Sometimes a little revolution is good for everyone.  Challenges can nudge us out of comfort zones into new horizons of spiritual life.  Thinking is also a very good habit for believers to develop.  Many who profess faith do not seem to want to strain the brain by giving deep thought.  Reciting lines we hear from others takes the place of a cultivated faith.  Jesus never said we would check our minds at the door when we became a follower.  Now do not think that my point is that real faith is only for the educated or the smart.  An academic may be educated but they are not always intelligent.  Scripture speaks of wisdom as a quality to be desired.  You usually do not gain wisdom without working things out in the heart and mind. 

My personal disposition is toward being conservative in my theology.  I believe the Bible is true from cover to cover.  There are indeed places that seem difficult to interpret or grasp but it does not lessen its truthfulness.  If something is in scripture then you begin by accepting its reality.  God made no mistakes putting our Bible together.  Human beings surely played a role in all of this but we can trust His word.  I say all of this because of the passages where we are left with more questions than answers.  We said last night that God never resolves all of the tension in some areas of scripture.  One passage indicates His election of sinners to salvation.  Another passage may sound very different but we live in the present tense with the tension.  All of this calls for an abundance of humility from the believer.  Arrogance is never an attractive character trait.

Anytime there is a biblical discussion where people begin playing the "what if" game is a call for being very careful with out convictions.  I remember being in meetings where people tried to figure out how the number of weddings for a prospective deacon came into play.  You also had these people trying to find out if a spouse had a living former spouse.  You need to know my thought process checks out in the midst of all of the what ifs.  Another big one for my denomination deals with the role of women in church life.  Real live religious wars break out over that one.  My problem is yet again on how many people get hurt in the friendly fire of such discussions.  In our zeal to be proven right we tend to run over those who didn't deserve the pain.

All of scripture is true.  It is eternal as it originates in God.  Human beings just need to be wary against the temptation to choose up sides especially in the difficult passages.  Someone may truly believe scripture who does not agree totally with me.  That has to be acceptable.  We have to recognize what does bind us together without being distracted by our differences.  It is all part of growing up in the faith.  Learning how to interpret scripture is a serious discipline.  Allowances must be made for another person to reach a slightly different conclusion than ours.  God never calls us to be robotic in our religion.  Uniqueness is built by divine design into the body of Christ.  That is what makes church so amazing.  Reaching this point is yet again neither easy or neat.  But be sure that we must get there in order to be fully mature.

Bro. Trey