrown out a big chunk of the Bible so that you can stay in your Judaism, going contrary to what Paul teaches.. so now you have to throw out Paul's writings, or hold them as second class. Then worst of all, you take you limited view of scripture and vomit it up on others in an unloving way because you believe they are not as enlightened as you???
Please, if you are to be so far outside of solid doctrine, do not post on any blog on any theological issue. Just post on your own blog and allow God to bless it as He desires.
Prove all things... prove that the Apostle Paul was not inspired by God and that what He taught on grace is unacceptable to be believed by the Christian. If that is your theology, you need to keep it to yourself for you will be leading many astray by your poorly dividing the Word of truth.
Do you not find it a bit unfair to be outside of the views of conservative Christianity and want to throw that in the face of those of us who have Christ Jesus just as the whole of scriptures teaches Him? We are not Messianic Jews like you. So don't force your incorrect theology on us. We are Christian Gentiles, but all part of the same body of Christ and if you feel a compulsive need to stay in Judaism, let that be between you and your Savior. May you continue to grow in His grace as you seek to please Him.
Jenny · 702 weeks ago
Your writing blesses my life and the lives of my husband and children every day. I thought that I was treating Josh just fine before I began to listen to your wisdom... but now I know better! Thank you for being strong and posting TRUTH. Your heart and spirit are in the right place ~ Christ!
Michelle · 702 weeks ago
I was going to print out the verse you referenced as 2 Timothy 3:8 in my favorite version, and when I entered it, that wasn't the verse you quoted. So I did a search and the verse you quoted is actually 2 Timothy 2:24. HTH!
Rhonnie · 702 weeks ago
For many years I followed Christ, but not well (who does?). The one thing that I had to get over was my constant annoyance of [i]people[/i]. It kept me from church, it kept me from general socializing outside of work, and it kept me from God's grace in it's entirety (not that it's time to achieve that yet, but I'm looking forward to it in Heaven).
But after reading Mark 12:30-31 and Matthew 22:36-40, this with 1 Corinthians 13:1-7, other things are just falling into place a little easier. You see, if people no longer annoy me, God's work becomes a pleasure. No matter what it is that He has me do. People do what they do. It's not up to me to judge, like, or change them. And I'm cool with that. That all didn't hit home until I went out of town this weekend to stay with family. I've always been on the outside looking in, and more so there. But when they started on their rants of everything that happened to be all that I am and do, it didn't matter. It didn't hurt like it used to. And I could tell them that these things are ME, and there was little back-lash this time. All because of the way I took it. All by the grace of God only.
Your post today (it's the first time I've been able to get to my e-mail for a few days, so it could have been from then. Sorry) tied that all together for me in it's own way - while there is only one interpretation of God's Word (God's), we still have to do our best to make sure that we continue to understand that, and continue our walk with Christ. But we're no perfect than the rest, nor they more perfect than we. Can we accept that fact? After many years, I can say that I can.
Always a pleasure. Thank you, and God bless.
~Rhonnie
Ken · 702 weeks ago
We do at times feel attacked, and it is so weird that it comes from seemingly strong believers who blame Lori for not being as conservative as they are, or for not having "received the revelations" that God has taught them. Lori desires to teach God's Word, all of it, unashamed and with equal authority as inspired by God. She does not think that everything she writes is "the gospel truth" but simply what she is learning and what she believe God has placed on her heart for marriages and godly living.
Why do other "believers" have to come to her site and "poop" on her because they disagree with her is beyond comprehension and not in keeping with much of what the love and acceptance that Christianity is all about. If this is what non-believers and all those who need Christ see from Christians, it is no wonder they run from the church.
May God grant us the grace to love others even when they disagree with us, and let us all run the race together, encouraging and building up each other. And may those who focus on the minors pick their heads up and see that Jesus is much more concerned about their love than about their need to convince others that they are right, or of their fringe beliefs. The church is a big tent that can house all who come to Christ..., Jew, Gentile, male, female, gays, drunks, fornicators, and all sinful people who are willing to accept Jesus as Savior and enter into the Kingdom of God! And I want to be the first to be their friend and their support, even when they stumble and fall. That's what Jesus did and still does today... no more condemnation, but growing us all up into Christ, our head, our friend and Master.
christine · 702 weeks ago
mykidzmomnow 15p · 702 weeks ago
(visiting from Raising Homemakers' Homemaking Link-Up)
The Momma · 702 weeks ago
God is in control of the womb. No life comes that he does not grant. So regardless of what any doctor says if God does not want a woman to die from pregnancy she will not. If she would indeed die that way and it's not God's will for her than HE will close her womb. It's a faith issue and not an easy one.
Farmer's Wyfe · 702 weeks ago
Ken · 702 weeks ago
The Apostle Paul was good about stating when he had an opinion and when God had told him something clearly. We need to do them same. Speak out as far and as strongly as we can on the essentials and what is clearly taught in the scriptures, but leave room for grace and the work of the HS in peoples lives in areas we disagree, even in areas that we are SURE God has told us "no." "Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind" (Rom 14:5) "If we live it is to honor the Lord" (Rom 14:8).
Liz · 702 weeks ago
I think the intentions of our hearts are what God looks at. And he's the only one who can look at them!
I don't have any scripture to quote or revelations to give, but I know that we all strive to be Christ-like and condescension isn't pleasing our Lord. We all have our own journeys to Him. Jumping down someone's throat about birth control/Halloween/homosexuality/<insert other taboo topics here> isn't winning any hearts for Jesus.
Thank you, Lord, for the grace you so abundantly give!
I hope you have a blessed weekend!
Taryn · 700 weeks ago
Taryn · 700 weeks ago