Jesus recognizes that we will never get the law right, if we could then he had no reason for coming. But I believe Jesus is telling us to stop fretting over whether we are ever wrong on every last detail (since we will never acheive total rightness to begin with) and instead just focus on loving God and neighbor. Another words, we are being taught to love God and neighbor while accepting that along the journey of such pursuit we will get somethings wrong (and that’s ok since it is not malicious or apathetic error).

And if we still need clarification about what it mean to love God and neighbor then Jesus tells us how do correctly do worship on Sunday mornings, how to correctly organize the church, how to correctly handle every marriage and divorce issue, how to determine who we can fellowship with, how to hermenuetically interpret scripture, etc… No! Jesus tells us about a man beat up on the side of the road and then asks us who do we declare as our neighbor.

We have a long way to go!

Rex

Some missionaries came to Russia with this mindset, and they spread it to their converts. As a result, the Christians there literally thought that maturity in Christ was based on how well you could argue. Sad.

I think the key is to get people to focus on Christ, His Message, and His way of life. It’s important to emphasize that just having the right answers means nothing unless your actions follow. It’s sad to see churches spending gross majorities of their time debating what happens one hour a week on Sunday, and then missing the hundreds of people in their own community who are hurting and desperate for God. It’s not always a matter of rightness, but focus.

You hit the nail on the head, brother. As for me personally, when I’m in situations where it’s easy to get wrapped up in all sorts of debates, I have to bring myself back to the gospel message: I’m not good enough, but God makes me good enough because of Jesus. Love God and love people. Everything else is secondary to this.

at first i wondered if these people were just a bunch of judgmentalaphobes who just didn’t want to hear someone tell them the truth. however, fairly quickly i realize how ingenious this rule was. because i wasn’t allowed to respond to anyone else, i stopped trying to assess and filter and formulate responses in my head when other people talked. and with all that mental energy i normally spent on assessing other people words, i started focusing on listening to myself–assessing and weighing and thinking through what i had said. and that’s the point!–i’m there to fix ME.

i think there certainly is a time for doctrinal dispute and even the refusal to tolerate certain positions as acceptable. however, as a general rule, instead of focusing on what can be doctrinally corrected about others, i think there is tremendous scriptural precedent to focus on what needs doctrinally corrected about ourselves. And issues of character, attitude, and practicing spiritual disciplines are every bit as much “doctrinal issues” as are worship, qualifications of elders, or the nature of Christ. Should we be concerned about false doctrine? Absolutely, i have every indication that NT writers were. However, dare i suggest, that when a person’s mental energy is largely spent on the assessment of doctrinal correctness of others, something far deeper is amiss in themselves for not spending a greater amount of energy on self-examination and personal growth.

Rex