Restoration Blunders

Those of us in the Church of Christ, and others, have roots in the Restoration movement. There was an attempt many years ago to bring people together around the Bible and only the Bible as the sole source of faith and knowledge of the will of God for us for us to be better able to evangelize the world. It is a noble plea and a worthwhile one. There were some great catch-phrases that came out of that era. Speak where the Bible speaks and be silent where the Bible is silent. No book but the Bible. No creed but Christ. No name but the Divine Name. In matters of doctrine, unity. In matters of opinion, liberty. In all things, love. Call Bible things by Bible names. These all pointed us in the direction of unity for the cause of Christ.

But it seems, at least in my tribe (cofc), we have woefully abandoned those ideals. Our motto seems to be today, "Where the Bible speaks, we speak. Where the Bible is silent, we speak even louder with more passion and conviction". We have splintered the body of Christ mainly because of our abuses of the word of God and how to understand it. We have a flawed approach not only to Scripture, but to restoration as well. The "command, example and necessary inference" approach comes up terribly short in exploring and understanding the heart of God. I think there is a better way. I'll write more later. Pray as I work through some of this with my people here in Idabel. It needs to be addressed.