In the last blog, we made mention of the fact that Christians will disagree on what are our essentials of our faith. Since the Bible is the source of our doctrine, we should pay attention to it says about this topic. One of the earliest confessions of the Christian faith is given to us by Paul. [1] He reminded the Corinthians of what the gospel was and what was of first importance.
Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by whichiyou are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you— unless you believed in vain.
For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day. . . (1 Corinthians 15:1-4 ESV)
This simple statement is a far cry from most of our doctrinal statements. Why do we need to make our faith so complicated? Why do we Christians emphasize our differences and not what we have in common? Daniel Geraci, founder and executive director of an organization that coordinates churches in disaster relief efforts illustrates the ideal of Christian unity for which we should aim when he states: “We don’t ask each other what church we attend. Our focus is on Jesus and the work He’s asked us to do.” [2] Maybe we should pay more attention to becoming like Jesus and less in arguing about the finer points of our doctrine.
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[1] Lee Strobel. The Case for Christ. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1998, pp.229-231.
[2] Marvin Olasky. “Compassion on call”. World Magazine, March 17, 2018, p. 24.
