Dogmatic Truth and Grace Part 4 ~ The Journal

Tuesday, December 16, 2014

Dogmatic Truth and Grace Part 4

9:17 AM Posted by Daniel Rose IFTTT, WordPress No comments

I wrote about the most important thing I learned in Seminary, dogmatic grace. One of the people who commented on the post asked how this jived with St Paul’s statements of judgment in his epistles. There are places where Paul really brings some tough words about people and their belief (or lack thereof).

How does dogmatic grace connect to dogmatic truth? How do we apply these issues to our contemporary society?

A Thought on Application

How might we apply dogmatic truth and grace? In my post, Dogmatic Grace I wrote in general terms about a pastor who has written some things that have some people, rightly, concerned about where he stands theologically. How might we apply dogmatic grace and dogmatic truth to this particular situation?

First, after (it saddens me that I need state this, but there were denunciations based on the promotional snippet) reading the text one would write a review. Challenging the text where it needs to be challenged and also commending the text where the author was correct.

Second, after others have reviewed the text and giving appropriate time for the person to be challenged by those closest to him, you watch and see if he changes his position.

Third, after it becomes clear that he does not change his position then in private discussions you disavow him. In public you simply “have nothing more to do with him, know that such a person is warped and sinful; he is self-condemned.” In other words, you ignore them. There is no need to engage further.

One of the great struggles for us is the immediacy of our current media culture. We see things in our stream and feel the necessity to comment on everything. We are too often reactionary when, if we have decided that someone has been “given over” we need to simply ignore them. In that case, we need to engage the original poster privately and share our concerns with them (ie Paul to Timothy) so that they avoid the pitfalls of the one “given over”.

A Final Pastoral Thought

As social media continues to be a part of our lives we must learn to use the public and private aspects of each platform. We must grow in our discernment regarding which conversations are fit for a watching world and which are not. When you go to engage with a post ask yourself, “Am I about to make a challenge that is helpful for the public discourse? Is this comment better served as a private conversation? Do I truly understand the context from which the original poster is coming from?”

Over the years, I have learned to private message someone and ask for greater context. This has helped my discernment greatly. I think this approach has also helped me to maintain friendships and relationships that may have been lost.

This is part three of a four part series: