Discussions that are really just arguments… and a Biblical view of Amos 3:3

Discussions that are really just arguments… and a Biblical view of Amos 3:3

I fail at times to recognize that there are some who cannot have a conversation with people as people… in fact they have labeled the “other” and instead of address them as an individual, they carry in the baggage of that label…Of course I fully admit I do this also.

Yet, in these discussions I see that even when I have expressed myself clearly, the person who has placed themselves as my superior who needs to teach and admonish me for my “bad doctrine” fails to actually think they can learn something from me.

I will say that I do learn from others… even in disagreeing I learn… sometimes it is that I should not have even started a conversation with that person! LOL!

Time and time again, when I talk of the proper flow of which we should get our doctrine I am then accused of saying these things…

1. iggy is against all doctrine.
2. iggy states that doctrine divides.
3. If doctrine is presented as propositional iggy recoils.


I have found time and time again that in talking with certain people that even when we agree, they are too blind to see it in that they have already labeled and decided anything I say will be wrong.

The most recent comments on a post I was involved in make this point… I have changed the names as they seem to be a bit hostile and I hope to make a point and not continue in their fictitious war and hate they try to push on me…

Here is the last comment:

“Bob and Tom,
in fact Bob is stating what i have been saying…
“He’s missing what Piper is saying about the need to say something about Christ, and who He is, and what He has done. All of that is summed up in doctrine.”
We must first have Christ who is summed up in doctrine… that is what I stated summed up and what I teach… so you both are arguing against me teaching this very thing… note in the above comments I stated”
“Again, no doctrine has authority unless it comes from Jesus…”
Yet, "Bob" and now you have still twisted what I have said and slandered me as to saying something else…
Have both of your eyes been so blinded that you cannot even see when you agree with someone?
Goodbye.”

Of course there is much more to this…

I ended it there knowing that “Bob” will continue to slander me and Tom will continue to be a yes man to Bob… Both missing that they had a chance to reconcile in the Name of Jesus and chose to remain argumentative and divisive not over true doctrinal issues, but over their own perverse continuance to twist what others are actually stating.

I think Satan has blinded some people’s eyes so much that they can only agree with those who think just like them… which leads me to Amos 3:3
People use this scripture over and over to prove that unity must be that all must agree on doctrine… interestingly scripture states the opposite… and the passage they quote is part of and admonishment from God as to their fallen ways.

Now in Amos 3:3 it is not that two must agree on everything… but in order that two walk together they must agree on that. God is stating to agree to walk with Him and to trust Him. God is calling those to get out and walk with Him. God just wants us to trust Him because He called us… not because we agree in all things. In fact the scripture states we do not agree with God and that the ungodly cannot be agreement as the mind of sinful man is death.

Romans 8:6-8 “The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace; the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so. Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God.”
The point is that without Christ Jesus present we cannot agree to walk with God, let alone agree on all point with each other.

In the book of 1 Kings Chapter 18, we have two kings of Israel that “agree” and divide the Nation of Israel into two parts. Israel and Judah… Yet there was one man that agreed with God.. Elijah. I thin kit interesting to note the two Kings that agreed were Ahab who allowed the worship of Baal, and Obadiah who loved and served the Lord.

Elijah confronts the Ahab and the sin that he had allowed. In that Elijah eventually goes up again the prophets of Baal in a stand off over which of the “gods” was true and would bur up the offering to him… of course most have heard the story and know that Baal did not burn up his offering… and that YHWH sent a ball of fire down and devoured His offering. (Which had been doused with a ton of water!)

The point is that agreement of two was not uniting… in this case it was divisive…
So the used of Amos 3:3 as to mean that we must agree on all things to walk together misses the point. God wanted people to turn to Him and walk with Him even though they may not have agreed with Him… God wanted them to remember how faithful He was to them in the past and on that trust and learn more and more how to agree with Him more and more.

Another example is the Tower of Babel… it is said that all mankind at that time came to one mind and goal which was to build a tower to reach God. They were all of one mind to reach a goal to reach God on their own terms. If God had not stepped in and caused them to become confused by giving them all different languages, mankind might have been lost.

So again, just because two agree and even if they agree in all things, does not mean it to be “biblical” unity. That can and only comes from God alone. It must flow from God to us… and not from us agreeing and then turning to God in our own way.

Many approach scripture and doctrine in this way. In fact the Pharisees held that if they kept God’s word to the minutest detail, they could force God to come and run out Rome. They sought to control God by their doctrine… and this still happens today by those who hold that Jesus and doctrine are equal or inseperatable. In a true sense they are but with out the proper understand that doctrine must flow from Jesus, we then we have an unbalanced view of doctrine and its true purpose.

This is a bit like understanding the relationship of Jesus and the Father... though both God, Jesus stated that the Father was greater... and that He did nothing unless the Father had already done it.

Blessings,
iggy