Warning: Comments may be offensive to some...
I ask you, "Has the Messiah been chopped up in little pieces so we can each have a relic all our own? Was Paul crucified for you? Was a single one of you baptized in Paul's name?"
Paul is agonizingly frustrated in the church calling themselves Apollians, or Peterists, or Reformed Paulians, fracturing the body based on the teachings of men! The point of this letter is to remind the denominations that Christ was crucified for the redemption of all and it is only HI who we should follow. Yet here we sit thousand of years afterward stuck in the "we're right and your wrong" arguments of children on the playground.
It is super frustrating that we cannot be people simply in love with and longing after Jesus. It is aggravating that we cannot be people that have such a desperate need for GOD that we have not even skimmed the surface of the knowledge of God and salvation.
I think that there are traps that keep us in this thinking. Tradition, Family, and Comfort are three that come readily to mind.
- Tradition traps us because it is safe and predictable. We know that it is "proven and reliable." After all, it has worked for _____years.
- Family is a trap because the fear rises up that if this is true...then Grandma & Grandpa, or Mom & Dad were wrong, and maybe not in Heaven.
- Comfort traps us because, "I have what works for me, don't rock the boat."
We need to stop putting out faith in a doctrine studied and developed by mere men (we have the apostolic teaching of SPIRIT filled men.) We need to stop buying the big think "Study Bibles" and reading the notes as if they were inspired as well as the Scripture. And we need to be people that read the Bible, pray and ask questions about what is the simple obedient thing to do now.
we now return you to regular programming...
jb
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