One conversation that I've ruminated on a lot happened just over six years ago. It was with a friend that had been straying from her WELS church after she had graduated from high-school. When I asked her why, she said, "Well, I think that the WELS is right when it comes to doctrine. But, I don't think that they focus on evangelism and sanctified living as well as they could. So, to me, it seems like those things might be even more important than completely pure doctrine, so sometimes I'll go and do things with the other church." This conversation was six years ago. I tried to replicate it as accurately as I could. If I turned it into somewhat of a straw-man, that was not my intention.
There's one verse from the Bible that I've wished had come out of my mouth at this point. It's John 6:68. It's probably my personal favorite confession of Peter, when he said, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life." What could possibly more important than pure doctrine? That's not to excuse the failures of churches. However, how could we go to other churches, just because they have this minutiae correct while they fail on some of the primary doctrines of the Christian church?
At the end of John 6, Jesus asks us, along with his disciples, to commit to all of his teachings...even the difficult ones. The lectionary worked well this past weekend. It chose Joshua 24 as the Old Testament lesson. "Choose for yourselves whom you will serve." If you're not going to stick with Jesus, who has the words of eternal life, choose whom you will serve. Will you serve people with the gospel, or will you settle for the social-gospel...or even less? Do you embrace all the teachings of God, even Ephesians 5 (this weekend's second lesson), or do you shy away from those that will raise eyebrows in other circles? It might be easy to turn to other churches that make these issues simpler, but why? Jesus has the words of eternal life. Since he has those, I'm going to stick to his teachings. All of 'em.
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1 comment:
Excellent post. I often wondered that when someone I went to FVL with strayed from a WELS church to a Non-Denom. Usually they give a reason like the contemporary music, bigger youth group, Bible Class opportunities, but in the back of my head I wonder how they can give up or compromise their beliefs on infant baptism and real presence for that. It's not until they have a child or grandchild that is dedicated rather than baptized that the conscious tugs. In this case, I've seen the Lutheran churches of their grandparents baptize their children while they continue to be members at the Non-Denom church. They are accepting false doctrine and passing that acceptance to their children. -Tammy
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