In Acts 10, an angel of God shows up in the living room of a man named Cornelius, who was a Gentile. If an angel of God shows up in my living room, I'm pretty sure it could tell me just about anything and I would believe it. God could've had this angel explain doctrine, theology, the answers to questions we'd all be asking for centuries to come... but He didn't.
The angel said, "Go find Peter, he has something to tell you."
There are two things that are really interesting for me in this story. The first is that though Cornelius was the one who was "converted", it was Peter who changed his culture so that another could respond to the truth of Jesus Christ. The other thing that I can not ignore is that in this moment when the Gentile church was born, God prioritized relationship over correct theology.
It was more important for the church to be born in relationship with the Jewish followers of Jesus than for the church to have all the answers right.
Sometimes I put aside the constant plea of God that we love each-other and decide that the correctness of my opinion is more important than relationship... but it wasn't to Him.
In the moments when I do this, it's driven by that same insecurity I mentioned in my last post. When I notice myself using doctrine to dismantle relationships it is because my head thinks the issue at hand is in fact true, but my heart is scared that it might not be. So, I puff-up my presentation of the doctrine so that no one can touch it, and I burn relationships.
I confess to you that when I chose doctrine over relationship, it is out of an insecurity in what I believe.
Jesus' last words over his disciples was a prayer that they would "love others like God loved me (Jesus)." He was speaking to his followers so that they would love those who weren't... so that others might know God.
It is not through the correctness of our doctrine that others will know God, but through our love.
No comments:
Post a Comment