All true Christians who love the Lord and want to uphold His Word in their lives, search the scriptures diligently to find truth, and then find Churches which support that view of truth, or alternatively, find a Church and then support the doctrines that that church espoused.
Heresy aside, denominations account for many of the variations of what Christians see as the truth. There is only one real truth that all Christians MUST believe in as a central reason for their faith... and that is the same message that Paul preached of the first importance in I Corinthians 15:3-4 " that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, that He was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures and that He appeared to ......"
Let me quote from Philippians 1:18, when Paul is describing the different reasons and ways that Christ was being preached in the Church
"But what does it matter, The important thing is that in every way, through false motives or true, Christ is preached. And because of this I rejoice."
From what I read and can tell from the posts that preacherintraining, Aineo,Alpha and even myself were posting about Baptism, which is what started all of this, is that we differed on the role of Baptism, but we all agreed with two important points
1. The role of Jesus as the WAY to God.. only through His death and resurrection can you know your sins are forgiven and you have life in His Name.
2. The importance/command to be baptised.
What we disagreed on, was the role of Baptism in regeneration.
Now, if Paul said that the important thing to be taught was that Jesus died on the cross and rose on the third day.. why should we be any different, regardless of what our personal beliefs on Baptism are, we are all agreed that the first importance is Jesus Himself.
Can we agree to let this whole thread drop. It seems to me that there was a lot of misunderstandings coming from the discussion going from a theological discussion to a personal one, and so let's return to the Theological one again.
My own personal understanding was that Paul's letters were written to particular churches however, those letters were passed around widely and shared amongst churches, and part of the reason they are now in our Bible is because they were accepted in the early church from the beginning as the Word of God, written for all believers, but in the context of the particular problems or strengths in the churches they were addressed to.
As believers, we will always see the application of the letters differently, even in Paul's time that was done, but at a time like now, when the very Word of God is under attack from so many sources, let's keep the differences from being personal and stand up only for Truth.
I am not suggesting we don't also stand against activities that are against the word of God, I am absolutely committed to standing for truth as it is expressed in the Word of God, it's just that non Christians see us divided by issues that have nothing to do with salvation and it leads them away from God rather than to Him.
What do you all think?