Friday, August 11, 2006

Those Who Love Family, Friends More Than the Lord

"When false teaching and views other than what the Scripture presents are brought in, the church must distinguish between those who adhere to the word and those who do not.

It is good that the people of God are driven to God's word. Those who love family, friends, father, or mother more than the Lord became evident. Now I must decide not only on the doctrinal issues, but on what side of the doctrinal issues are my friends and family members. Remember Deuteronomy 13. If your cherished wife, your closest friend or one of your children becomes involved in this, you must maintain your allegiance to the Lord and be done with them. We become involved in doctrinal battles and suddenly we say, "Well, you may be right. You may have the correct view of Scripture, but I just don't think that I want to part friendship over this." The process of erosion begins."

--Gil Rugh, Destructive Heresies in Today's Church, May 20, 1996

4 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Glad to see you guys got it all figured out here. Perhaps God could simply "express freight" you to heaven!

Too bad its not that simple for me. I am succeptable to fallible interpretation. If only you could unveil your secret to me ~ of how you know everything there is to know?

"You will be like God, knowing all things"

~ Satan's Lie in the Garden of Eden when sin first entered the world.

11:59 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

From one anonymous to another ;-)

I see from your comments that you can understand the scripture that tells about Satan's lie in the Garden of Eden, so perhaps you shouldn't think that other scripture is so hard to understand. I haven't gotten the impression from my looking over this site that the authors think they know everything, but they do seem to trust that God has provided his word to us in such a way that we can understand and follow it. He is a loving God and he wants us to understand what his will is! (Ephesians 5: 10,17 for example)

8:14 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

You are right, God is loving and we are His people, but NEVER (not even in New Testament scriptural churches, have the people of God seen everything eye to eye. So - my point was and is, that this website seems like a group fo people who think God loves them and not people who see things differently than they do. EVEN if my perception is false and wrong (and it very well may be) the point of my previous comment was to show you how you are being perceieved by people who don't line up with you theologically. You need to know that those people don't feel loved, or welcomed in this place, and that is not a good representation of Christ. (in my fallible opinion.)

2:42 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

From Anonymous #2:

I don't completely agree with everything that has been posted here, yet I am drawn to this site because I perceive that the authors love and value God's word as THE truth, just as I do. And that isn't very common in the religious world today.

You are so right that people in the church have never seen things eye to eye. It reminds me of the scripture in 1 Corinthians 11:18 in which Paul is admonishing the church. He says, "In the first place, I hear that when you come together as a church, there are divisions among you, and to some extent I believe it. No doubt there have to be differences among you to show which of you have God's approval."

Don't give up on God's word. Keep studying. Believe what the Bible says, even if it is different than you have been taught. Be willing to change your mind when you see that you have been misinformed or that you have misunderstood, but when you see that you do understand something clearly, respectfully refuse to back down. I do believe that everything God wishes for us to know can be known. But he patiently gives us time to grow. Don't get discouraged.

11:45 PM  

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