Cheryl Schatz

kw,

I appreciate you are zealous, but I agree with Grant that there are things to divide over and things not to divide over. Division that is over the non-essentials is very bad. This is the point of my post.

Again, God says otherwise through Paul in: Philippians 3:17-18 Brethren, be followers together of me, and mark them which walk so, as ye have us for an ensample. For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ

When Paul talked about the enemies of the cross of Christ, he was not talking about true Christians. The non-essentials should never divide us as Christians and it is a very serious to get to the point of identifying someone as an enemy of the cross of Christ. We do not identify such a one because they are a soldier or go to war.

During his preaching of repentance John the Baptist said:

Luke 3:9 (NASB)
9 “Indeed the axe is already laid at the root of the trees; so every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”

The crowd then asked John what they needed to do. He told them what would be signs of repentance. When some soldiers approached John he did not tell them that repentance was for them to stop being soldiers. Rather than condemn them for being soldiers, the Bible relates the account:

Luke 3:14 (NASB)
14 Some soldiers were questioning him, saying, “And what about us, what shall we do?” And he said to them, “Do not take money from anyone by force, or accuse anyone falsely, and be content with your wages.”

There was no condemnation for being a soldier, but they were to be content with their wages.

Now I am asking that we put a period to these discussions that are off topic. While I appreciate that Christians can discuss these issues, I don’t want my blog to be a place of dialog on war, government, conspiracy theories, etc because this takes away from what I am trying to do here. It gets us off the task of encouraging women to obey God in the way that He has called them.

So please, let’s stay on topic so that I don’t need to moderate the comments. I really hate having to do that as I believe in free expression but within proper boundaries.

Thanks!