I haven’t written in a while. Largely due to big life changes, and preparing for those life changes. I’ve had a lot on my mind over the past few months. I’ve watched the world blow up over COVID, vaccines, LGBT stuff, abortion, politics, and the list could go on and on. As Christian’s all of these conversations lead us to the same dilemma: how do we balance our love for people with whom we differ, yet stand firm on sound doctrine?
We’ve probably all read Facebook threads and cringed at harsh comments that Christian’s make towards people they disagree with. On the other side we’ve seen Christian’s applaud things that Christian’s shouldn’t applaud. So how do we balance these things and “speak the truth in love” (Ephesians 4:15)?
I’d like to start presenting a solution to this by saying that I don’t like the idea of “balancing” loving people and standing for sound doctrine. In fact, I think it’s led us to think there are times when we can love people less, or stand up for doctrine less. Balancing something gives you the idea that you weigh out how much you give of one thing, by looking at how much you’ve given of the other thing. That’s not how this works! We don’t get to love people 30% and stand for doctrine 70% and it all balances out to be 100% Christian. The same is true the other way; we don’t love people 70% and stand for doctrine 30%.
I think the better understanding of this comes when we realize we don’t get to determine how much love we show people, but rather we love people fully 100% of the time. The same is true with doctrine. We don’t determine how much doctrine we stand up for, but we stand up for sound biblical teaching 100% of the time. We never loosen up on loving people, and we never loosen up on doctrine.
When we approach people with whom we differ in regards to politics, COVID, LGBT, abortion, or whatever the discussion is about, we absolutely must show people a genuine love and care 100% of the time. We must also stand up for what the Bible says 100% of the time. There is no room for loosening in either of these areas.
It is NOT possible to love people too much…… It is NOT possible to stand for truth too much…… It’s only possible to love people less than we should, or stand for truth less than we should. (Please read this again – this is the most important paragraph in this entire blog!)
If we find our conversations ending in yelling, arguing, or hateful comments towards those we differ with, perhaps it’s because we aren’t loving them 100%. If we find ourselves disgruntled at or reasoning around what the Bible says about something, perhaps we aren’t standing up for God’s word 100%. We must do better… not at balancing… but at FULLY loving people and FULLY standing up for sound, biblical doctrine.
Remember, I love you and God loves you.
-KB
Creating Ballance 