My Two Minds: Narrow and Simple, Broad and Wide Open

As I have learned about the differing interpretations and convictions that Christians have had for nearly 2000 years, I have become narrower.

I have grown so narrow that only one thing remains most important in my view of the Christian faith: Do you and I confess that Jesus is Lord? Do you and I trust in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ? Do you and I love God because he first loved us? For me, this is the crux of Christianity and the only thing that is most important.

There are, of course, many other things, and some of them are very important. But none of them are as important as Jesus Christ, and all of them are secondary to his death and resurrection. I believe that if we agree that Jesus is Lord, we have the only foundation we need to live together and discuss and debate all the other matters of Christian faith. If we above all love each other with the love God has shown us in the gospel, we should be very interested in and very patient with each other as we discover how all the other things on our “lists” compare.

The sheer variety of Christian teaching through the ages forces me to conclude that my small mind may not yet grasp all that God’s Spirit and Word have revealed. Not only have I become extremely narrow, but I have also become very broad, wide open to the possibility that I have something to learn from believers whose traditions and doctrines differ from my own. If I hold my convictions by faith with a clear conscience before God, I have to believe that many others do as well. Since God has not yet led everyone to agree to the same “list,” it appears to me that Jesus himself unifies us by his Spirit, not by our agreement about everything else.

It is a plain fact that Christians have differing convictions. (I expressed some of mine in the previous blog below.) But if you or I think that anything on our “list” trumps the love of God demonstrated in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ at the top of the list, we are missing the point made obvious by the cross and the empty tomb: Jesus is Lord! And if you or I think that our particular convictions or theology or church are the best or the most right of all those around, we are proud, deceived fools.

[This is the fourth in a series of posts excerpted from the “personal conclusion” to my booklet, “30 Meditations for the Proud” February 2013. To receive a free electronic copy, email me at daniellesliepeterson@gmail.com. I expressed similar thoughts in my March 27, 2014 post below, “I am MORE than an Evangelical.”]