Fellow believers, GET OVER IT!
As I become more and more involved in the inner-workings of Liberty Christian School and Liberty Baptist Church, I have begun to realize that our ministries exist for one main reason….PEOPLE. We want to become better people ourselves, and we want to reach and disciple as many people as we possibly can. The Lord Jesus Christ is our main focus! I literally is “all about Him.” We want to influence people to have a deep relationship with Jesus Christ.
As I become more and more aware of my goal in our ministry, I also become aware of the lies and deception of the Devil. The Devil is deceiving Christians in general, but he is especially working on those in ministry. To be even more direct and to-the-point: he is working the most on those in the Independent Baptist denomination….oops….movement. The whole purpose of NOT joining a denomination or fellowship is to show that the local church answers to no one and no organization. The local church answers to God and God alone. However, Independent Baptists seem to have over-stepped their boundaries. Pastors from all over the country have taken issue with a pastor in Indiana over a “doctrinal” issue. Whether the pastor in Indiana, who happens to be a personal friend of mine, is right or wrong is not the issue. The issue is that INDEPENDENT Baptist pastors are writing open letters (what is that anyway?), producing magazines, and making gaudy statements on their websites about another INDEPENDENT Baptist pastor that resides hundreds of miles away! It doesn’t get more ignorant than that. Independent (in the Greek….ha ha) literally means “independent”. That was deep. Independent people do not take issue with other independent people. That seems to be elementary knowledge.
Those that have lashed out at the Pastor from Indiana have defended their position of lashing out with one verse from the Bible–Jude 3. I challenge you to read this article on that phrase “earnestly contend for the faith.” While I do not 100% agree with everything that was written, I do find that to be an accurate opinion on this phrase. One verse…that’s it. Earnestly contend for the faith. Interesting. The word contend means “to strive in debate; dispute earnestly.” These trouble-making pastors and Christians have disputed and debated against a man that is of their OWN FAITH. Our faith is our “inner-belief in Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour.” We are supposed to contend for the belief in Jesus! That would mean that the only people qualified for us, as Christians, to contend with would be the unsaved! Funny, that many of the critical ones are ones that are not bearing fruit that remains. They aren’t contending with lost people in order to lead them to the knowledge of the truth.
Fellow Christians, fellow ministry workers, and pastors of INDEPENDENT churches: GET OVER IT. So what if another pastor preaches and teaches things that you disagree with. So what? They will answer to God for it. It has NOTHING to do with you!
Let us get our eyes off each other and get our eyes on our Saviour and a lost and dying community around each one of us. Be so busy living for others that you do not have time to involve yourself in the criticism of a pastor…especially of an Independent church. You wouldn’t appreciate a man walking up to you in the mall and beginning to give you advice on how to better raise and discipline your kids, would you? Then have the common decency to worry about yourself and not about an INDEPENDENT pastor.
Hey Josh,
another conference and yet another time where we did not run into eachother. Too bad, but maybe someday,… Good article, you hit the nail on the independent head, {you gotta watch out for those “open letters” lol, they’ll get you every time).
My best wished to you and your dear family.
–Marco Lariviere
Great article, Josh. It was great to see you at Pator’s school.
Dude, this blue lettering on a blue background is making me have a seizure trying to read it.
And I would “amen” the sentiments here regarding the tearing down of people’s theology simply for the cathartic release of having torn something down that you don’t like. In fact, you’ll even find a good deal of that on my blog…but you’ll see the transformation in process as well.
There is a way to disagree without vitriol. It took God showing me how much sin and compromise He has tolerated in me over the years to finally mellow out. If we as the people of God saw what the blood of Jesus covers and if we could see what we really are from time to time, it would take the nastyness out of our debating.
I’m all for correcting bad doctrine, don’t get me wrong. But the whole core of my attitude is much different now.
I just wanted to throw that out so that when people read the article you posted and perhaps read other writtings of mine they won’t say, “dude, this guy’s the same thing you’re railing against!” They would be right to a high degree. So before reading or commenting, read my disclaimers at the top. The last several writtings have a marked difference in their overall spirit and tenor, I believe, and I hope it is of some value.
God’s blessings to you all,
mark jr.
Oh, and I’m not sure you knew this, but you linked everyone to your crazy cousins blog. I don’t know if you meant to, but you did.
LOL…
…wait, I didn’t actually “laugh out loud”…I just chuckled. From now on, if something doesn’t make me actually laugh out loud, I’m not doing the LOL thing. It’s dumb.
How about this: CTS. Chuckling To Self.
There, that’s more honest.
Wait a minute…dude, your name is Joshua Cox, you’re from Liberty College (right?)…and totally NOT who I thought you were. I have a cousin named Jonathan Cox who went to Liberty and just assumed it was him. Wierd.
Just wanted to clear that up.
So what are they railing on this guy for, not being KJV only?
It was great to see all of you at PS09!
Mark, no I didn’t attend LU. I work at Liberty Baptist Church in Durham, NC. The pastor is not being criticized for not being KJV only, but because he is not AS KJV only as others. Kinda ridiculous.
Woah I remember those days… sitting in the pew of my old church and hearing pastors in the pulpit talk down about other men of God. I grew up listening to Billy Graham (gasp) and over the years I know his doctrine and preaching have changed but I would never speak against him. God has used him to do so many amazing things… same with the indiana pastor. As Christians, it is our job to warn others of deceit but not to constantly tear down. As the wife of a youth pastor, I see now more than ever what men in the ministry go through… the lies, the hurt, the constant fighting for your reputation. I pray we as Christians become a greater generation of spiritually uplifting one another.
Amen, Josh Cox!
It is a sad fact that Christians are their own worst enemies. Instead of praying for one another and lifting each other up, we tear one another down with our judgments and criticisms. No wonder so much of the world feels negatively about us. Why would a non-believer want to join a group of people that hurt one another and can’t join in unity?
Thankfully, I personally know of the love, joy, comfort, and peace that our Heavenly Father offers. It’s sad though that others will not have this experience because of many others strong desire and belief to prove others wrong. I grew up in that kind of church environment and I have no desire to go back to it.
The most recent public criticism I can think of is the big speech Mark Driscoll made against the book, The Shack. That one still makes me shake my head and wonder why. Why would someone take a public platform against a book that they’ve obviously never read? And although I don’t know the whole situation behind what you’re mentioning here, it seems as though this is a disagreement about which version of the Bible to use. Is that what it comes down to . . . thinking we’re better or more holy than someone else because we think we know which version of the Bible God would approve of? I guess we didn’t learn our lesson from Jesus’ teachings against self-righteousness.