Theological Musings

am not going to get into specifics here because I’m not going to try to make an issue out of the specifics, but the last few days have brought some hurt here in the blogosphere. And I know I am not the only one who has been hurt.

My previous post definitely came from my heart, as I have experienced the “fire” and “hammer” quite a bit from a few others lately. Not the “fire” and “hammer” of the Word of God, but the “fire” and “hammer” of plain old criticism and judgment. In many ways, it has crossed the line into outright slander.

As I’ve talked with my wife about it, and done some very serious thinking, I have come to the conclusion that Christ is not in that. There are a lot of good, Christ-honoring blogs out there. But there are also some which seem to do more harm than good. This is not the first time I’ve seen the bad side of blogging. And it may not be the last. But this time, it has hurt a bit more deeply than before.

With that in mind, I want to publicly reaffirm some goals that I have for this blog. I am blessed to interact with some really wonderful people here, and I have grown quite fond of those of you that I get to interact with. So here, in no particular order, are some of the things that I pray will be true, and remain true, of this blog:

I pray that God receives glory from this blog, and that you each are blessed both here and (if you have them) on your own blogs.

I pray that this will always be a place where disagreement among believers is tempered with love and grace.

I pray that, while we may differ with each other, that we will never lose sight of what binds us together. For those of us here who are in Christ, we are truly bound together by His Spirit. It continues to amaze me that there is some very sweet fellowship here between simple church advocates and conventional church pastors, cessationists and continuationists, Calvinists and non-Calvinists… Not every discussion on this blog has been easy, and very few of them end up with either party changing their position — but we’ve learned a lot from each other, and we respect each other for their positions.

I pray that, no matter what takes place on this blog, that I will never present myself as being unteachable or above questioning on anything.  I’m not looking for people to follow me.  I’m looking for people to walk alongside me as I follow Christ.  Even though this blog has my name and picture on it, that is only because I’m the one hosting the discussion.

Finally, I pray that all of our speech here will be continually subjected to the standards of the Holy Spirit.

Thanks again to all of you who have made this blog a great place for interaction. Have a blessed remainder of the week!

Until next time,

steve