I am not sold on the “essentials and non-essentials” language that is often used in theological discussion. I agree that there are essential truths that the body must remain unified on. However, at what point can we say that a truth is not an essential one? If it is truth is it not eternal, the character of God, his very expression, Christ himself, the Word, regardless of its position in our systematic?

This is not to say that any truth is grounds for division; on the contrary! When we get down to defining what is essential truth, it is often stated to be a teaching on which one’s salvation depends. That is, if one holds to a truth one is saved, if one does not hold to this truth, one is not in Christ. Our measure, then, is whether one is in a relationship with Christ. The other scripture basis for division is if one is living in immorality and is unrepented, i.e., not submitted in love to the body of Christ. Again, the basis is the state of one’s relationship. At this point all truth that one expounds is considered to be as good as non-truth for it comes from a heart that is hardened, in which the Truth does not dwell at all.

Therefore I do not see a way of drawing a line in our doctrine between essential and non-essential doctrine, for the line is not based on the technicalities of one’s dogmatics, but on the status of his relationship with Christ.

If I were to argue that beyond this all truth is equally important and essential, I might (and prefer to) argue that we should be equally gracious to those of various theological persuations as long as they exhibit the humility and love consistent with their holding fast to the head through whom the whole body, nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments, grows with a growth that is from God. For in Christ alone is truth. So if they are in Christ the truth that they do not know and express is a part of the righteousness that is credited to them by faith. And the falsehood which they blindly consider to be truth is the sin partaken of by Adam and Eve since their belief in the lie of Satan and is also covered in the blood of Christ by his grace.

If I claim to know something, I cannot claim to know it exhaustively; I am finite. I do say that I know things, though likely some of that which I am sure of knowing I will later renounce, for I have done so in the past and am not yet perfected. Does this mean that nothing can be known for sure? I would think not, though perhaps this is the case. How then do I function intellectually and make absolute statements?

Let us assume for the sake of argument that I can know something for sure. Even that knowledge may not be useful to me if I am not employing it for its intended means (assuming that absolute knowledge comes from an absolute being and therefore was brought into being for a particular purpose). In this case I would not really know it certainly for its very purpose is not fulfilled and thus its knowledge cannot be complete. If we are to believe what is written in scripture, knowledge comes not from a dispassionate law book, but from a personal and dynamic God. Therefore knowledge is part of relationship, and relationship as it was intended to be had with the absolute God. In this case, I know insofar as the developement of my relationship with God permits me to know.

If, however, I cannot know anything in absolute certainty, then to even function I must decide to know something sufficiently. This knowledge must be based on belief, for it cannot be certain. I must become a pragmatist and speak of knowing and operating according to what is beneficial. What can be beneficial but what allows all things to function in harmony? The very idea of harmony causes me to look to its composer, and understand what he desires to create. In scripture the creator creates for his pleasure in a relationship with his creation. In this case I mayknow insofar as it is beneficial in bringing about the kind of relationship that the creator desires.

It seems that we often operate in relationships according to preconcieved ideas about how certain relationship is culturally defined, and thus deprive ourselves a great freedom to be found in Christ. A friend is only a friend, a brother is only a brother.

We do so out of fear, I believe, of having something on our hands that we cannot identify. Sometimes this is simply sound wisdom–desire to be transparent and not have our words and actions missinterpreted. Other times it can be stiffling.

In the body of Christ I see potential for relationships which, while retaining godly boundaries, also have a freedom to recieve whatever may be given, even if such the gift does not fit conventional definition of the given relationship. Case in point: David and Johnathan; friends? brothers? Or the opposite; perhaps one may have a relationship which does not ostensibly enjoy all or most of the benefits that relationships of that kind usually share–and yet this itself may be a source of peace and contentment. Case in point: “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.” Hate is love? Love expressed as hate? Whatever Christ is describing here (which I continue to put a lot of thought into) it certainly is something that leads to blessedness as Christ’s disciple, and it is completely foreign to the respective definitions of worldly relationships.

Perhaps both of these things are brought about in various relationships in the body of Christ by a certain open-handedness, that is, a spirit of repentence that sees nothing as belonging to me, as I merit nothing, and everything to be a gift–insofar as it is given and not claimed–to be recieved with gladness as an expression of grace, but not sought after as the object of one’s desire. For there is one object and one goal in this life and the next: to “hold fast to the Head, through which the whole body, nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments grows with a growth that is from God;” thus, the dynamic and otherwise ‘undefined’ relationships in the body of Christ.

We cannot be anything but created beings. We think and reason and feel according to our nature as creation. How then do we understand eternity? How do we understand something that is outside of our first principles of existence? In thinking of eternity we often think of it as a continuum, or like time–that never ends, but keeps going on and on, like a mathematical infinity. But of course we know that this understanding falls woefully short of real eternity, because time itself is somehow bound up in the that which is created.

The Apostle Paul says that in Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. If we desire to understand eternity, let us then look at Jesus Christ, in whom the fulness of deity dwells bodily, that is, eternity. God is all and there is none beside him. So eternity is not some independent idea to be examined and toyed with, but rather it is an aspect of God’s character. All the more reason, then, for us to look to its revelation in Christ, who is that of God which became man to commune to us God’s life and essence. Jesus does not say “think of me as I think of the Father” no, he says “abide in me as I abide in the Father.” And many other passages also show that knowing God is not of propositional understanding but personal experience, fueled, certainly, by this objective knowledge that is revealed, but only efficient if approriated subjectively to the individual. As it says in Colossians 3: “For you have died, and who you are is hidden with Christ in God.”

So we see that eternity can be nothing if it is not relational. What and who God is can only be real to us insofar as it is in personal relationship with him. So also it is with eternity. Eternity is not an unending timeline. Though certainly its character is that it has no beginning and no end, this is because neither does God, and eternity is that unchanging unchangeable nature of God’s being. And the knowledge of it is found in Christ.

If then we are in Christ and our lives are hidden with him, we see that our every breath and thought and word and action is eternal in significance. They are temporal in that they pass away and are thought of no more, but they are also eternal because they are expressed in the relationship that God has established with us in Christ.

Therefore, what greater crime than to not be content, for who we are now and what we are now is given in order that we might express through it what is eternal, that is, of God’s character. For this reason scripture tells us to first put on love which binds everything together in perfect harmony, to then let the peace of Christ rule in our hearts, and to let the Word of Christ dwell in us richly. Such things are practical, real time ways of living, which are in fact eternal; not that we have conjured up eternity by our actions, but that eternity is and always has existed in God as a relationship and is therefore given to us to partake of in Christ by faith.

The modern pagan world seeks “open mindedness.” Christians are labeled as being “close-minded.” Do they not seek the narrow way? Is this something to be ashamed of?

What the world does not see is the spiritual state behind their broad way and the narrow way of Christ. For the assumption of American pagans is that spirituality is “out there” and therefore the broader one is the greater one’s potential to connect with the universal spirituality. And thus they are captive to empty deceit and the prince of the power of this world.

But when one is discovered by grace and is awakened to the love of Christ, the narrow way is that beautiful and unambiguous straight and clear way to freedom of the soul as it basks in the life of God’s spirit. Who would guess that the “straight and narrow” is freedom and life and the “broad” is what holds the soul in bondage to ever seeking, but never finding?

What does it matter that you are labeled as “narrow minded?” Is it freedom in Christ that you have; freedom from the guilt of sin and life of selfishness and the flesh that you used to live in the world? Then what you have is all there is to be had in this life and the next, and it is surely enough!

In Augustine’s “City of God” He explores the nature of the first sin. He points out that there wasn’t necessarily anything bad in the fruit itself; it was only created fruit. It was bad because it came from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and that was the tree God had said not to touch. But of course we can’t say that the tree was bad. God created it to be in the garden, and we know that God wouldn’t create something that is contrary to its own environment, i.e. ‘not good.’ And what about eating? Was eating itself a sin? Well of course not. But the disobedience was.

The sin of disobedience therefore, had to have begun before the disobedience was actually committed. In other words, in order for Adam and Eve to eat of the tree they must have already desired what God forbade and thus already sinned in their heart. In the end Augustine identifies the first sin to be pride. Because Adam and Eve rejected what God gave and wanted to supply themselves. They rejected the true light, that is the truth, and wanted to judge truth for themselves. Thus the first sin, and the sin that is at the root of all sin is pride.

When we take the crown off of God, the only one who is capable of ruling us and the world, when we seek to be our own light of understanding while we reject the only light and only knowledge which comes as a gift from the Father of lights, and also when we depend on other physical, relational and emotional gifts as ‘idols’ to supply us with the stuff of life, that is, its fullfilment,that is sin, and necessarily death. Truly this is humbling, and it shows how serious our pride is. It’s not just a symptom of sin, it is our sin. How difficult it is to lose sight of ourselves. To not even be concerned with what we are or aren’t but only with what Christ is and what he desires to be in us. And yet, someone has described the Christian life as a child, stumbling through the mud; it’s messy, we get dirty, but the Lord is gracious in not allowing us to sink, but in making us stronger in the struggle till we are with him in his perfection. For we know that the struggle, so long as it is not the willful acquiescence to sin, is part of our identification with the sufferings of Christ for the sake of our salvation. Praise the Lord!