Great Book!
Great Review!

Great to hear from you brother. You said,

A failure to be gracious, a tendency to argue our points in harsh tones, and a failure to be thankful for much of the good work God is doing in and through those with doctrinal imperfections contradicts our own doctrine, which says that God uses flawed people to accomplish His purposes.

I agree totally. I am grateful for the many who have been gracious to me, encouraging me with love to help me appraise biblical truth. Before we give in to the temptation of self-righteousness or acting pompous with our theological exactitude, we would do well to remind ourselves of the great, humbling truth that Paul told the church in Corinth,

“What do you have that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it?” (1 Cor. 4:7)

Whatever understanding we have in regards to truth, whatever love and affection we have with regards to the brethren, this comes from entirely from God. Thanks for sharing your thoughts my friend!

What a great reminder. I love the third point. Zeal for truth sometimes leads to self-righteousness, or to a spirit which dismisses those who are not in our camp as simply having “gotten it all wrong”. While obviously we believe we are right (or else we wouldn’t believe it), we must extend grace to those who lean toward the Arminian point of view.

A failure to be gracious, a tendency to argue our points in harsh tones, and a failure to be thankful for much of the good work God is doing in and through those with doctinal imperfections contradicts our own doctrine, which says that God uses flawed people to accomplish His purposes. “God uses crooked sticks to draw straight lines”, as Ignatius said.

“Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for ‘God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.’”– 1 Peter 5:5

Thanks for posting this. In Christ, -Phil