Where do we draw the line?

I have recently run into an issue with a man’s ministry; an issue we have all experienced before. I will endeavor to get answers by asking some questions.

Is there a perfect ministry…one that you fully endorse? One where every single bit of doctrine and personal view points coincide with yours?

If there is, do you really know all of their beliefs or are you just in agreement with the ones you know?

I know, as do most others, that we should not tolerate heresy, but are there other “deal breakers”?

What do you tolerate?

As long as a teaching doesn’t affect ones salvation is it tolerable?

Many people are out spoken about certain ministries and warn others of the danger, but when we look at some of the saints of old…would we sit in a Church under their Preaching?

Is it different to read it than to hear it live?

Do we draw the line at a certain percentage…90/10 or maybe 80/20 ?

Let me know what would stop your support and/or acceptance of a ministry.

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TJ

Wow brother ... A lot of questions and I almost fear some of the responses ...

Could I rephrase it a bit? Do we have to "draw a line?"

Not much better now that I think about it ... Surely understand the dilemma, the overt and obvious shouldn't be too difficult to ascertain. What I would be a bit uncomfortable with is yet another set of guidelines that everything gets measured by ...

For instance, here, at SI ... A great deal of divergent view point between speakers\ministers\pastors\teachers\preachers however we would wish to categorize them. The saints by and large here in the forum ...

Disagreement? Certainly! An easy, compromised 'everybody get along' (Yes that conduct wise) at the expense of scripture ... God forbid! By and large it is the very push backwards to get at the meaning that is what we traverse here, the fondness for the Old Paths only by way of such great neglect and the rich treasures that have been buried in modern day .... [i]muck[/i]?! A very specific line that Ron (Philologos) mentioned as he is want to do has stayed well in the front of the cranium ...

[i]Faithful to the scriptures[/i]

Thats it! That's what we are after, striving after and encouraging each other after ... hopefully, and by and large I believe it to be so.

It is something truly remarkable that despite what could be, that is a real mess, somehow all these thoughts from our past Brethren, earthly dead that is and with a wide generalization here ... manage to speak ... the same thing at the core. Honesty. Reconsideration. Rethinking, why just [i]thinking period[/i]! Now it may not be espoused as such by them individually but somehow that is what ends up happening ...

"Have you considered?" Is something that constantly hammers away at coming to too fast of a conclusion. It is this that these men and others here set forth as challenge to scour the Whole counsel of Gods word ... [i]to see if these things be so[/i].

Oh there is much to be said I am sure and if I had to say so, to answer just one of these questions;

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Mike Balog

Now i have to fight off the envy thing crsschk! You said what i was trying to think.
:-o

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rick H.

Quite thoughtful questions, and an excellent answer from crsschk. Can't add to it.

God bless.

I think crsschk has hit the nail on the head with this one.

There will never be a time when you will agree with absolutely everything that someone else says to you, and I think that that is a good thing. Disagreement and discussion, in the right spirit (!), are good and healthy, because they cause you to think about what you believe, and bring into question some of your own thoughts and ideas. Many a time I have jumped in on someone all too quickly with my own thoughts, which I thought were right and Biblically sound, only to get blown away because I have never actually [i]thought[/i] about what I think, and why I think it. Many things I have thought right were not, and I would not be corrected in those thoughts if someone had not offered a new perspective on things.

If someone has a new idea or thought about the Bible, and even if it seems wrong to you at the outset, it is useful to think about. It may shed light on your perspective, and show it to be good and Biblical, or it may well do the opposite and challenge you to consider what you believe because it is not as Biblically solid as you originally thought it was.

For an example, my uncle was taught at a certain Bible college, that when the Israelites crossed the Red Sea, God didn't part it. Apparently, the Red Sea was at a certain time of the year, so that the waters were shallow enough for the Israelites to walk through the sea on the reeds underneath them (!). Of course, I immediately jumped back and cried, 'Heresy! The waters were parted!'. I straight away thought to myself, 'These guys are wrong' (which I do believe they are!), but of course, it caused me to pick up my Bible and read for myself.
And, as I found in Exodus 14:21-22 (NIV),

'Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and all that night the Lord drove the sea back with a strong east wind and turned it into dry land. [b]The waters were divided[/b], and the Israelites went through the sea on dry ground, with [b]a wall of water on their right and on their left[/b].'

Now, if I had done my usual thing and rashly thrown in my opinion without considering what these men had said, and picked up my Bible to read for myself, I would have had no grounds for my accusation of un-Biblicall-ness. But I did read God's Word, and as it said there in black and white, the waters were, of course, parted into two walls.

So my painfully long-winded response would be this - don't be alarmed by new ideas. Embrace them, think about them. Even if they seem wrong, go straight to God's Word and see what He would say on the matter. New views and ideas that do not match up with yours can do one of two things,

1) Challenge you to reconsider what you think by shedding light on the fact that you may not actually be correct, or
2) Solidifying your current thoughts even more, because you thought about them and found them to be Biblically correct.

In my case, I thought about what these guys said, read what God said and saw if they matched up with eachother. They didn't, and so in future if this theory of the Red Sea came up, I could then blow them out of the water (no pun intended) with God's Word. God is a miracle worker and He is all-powerful. He [b]did[/b] part that sea, my Bible tells me so, and now I can gaze in awe at this awesome God that I serve, who can actually part a sea into two! Incredible.

Sorry, what was the question again? Hope this helps!

I briefly scanned the responses and if what I say is redundant, so be it. I think the responses you got were very good.

I personally look to see how they regard sin. Do people say that since we live in these times this act is no longer considered sin? This is a sore temptation, I tell you...I have been tempted in this regard as well. And who has not?

Fascinating topic, tj.

ginnyrose

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Sandra Miller