Mixed Fellowship

[Jamey]

A question to those practicing the simple church life,
Is it possible to fellowship with others who do not hold to same doctrines as you do?

Can:
pre-tribs fellowship with post-tribs
OSAS fellowship with those who do not believe that you can fall away
Ones who believe baptism is essential with those who do not
Instrumental music with those who are acapella
KJV with NIV
etc

Yes, Christ is first, He is the head of the church.
But the majority of ppl out there have some denominational baggage.
Is it possible for us to all fellowship together?

Your brother in Christ,
J.

Just something I have been pondering

 

[Wol]

A question to those practicing the simple church life,
Is it possible to fellowship with others who do not hold to same doctrines as you do?

[snip]

Yes, Christ is first, He is the head of the church.
But the majority of ppl out there have some denominational baggage.
Is it possible for us to all fellowship together?

Your brother in Christ,
J.

Just something I have been pondering

J,

It certainly seems like it ought to be possible to fellowship with
other Christians, but in practice it seems to me to be exceedingly
rare. Too many groups seem to define themselves (at least in part)
by who they are against. I certainly do not believe that all theological
ideas are equally valid or that the church should adopt an 'anything
goes' attitude, but the last time I checked, the criterion for salvation
was not perfect systematic theology.

The way I see it, there will be only one Person in heaven that got
everything right while He was on earth, and He has nail prints in His
hands. The rest of us will discover that we were mistaken about
(possibly) quite a bit. At least in matters that do not directly affect
salvation, can we not be patient with each other and give each other
the benefit of the doubt?

The Lord Jesus said "By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples,
if ye have love one to another". Never mind loving our enemies -- if
Christians could manage to simply love one another, the world would be
amazed!

 

[yeshuaslavejeff]

the ONLY book I've seen or even ever heard about

that accurately describes how to know and have fellowship with believers

wherever they are in the city, whatever group(IF any) they're in,

is the book "Normal Christian Church Life" by Watchman Nee.

Even the REVIEWS describe fairly well better than most public speakers or teachers in the u.s.a.

You can see and read the reviews without buying anything at

http://www.amazon.com/review/produc...cm_cr_acr_txt?_encoding=UTF8&showViewpoints=1

 

[PapaB]

I think it is possible to fellowship with others who are in Christ but have different peripheal doctrines.

I find it often easy to fellowship with others, build relationships, hold much in common with others of varied backgrounds.

Oddly I have found this possible only if it is outside of a "church". There can be times of worship, sharing of life, in a great variety of places and depths, but eventually within the confines of an organized church it will hit a brick wall.

You can fellowship for a time inside these confines but eventually there will arise a time were full fellowship will not be granted to a person if they do not accept the traditions and rules of that denomination or independent church. By full fellowship, I mean accepted as part of the body and allowed to minister with ones gifts (charismatic or non). Not that many churches really allow that anyways.

Hence Jesus no longer is the complete basis of our fellowship. It becomes Jesus and .....

I don't find it is the common Christian who begins to restrict fellowship, as with many of them I find it easy to share the christain life with. I do find it is the leaders. Somewhere along the line Jesus is not enough.

 

[Jamey]

I agree Papa, most of the time we allow ourselves to be herded from one "church" to another over gray areas in doctrine without unifying over the black and white of Christ. Alot of times I think the leaders use scripture to limit worship as opposed to allowing it (scripture) to promote the freedom of worship.
Love Him and each other seems to be the only true requirments.
J.

 

[AllSeeingEye]

am i coming or going

 

[AllSeeingEye]

i just drank a fifth of vodka... dare me to drive