We live in an age where controversy is often the measure of most anything. Notice how often the word itself is used in any given day on cable news channels. News outlets often will mention something as controversial in order to get our attention. Entertainment outlets will more times than not call the latest movie or song in this way so we will pay attention to it. Seems to me that the best way to market your movie or music is to have something in it that people can argue about. You can usually find some preacher in our country doing a series of messages on controversial issues at any given time. The reason is to again draw your attention to a subject that can be the root of disagreement. It's very hard to imagine news, entertainment, sports or even church information being presented without tagging it as controversy.

So let us go ahead and wander into something just like that. Believers will often disagree if not flat out fight over topics that are on the fringe of spiritual life. This is not to say those matters are not important. It is to say that we can be so swept up in our point of view that we totally ignore any other. Contemporary life is filled with issues that scripture has no direct direction to guide us. We are forced into understanding biblical truth so we can apply it to a situation. What we cannot understand is how some believers just cannot see our point of view. Here is where conflict begins when it could be avoided. God's word is truth. Surely we can agree on that. Out of that truth will grow convictions about who we are and how we conduct our life. For example, truth says God is worthy of our worship. Our conviction then becomes that we should offer Him that recognition on a regular basis. Then we move to the last stage of our preferences. Some churches are very tradition or liturgical. You find some congregations who are extremely contemporary in music and style. More than a few churches try to straddle between the two ideas. Then you have some churches where contemporary means cowboy or some that reflect a more rock and roll method. The list is endless but perhaps you can see this point.

Odds are good that I get in trouble over my preferences in the spiritual life. There was a time when my approach was to isolate myself from anything that had even a hint of not being biblical. This worked for me for where my spiritual life was at the moment. Eventually it seemed to me like we had our own set of extremes. Instead of secular rock music you could just feast on godly rock. You can find quite a few fiction works in the Christian section of the bookstore so you do not have to read those secular romance novels or even mystery thrillers. Also, does a frisbee that contains bible verses fly better than the original ones? My purpose is to say that there are indeed times where we should be immersed in biblical stuff. But we need to also remember that not everyone is going to be in agreement.

I mentioned somewhere in this blog that one of my best religion teachers was a liberal, divorced, Catholic history professor. Her comment was that if we do not know why we believe what we believe then we may not be able to defend it. Those words still remain as one of my core values. Of course there are limits to applying this approach. One does not have to look at so called adult material in order to know its danger. You probably don't need to listen to vulgar music to know the basic crassness of the message. One does not have to swear out of control to see how it changes character. My view is that in areas of life or culture that there may be times when we need to learn even from our opposition. Thinking is not a bad character trait for any believer.

Spiritual growth will always lead us toward God's best. Our aim should be much more than just being correct on a given issue. You can be right in your approach to controversy yet forfeit your argument by being ugly about it. There will always be other believers who are still maturing who will not be encouraged by our criticism. Some will struggle quite a bit in becoming fully developed. We may even find some failing horribly in moving from one level to another. Real controversy is not about whether or not everyone agrees with you. It is about our willingness to engage those who are growing with a view to their being complete in faith. Let's not lose those who need a hand to lift them up by pushing them away for where they are in the journey.

Bro. Trey