Quote:
Originally Posted by countmeworthy
I heard a pastor encourage his congregation to get to know their neighbors...and invite them 'to church'. Why not get to know your neighbors and speak of the things of the Lord with them..be it sharing the gospel (however way the Holy Spirit leads) or engage them in fellowship.
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We are encouraged to share however we share. And we no longer presume salvation as a line in the sand, "I can name the date and time" event. We accept that it might come from a lengthy observation period, complete with many questions, followed by more observation and more questions. And in the midst of this, "going to church" some, or maybe not. But eventually realizing that they really do believe in Christ. When did it start? Not always sure. It sort of happened gradually.
We may like to argue that either they do or don't believe. And it is partly true. But what do they need to believe to be considered "a believer"? The whole core of the faith? The guts of some creed (even if they never heard of a creed)?
And do we think we really believe it all? Probably not. Oh we would say that we believe everything in the Bible. But we aren't even sure what some of it is saying. And if we did, and thought about it, we might take a little while to come to where we actually believe in "that."
Yeah, we can say we believe it on faith. But isn't that sometimes a way of saying we don't get it but we are going to stand by it because it is in the Bible. You know. Important things like one church one city. (We used to think that was in there.) On the flip side, do you believe the things that
are in there that you are convinced
are not actually in there? I don't know what that would be. For you or for me. But at one time, it was for me that 1 Cor 3:10 or so and following was not talking about all believers. I was sure that it was. I now disagree with that position. Neither is really relevant to my daily walk. Nor to salvation. What if I don't believe that?
I didn't mention any of this to get responses. Rather to think some more. I believe a lot. And I'm convinced that part of what I believe is wrong (and I obviously don't know where that is or I would change my mind). But I am fairly certain that what is important is not wrong. And there is a lot less in that part than is so often argued about. It tends to distill down to "love God and love everyone you have any contact with or even think about."