Treating each other with respect

Sometimes I rummage around in other blogs to see what I can find. I don't follow very many (friends and family and certain ministries and sometimes news) because there is a lot of good stuff out there and it takes a lot of time to read what everybody has to say. So I skip and jump and get different flavors.

Today I ran across one that was about Arthur Burk. The blog writer did NOT like him or his teachings. Now I know that stuff like that is out there. I know that Arthur and many others have many detractors as well as followers. If I were so inclined there are those that I might be a detractor of. I don't want to do that. I don't often come across any of these because I don't go looking for this type of stuff but I was trying to get Arthur Burk's blog on my reader and I saw this and decided to take a look.

It's really appalling when people put other people down. And as I saw in the comments, others were then encouraged to do the same. This from a man who says about himself that he is passionate for Jesus and uses his blog to teach Biblical Principles.

Hmmmm Pause for reflection.

He does also point out that his posts are subject to change as he grows in the knowledge of Jesus Christ. Hopefully that is all of us.

None of us are perfect and I am not perfect in this area of judging either. We are allowed to disagree with each other but does that mean we can also slander each other?

Here is the link to that post - if I am going to disagree with that man in my blog I'm going to at least let him have his say. http://russellaroberts.blogspot.com/2009_04_01_archive.html. I'm confident that Arthur will bear up under such opinions. I am not just disagreeing with what he said about Arthur - I am disagreeing with his approach - with his critical and, I think, uninformed and even ugly statements. Arthur is not the final word on anything - but neither is Russell Roberts or anybody else for that matter.

I had to agree with an anonymous commenter that Russell's opinions based on his research did not really offer anything of substance to refute Arthur's teachings.

I posted a comment myself but I don't know if it's there or not. I know you can moderate comments to your blog and maybe it won't show up unless he approves it.

Here is the gist of what I said to him:

Interesting conversation. I'm with anonymous. When I became a Christian I entered the kingdom of God through the door of Jesus and the Cross. I have the choice of staying at that door forever or of entering into that kingdom. This is a revelation that came to me long long before I heard of Arthur Burk or any one else like that. There will always be those who choose to remain at the door - relying on that one message and holding on til the end. I acknowledge your right to do so but prefer to join with those whose heart cry is to revel in the salvation given us and to experience all of God that is available to us through Jesus. It doesn't make us idiots or lunatics and it's sad that you would judge us that way and encourage others to do so without knowing us.

That's not an exact quote but I'm trying to remember and that's basically it. I think there was some more to it. Any way - it just saddened me. I know it is the way it is in this world - will there ever be agreement in Christ's body?

It was early in my life that I got the understanding - revelation might be a better word - from Jesus' conversation with Nicodemus that the kingdom of heaven is here and when we become born again we enter into that kingdom by the Door that is Jesus. That was a beginning point for me. We can stay there and hold on to that "foundation" forever if we choose. Some years later - after God had told us to walk away from church and the Christian life that we knew and after we had gone through other experiences we came to the place of this prayer..."God", we said, "all we know about right and wrong is what a denomination has taught us. Now you show us." Over the years we've seen the fruit of that prayer. We've been set free - sometimes not without an inner struggle - from some doctrinal teachings. We now put more emphasis on things that were not high priority where we came from. Some things have held firm because they were truly founded upon the Rock. We are still on this journey. We are open to seeing and hearing what others say God has shown them. Some of these things we embrace and some we reject. I can think of one that we rejected only because it came into our life to soon. We were not ready to understand it. Now we are looking at it again with older eyes.

We don't agree with all people and we don't expect all people to agree with us. God grant us the grace to give space to everyone on this journey and to treat all with the respect that is due them as body parts in this very complex body that has one head - Jesus.