DanielGarneau said:
Hello my friends, brothers and sisters in Christ,
I am a little unconfortable with the tone that is used in some of the responses made by believers on this forum. So, perhaps some of us may like to provide more input along the lines of what is taught by Peter : "... Always be prepared to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect..." (1 Peter 3:15, NIV 2011). Please let us not forget the gentlness part of the Christian attitude when dealing with other board members.
Before making condemning or harsh statements, perhaps sometimes we should post a few respectful and gently articulated questions to make sure we have rightly understood what the other person meant by what she said. Some of us do this already. Let's follow their example, and not encourage each other in being disrespectful toward anyone, whatever their beliefs might be.
May God bless us all, and remind us that we are not only to know the right things about Him, but also speak with each other and with those outside of the Christian faith in ways that are christlike.
In Him,
Daniel
On a perfect blog, I agree with your sentiment. But this is not a perfect blog.
Let me give you an example from the world. In the workplace that has a union, both union and management enter into a contract. But both sides purposefully leave loop holes in the agreement. Why? They do it so that they can cheat on the agreement - both sides love this. That way they can attempt to do those things that they want to their advantage and to the disadvantage of the other side. Then they can endlessly enter into arguments, that neither can win, except that they receive a ruling from an impartial (that’s a laugh) judge or they enter into binding arbitration or mediation. Mediation is just another term for “let’s forget our previous agreement and make a new agreement without causing us any great harm.” Both sides like confusion, fogging, deception, and hidden agendas. It’s a game of cat and mouse and who can get the upper hand.
When you enter into a discussion with other Christians this should not be so. Yet, many in Christian blogs, haven’t a clue how to dialogue. They are playing a cat and mouse game and believe it is important to win. Winning has nothing to done with it, but since they have hidden agendas they will never admit that. They will push their agenda by sacrificing common courtesy, truth, the Bible, and even Christ Himself. As the world does, they love confusion, fogging, deception, and hidden agendas. These are all tactics the world uses and so does the enemy of our souls.
These deceivers can be identified quite easily, but forum rules are always written to prevent the exposing of these disrupters.
Here are a few ways you can discern who these disrupters with hidden agendas are. 1. They will refuse to engage the discussion. If your question and line of reasoning is aligned with the Bible but not in alignment with their agenda, then they ignore it. 2. They are inept in their usage of the Scriptures and far too frequently resort to the teaching of a denomination or other men, rather than the Bible. 3. When a particular piercing question, designed to clarify their position, is posed they refuse to answer it. Instead, they ponder it as did the Pharisees in Matthew 21:25-27. If their answer threatens their agenda, they refuse to answer, or even worse than the Pharisees, they accuse you of being insincere or even lying about your motive for asking the question. I for one ask questions because I want to hear the answer. If it exposes their hidden agenda or reveals their ineptitude, so what? A Christian would welcome an instructing question: Proverbs 9:8-9 KJV, “
8 Reprove not a scorner, lest he hate thee: rebuke a wise man, and he will love thee. 9 Give instruction to a wise man, and he will be yet wiser: teach a just man, and he will increase in learning.” But a disrupter is not sincere and will merely continue doing their assigned task of being a disrupter and will lash out with hate toward the questioner. If that doesn’t do the trick, then they love to feign that “well everyone knows what you’re up to and no body agrees with you and you’re stupid and anything else they can pull out of their bag of worn out tricks to fog the issue”. In other words, they abandon the issue and attack the messenger with blank bullets. Then they sneak and backbite until they get an ulcer over it or drive away their offender. It would be so much easier on their immortal soul if they would submit to sincere dialog and learn something. I learn something every time I dialog. I wish it all was edifying.
