"Cement................."

After three or four weeks of no mid-week Bible study due to holiday festivities, we began a new commitment last night to read the entire Book in ninety days. Mostly this initial class was a matter of all those there either giving witness as to why they had opted to take the journey, or testifying as to what digesting the written Word brings to one’s life. The hardest part for this old man was, as it always is, hearing pieces of the puzzle framed in terms contrary to that which he has come to believe. Humanity wants to immediately address such issues instead of waiting for the Holy Ghost to open such doors at His discretion. It is not my lesson to teach, however; and, even if it was, such authority must be surrendered unto Christ “in” me. Ministry isn’t about creating replicas of myself. Proverbs makes a pretty good point, also, when it lists a six-pack of “things that the Lord doth hate” and the isolates a seventh one as “stirring up discord among the brethren”, labeling it an “abomination” unto Him. Still, while I can understand an admonition pronounced unto all there that anything discussed in our gathering together as a group must always fall within the boundaries set by our church’s doctrinal statement of just what we hold to be Gospel, it makes me wonder if the denominational body isn’t somewhat guilty of trying to clone itself rather than the risen Savior. Looks to me like any pursuit of Jesus has to take us (as the author of Hebrews put it) “outside the camp”, since the box we, ourselves, have erected to hold Him has to fall far short of containing Him in all that He is. Our flesh, it seems to me, is on both sides of that debate; and, as for me and my house, I choose the stagger down the path following Him, rather than bowing down before a totem pole. If we can’t, as members of His body, give evidence of what we claim to possess, then how much value does this faith actually hold? If unity is nothing more than all minds fused in a common dogmatic demand instead of multiple perspectives surrendered unto His Spirit leading us in the next step, aren’t we more of an oxymoron than proof of His resurrection? Just sayin……..