Heart and Soul

Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths. ~Proverbs 3:5-6

Recently I was reading a provocative post of Facebook. A question was posed “Why does one walk away from Baptist Fundamentalism?” The answers varied from honest and helpful to critical support of the movement, or vicious ignorance. The movement called Fundamentalism began as godly men from several denominations were trying to defend the Word of God and various foundational truths referred to as the Fundamentals of the Faith.

The original doctrinal truths were ones such as the Inspiration and Inerrancy of scripture; the virgin birth; the deity of Christ; miracles; the substitutional blood atonement of Christ for all mankind and its necessity; the literal bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ; and the Second Coming of Christ. These were put forth in articles in hopes of changing the apostate directions of their denominations. When that failed, Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterians, and some Episcopalians began to separate and start a new movement for the sake of truth. That would repeat itself several more times since the 1930’s and 40’s.

During those times new fellowships were started based upon the large or the smallest of differences. Some of its leaders were caustic or uncharitable in their approach. Some of these leaders were either over bearing and authoritative or immoral. This contributed to some departures via stumbling blocks. Those behaviors are not the reasons why professing Christians choose churches with false doctrines, worldly behaviors or apostate music, and other issues. Harsh people or churches are not the cause of people settling into weak sin tolerating and false teaching “feel good” churches.

So then what is? That’s easy! Ultimately, it’s a heart problem. There is a spiritual heart problem with arrogant leaders and heartless churches. There is an even greater heart problem with people running the fleshly shallow churches. We as leaders, churches, and Christians must have a spiritual heart check up weekly. I suggest checking in with our Great Physician and still standing for “The Faith once Delivered.” (Jude 1:3)

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