I do agree that we often are wrongly emotionally attached to non-essentials, and we wrongly take things personally rather than understanding that often our attackers are using us as a means to attack Jesus.

An ancillary thought comes to mind for me that goes to the heart of the division you well address.

It seems to me that more and more of us Americans are erroneously becoming emotionally attached to our ideas, such that when an idea we currently subscribe to suffers attack, we tend to erroneously take that attack personally, and therefore worthy of vigorous (and too often vicious?) defense and counter-attack.

Instead, I’d propose, if we can learn to consider an idea merely an impersonal current perspective that we happen to hold on reality, in no way connected to our self-worth, we can consider an “attack” instead as a gift: an attempt by another to make us more the man or woman of God He intends for us to be . . . merely an introduction an alternative perspective, and even an attempt by another to be (or make) a contribution to our lives.

I think of the saying, “Human beings rarely communicate. We just opinionate each other to death.”

What we perhaps need is the teaching of some critical thinking skills, including the skills to divorce ourselves from aggressive emotional attachment to our current views of reality (and, in this case, to our interpretation of the Word and the Heart of Him who authors it.)

Blessings !!

You are so correct in what you have communicated. We have way too many Christians with head knowledge and seemed to have forgoten the heart. I seem to remember “For God so loved (their is that heart thing again). Keep it going.

In your post you said “What I have seen in my study of God’s Word is that there are some points that are clearly articulated and easily supported in Scripture but there are also a number of matters that are not clearly expressed or substantiated.”

I understand what you’re saying, but I think Christians disagree on what is “clearly articulated.” For example, I have no trouble seeing the “how” of creation and the events of the last times as issues that we are not to divide over. And I have no trouble seeing the Trinity and Christ’s atoning death and resurrection as the only way to salvation as convictions to die for, let alone divide over.

But there are matters that are considered disputable by other Christians that I do not consider disputable, such as the gay church, which has developed an entire theology justifying the gay lifestyle, and proponents of the prosperity gospel, who use the Bible to show that God wants us to be materialistically wealthy. In my opinion, they’re just manipulating the Scripture to justify their desires. Many of them, however, claim to believe in the deity of Christ and consider themselves Christian.

Hypothetically, if the leadership at our church adopted a gay theology or a prosperity theology, would I be wrong in leaving the church and urging others to leave as well? Or should I leave without incident? Or should I stay and try to change things?