Distractions: Annoying or Deadly?
One of the most important things my teachers in high school always told me was to stick to the point and to build everything else around that point, whether it be supporting details, examples, or something else. I’ve been wanting to get more into blogging, and one thing I’ve been thinking about a lot lately is the Christian life. I want to address Christians as well as skeptics. Oh yes, back to the point! I think it’s important to understand what’s really important to the Christian life so that we can economically steward what’s entrusted to us… time, money, energy, resources, relationships, etc.… We have a limited amount of all of these, and it’s important that we don’t let our time on Earth slip away into eternity while constantly chasing things that do not matter, having never focused on the main thing.
As Christians, we ought to do our best to view everything through the lens of the Bible. No apologies there. I am not against reason, and I am a huge proponent of independent thinking. However, I also try to be honest with myself, and I can’t deny what I’ve experienced.
I think it’s obvious that the Bible was written by people a long time ago in a culture very far removed from our own. To a skeptic, this almost sounds like an introduction to Star Wars, but the principle message of the Bible remains true. It speaks to all aspects of life that humanity has been wrestling with from the beginning. It’s these timeless truths that transcend time, place, and culture.
One of the best pieces of advice I got in preparing to depart for South Asia for 2 years was that “different doesn’t necessarily mean wrong; different could just mean different”. When something seems strange, I try to ask myself, “Do I think this is strange just because I haven’t experienced it before, or is it warned against in the Bible?” This is why it is so important as Christians, that we make judgements based on the Bible, not our own biases. Obviously, we are going to fail at this because we don’t live in a perfect world yet. It’s true— I’m a white, male, millennial, American, living in the 21st century; no apologies there either. I don’t have any control over any of these aspects of my identity; it’s just the way God made me. I do recognize, however, that there are aspects of my identity that affect the way I view the world.
The truth is that everyone is going to have a slightly different view than others around them. If we can do our best to remove our natural biases when we view the world, we will naturally be more unified as a country and as the human race. As Christians, this means that whoever we are, one thing is certain – that we let the truth of holy Scripture, not our biases, be our primary influence in all matters. Our goal as Christians is to be more like Jesus Christ and less like ourselves. This doesn’t mean that we completely abandon who we are, but we now employ all that God has given us, including everything that makes us unique, for our God-given purpose, to love God and love people.
—Derick Dillard
Brother Derick, I appreciate this post. I think many of us need to always check our Bibles against anything we are not sure about.
It doesn’t always seem like you love people. Before you talk about sin, can you explain why the LGBTQ community is such a threat to you? Thank you
Marie,
Thanks for your question. I do love all people, as hard as it might be sometimes. As far as homosexuality goes, I believe that, by definition, marriage is between 1 man and 1 woman. This is certainly not a matter of unfair discrimination, as some might claim. Rather, it’s a matter of changing definitions.
So called, “transgenderism” is really a direct attack on what’s reality or not. And that’s what honestly scares me. If one can decide what their gender is, and it is that way because they said it was that way, who’s to say what other points of fact others can choose to change in the future? It would be extremely difficult to function in a society where facts differ from person to person. What does anyone have to stand on in that world? Would it be wrong to identify as American Indian and get scholarships because of it? Facts are facts, and they don’t care about feelings. But, I do care about people and their feelings; I love people, and I also love facts. I hope this helps give a better view of my perspective
I don’t have any control over any of these aspects of my identity; it’s just the way God made me. (This hit home.)