Musing 143

One of the hard things about being so eclectic in my reading over decades (ouch) is that there are times when I come to . . . if not unique, definitely minority combinations of views.

As an example, on worship issues, I hold to the Regulative Principle, but I hold to :

1) No church calendar 2) Inclusive Psalmody 3) instruments in Worship

Which isn’t the usual combination of conclusions of the RPW.

So what that has meant is that when I moved and needed to find a new church, I knew there would be places where I would need to submit to the church in which I found myself, and I needed to understand which would violate my conscience, and which were things I could submit to my local church leaders about.

What does that matter?

In short, if I were to insist on my own way, it would not necessarily be a loving thing to do. Though these are my convictions, they are not Gospel level issues. And lovingly submitting to my elders can be practice for humility for me, recognizing that my studies don’t make me inherently better than others, but instead call me to better serving them.

And it is so important to model humility and submission for my children. Scripture warns against factiousness and quarrelsomeness constantly. And in my own life, the families whose children all had trainwrecks of a profession of faith uniformly were those where the dad (and sometimes the mom too!) were factious and refused to submit to a local church for some reason, either because of hurt that occurred leading to undue defensiveness, or ego where studying had puffed up and love was not demonstrated.

Are there other errors that families commit that put stumbling blocks in front of the kids? Of course. We are all fallen, and there are so many fashionable idols that we accept and will need to plead Christ’s blood for. But I think the most insidious and easy to miss is this factiousness because it often comes from a place of “well, I’ve studied this secondary issue, and so will not submit to my church leaders, even if it means leaving and not being with a church”. Ego like that will bring spiritual death.