Don’t Throw Out the Baby with His Bath Water

Always be joyful. Continually be prayerful. In everything be thankful, because this is God’s will for you in the Messiah Jesus. Do not put out the Spirit’s fire. Do not despise prophecies. Instead, test everything. Hold on to what is good. Keep away from every kind of evil.

May the God of peace himself make you holy in every way. And may your whole being—spirit, soul, and body—remain blameless when our Lord Jesus, the Messiah, appears. The one who calls you is faithful, and he will continue to be faithful. – 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24 (ISV)

Have you ever listened to someone who was teaching or preaching and thought, “Wait! That isn’t what I thought that said!” or “I don’t believe that about God!” That happened, the first time, to me about 3-4 months after I committed myself to Christ. I was listening to a man that I respected, who had convinced me that I needed a savior. I needed Jesus Christ. I had sin in my life that I couldn’t stop and pain in my heart that would not go away. Jesus, God in the flesh, could take care of both and did. Now the man who had shown me these truths, was telling me something that did not add up with what I had been reading; what I was reading now. Should I never listen to him again? Should I never believe anything else he would say? Or was he right and I was wrong about the passage?

I know people who are absolutely convinced that they know absolutely what every word of the Bible says and means. As I spend more time over the last 20+ years, I find there is more to learn, more to question, not be absolute about. I have also found that there are passages in the Bible that are – difficult. And often, those difficult passages are smoothed over or ignored. Example: Romans 8 is often discussed and taught. Romans 7 is not. But how can we learn from Romans 8 if we do not take it in context with Romans 7?

We must listen to each other. We need to discuss God’s word together, not to try to convince the right or wrong of each other’s beliefs, but to encourage each other and magnify the LORD.

I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings,becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrectionfrom the dead.

Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take holdof that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behindand straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has calledme heavenward in Christ Jesus.

All of us, then, who are matureshould take such a view of things. And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you. Only let us live up to what we have already attained. – Philippians 3:10-16 (NIV)

James (3:1) says that if we teach, we are held to a high standard and will be strictly judged. Whether we stand in front of people as a teacher or preacher, or we sit with a friend at lunch, we must turn our tongues over to the wisdom and control of God’s Spirit. May we speak only with holy fear. And may we listen with a desire to hear God’s voice and learn from His words – together.