Recently I've been struggling with the idea of how to address people with differing opinions, people with different perspectives and different understanding. For many years I have embraced disagreements; I will passionately defend my understanding as being absolutely right until someone else can present a sufficiently convincing argument. I refuse to be a leaf blowing in the wind, but I know I am often not right. As long as I wasn't attacking the person, name calling, insulting, etc I saw no problem with continuing to stand firm and seek to be understood.
I have started seeing more clearly what the fruit of this passion really is. Especially online I can't point to a single person who's life I can say I really impacted positively with any of the 'serious' discussions. It seems that people walk away with frustration and anger and resentment, even if I do not; not the fruit of love.
One of the outcomes of a recent synod by the church I grew up in, after much debate, was to declare that the Bible says "homosexuality is clearly a sin" and that any church leader who openly supports homosexuality will be subject to disciplinary action. At the same synod, the church removed a clause allowing someone to abstain from supporting women in leadership roles in the church. Where 20 years ago the church would have said the Bible says "women should clearly not be in leadership roles." The pastor at my parent's church shared that he was really struggling with this seeming contradiction. That there were many things that he simply didn't know, that there were things in the Bible that we simply can't know, but that we should cling to the things we DO know: Love.
There are so many ideas, so many opinions, so many thoughts about The Word and what it means, so how can we possibly follow through with 2 Timothy 4:2? Do we simply fall back on Love and support everyone in their time of need? For these controversial topics, do we just embrace and support others no matter what we believe? Is it up to God to convict them? Is it truly love if we don't seek to rebuke and correct? When the fruits of confrontations always seem to be negative, even if we do it with patience and attempted kindness, should it continue?
I have started seeing more clearly what the fruit of this passion really is. Especially online I can't point to a single person who's life I can say I really impacted positively with any of the 'serious' discussions. It seems that people walk away with frustration and anger and resentment, even if I do not; not the fruit of love.
One of the outcomes of a recent synod by the church I grew up in, after much debate, was to declare that the Bible says "homosexuality is clearly a sin" and that any church leader who openly supports homosexuality will be subject to disciplinary action. At the same synod, the church removed a clause allowing someone to abstain from supporting women in leadership roles in the church. Where 20 years ago the church would have said the Bible says "women should clearly not be in leadership roles." The pastor at my parent's church shared that he was really struggling with this seeming contradiction. That there were many things that he simply didn't know, that there were things in the Bible that we simply can't know, but that we should cling to the things we DO know: Love.
There are so many ideas, so many opinions, so many thoughts about The Word and what it means, so how can we possibly follow through with 2 Timothy 4:2? Do we simply fall back on Love and support everyone in their time of need? For these controversial topics, do we just embrace and support others no matter what we believe? Is it up to God to convict them? Is it truly love if we don't seek to rebuke and correct? When the fruits of confrontations always seem to be negative, even if we do it with patience and attempted kindness, should it continue?
My questions are specifically targetted at those things that seem to bring out our claws and fangs; There are absolutely things that the Bible is not clear on, I could give you a list if you want. The Bible itself says that there are things that we won't understand. 
