brief theological reflection

it's hard to reflect on theology in the hours before CU's first football game in 50+ years, but i'm gonna give it a shot as i support local coffee...

back in the beginning of August, a church attender sent a message to our Elders that questioned some doctrine, and posited some frankly foolish alternatives.

there are several things to comment on in that one sentence:
'beginning of August' - a lot has happened since then, so i'm not in the same place i was emotionally or spiritually, for the better... and thus, i am not as inclined to blog about this particular issue
'church attender' - this is an unfortunate phrase. a follower of Christ should be willing to submit to membership in a local congregation; they should be willing to commit to the work of the Kingdom in a local community; they should be willing to give of their time, talents, energy, and finances along with a body of believers; they should be willing to seek the accountability of close relationships. It is unfortunate that we have so many 'attenders' who are not 'members' or 'owners' (as V21 puts it). Biblically, i'm not sure how you can support church hopping, or prolonged church visiting, or the transient nature of this particular church attender. their spiritual life would certainly be more fulfilling if they were INVOLVED in the church in some level, instead of only receiving, and subsequently critiquing, the ministries of the church.
granted, you can't really biblically make a case for the word 'member' or 'owner,' but the concepts that i outlined by which we define 'member' are clearly biblical.
'questioned some doctrine' - in this case, it was actually a little more harsh than that, but that's all i'm going to say about it. i'm pretty pleased with Grace's constitution and doctrinal statements, so if someone has a question they should read up on those documents before feeling the need to address a doctrinal issue directly. in most cases, those well-prepared documents will answer the questions or point to the biblical source, and if we agree on the authority of scripture, it will then speak for itself, through God's Spirit.
'and posited... alternatives.' - here's where the trouble really began... even before/in spite of the 'attender' issue, and deeper than the questions, there is an hermeneutical and interpretive difference that exists between this person's understanding of how scriptural doctrine is to be articulated, and how orthodox evanglicals (how's that for an oxymoron) articulate doctrine. the most unfortunate thing is that this person took a legalist perspective in that they were expecting their articulation to be necessarily the best and only way to teach the gospel.
Paul, thankfully, spends a lot of time in the epistles dealing with false teachers - the EASIEST way for our enemy to gain ground is by getting believers to tweak a doctrine here, or say something differently there, so that the Gospel of Jesus becomes distorted in some way or another. Paul realized this, and as led by God dealt with a lot of this in his letters to the churches then. The principles Paul lays out are still very valid and important, and are helpful in discerning a false gospel when it arises.
However... when we proof-text Paul's or Jesus' words by removing them from their context and applying them directly and only to a situation that suits our ends, we're abusing the scriptures. We must be careful to always consider the scriptures carefully and holisticly, aware of the fullness of truth therein.

i have a feeling that the pastoral life doesn't get any easier than it is right now... and it ain't easy.