A Departure From The Norm

"He wears his faith but as the fashion of his hat." ~ William Shakespeare

I never post blog entries about religious subjects on this blog. I have another blog devoted to matters of faith called "God's Way/My Way", which one can find, should one be interested, on my blogroll. I am no expert in apologetics and found myself way out of my league on that subject, so, I rarely, if ever post anything there.

Let me just say, on that subject, "I know Whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I've committed unto Him against that day". And that, as Mr Gump would say, is all I have to say about that.

I believe one's faith is a personal thing. By that I mean, discussing what one believes in a public forum such as a blog can be a risky thing and tends to stir up far more anger and resentment than political discourse.

There are so many widely diversified beliefs these days, that even true Christians often disagree with each other on some things. Thankfully, most of these disagreements are not things that divide us, but serve to strengthen our faith and compels us to go to the Word and divine for ourselves what God's truth is, which I believe is a good thing.

Not that I believe we shouldn't share our faith. I do. But we must be careful that we don't share the "wrong gospel".

 A man whose blog I used to frequent daily is a prime example. I used to like the man and he and I would often get into spirited discussions at both my place and his about both politics and religion. At first, it was fun! They started out as friendly disagreements but later, as he drifted farther and farther to the left, both politically and religiously, the discussions evolved into arguments which became more and more mean spirited until I could no longer bring myself to even visit his blog knowing that he would post some drivel that would absolutely infuriate me. I assume he felt the same about me, as he stopped visiting my blog altogether, too.

For some strange reason, I woke up thinking about him and his blog this morning. I don't know why. He hasn't crossed my mind in well over a year.

The last time I visited his blog, he was seriously contemplating enrolling in Seminary. In my opinion, his religious views are so far away from Biblical, I can't imagine a Seminary that would accept him as a student. There is, in my opinion, nothing Christian about his theology.

And yet, He insists he is a Christian. I can't say he isn't, but it surely seems he may have lost his way.

This is, I acknowledge, an oversimplification, but there is, I believe, but two things God demands from us as Christians:

1. Respect God, and,

2. Share God with others.

The thing that woke me from such a blissful peaceful sleep so abruptly this morning,  and motivated me to type my opinion out on today's blog, is the fact that this man would often call Jesus, "Jebus".

 Maybe I'm just being petty, but I find that disrespectful to Jesus Christ.

Now, this man would most likely defend this by saying Jesus doesn't care what you call Him as long as you worship Him and carry out His commands. Maybe he's right, but, I don't think the moniker either respects God or carries with it the message that we, as Christians, want to convey.

I think, calling Jesus ,"Jebus" would cause some non-believers to think the guy who's trying to witness to them isn't too sincere. Again, The man would defend that by saying what someone believes is his business and he doesn't have the right to impose his belief on others, so it really doesn't matter what the unbelievers think.

But then, that violates the second of God's demands, doesn't it?

How are we expected to share the Gospel if we don't bother to try to convince the unbeliever that he is following the wrong path? Telling an unbeliever "What's right for you may not be right for me and what's right for me may not be what's right for you, so go ahead and do what you want. It's none of my business", is, in my opinion, just plain foolish.

 Anyway, that's what I think. What do you think?