Peripherals and Our Life in God
Why would I want to talk about peripherals and our life in God? I named this blog main thing as hate seeing Christians fighting over the wrong things. We often fight over peripherals. Peripherals can help us, but they must not be emphasiuzed over main things. Note the computer with all the periperals. Our life in Christ nees to consider this.
One of my children joined the Eastern Orthodox Church. Tnis seems crazy to me. They emphasize and even cannonize some peripherals. However, they accept the Nicene Creed as do I. We can have fellowship together. The main things are actually the same. Why would we fight over the role of Jesus mother? Further, Gen X people like me hate liturgy. Gen Z people like my kids like liturgy. Why would my bias divide us? The Bible says nothbing on this.
That is clearly peripheral.
Some people get hot over how much water is used in baptism. They claim Jesus was immersed, and we must be. The New Testament does not clarify how much water John the Baptist used. It is disputable. Further, there is no specific teaching on how must water is used in baptism. The New Testament does not even command people to get baptized! The amount of water is not God’s point. He wants baptism of Holy Spirit much more than baptism with water.
Peripherals and our Life in God Needs Wisdom
If the Bible does not clearly mandate something in a certain way, then it must be peripheral. Reading the Bible every day is valuable if done in faith, but it does not match God’s desire for us to flee sexual immorality which He is explicit about. It is quite likely that God saw each person is different and making a rule on Bible reading would make it just a rule. Jesus hated when our traditions went too far. Pride is a very commn sin and clearly condemned. Let’s face this. Divorce is condemned. How to treat divorced people is not clear. How you deciude is up to you. However, ewe should love all people.
Divorce is so measurable, that we focus on such things. Pride is hard to measure, but so clearly condemned. We need wisdom, but we especially need to stick to main things and note what is disputable.
