Charity in Belief

Over the last 24 hours I have been reminded multiple times about having charity in my theology, or as Joshua Harris would say, "humble orthodoxy". This is important for anyone with belief to remember but even more important for brothers and sisters in Christ to remind themselves of continually. I was listening to N.T. Wright defend his position on women in the ministry and then had to respond;  first with what I liked about his methodology and what I agreed with him on. Doing this simple exercise before I started to defend what I believed was good because it got me to realize that there were even some things I had in common with this man I disagreed with and more importantly I could hear his passion and even see the humility coming through in his defense. Then, I was talking today with a good friend and mentor today and we always rib each other in fun about our theological differences but in the end we love each other an take it back to the core unity in Christ. He was reminding me today, "what hill are we willing to die on and what hill is a waste to fight on".

So, this charity in belief is important to remember. We should always be finding the common base of the belief; the grace of God that washes away all our sins in the life of faith and spreading that great news to others, the common core. Now I am not trying to say that having positions, on spiritual gifts or how salvation actually works or does man have free will to not, is a bad thing. The bad thing and maybe even sinful things is how do you defend those positions. Is speaking in tongues a hill worth dying on, to quote a great friend of mine. Or is a women preaching on mothers day, a thing to split a church over? I think in both of these cases not it is not. Where is the charity and humility in the belief? As brothers and sister in unity under Christ, we need to show love to each other, humility in what we believe, and charity in how we share it. This will then allow the world to see a true Christ in His church, rather than a hypocritical and fight brood of people.