A word on the church controversies

Not long...just a thought.

Have you ever read in the Old Testament all those places where God lays out plans for something?  I was reading this in Exodus 25...

³¹ “Make a lampstand of pure, hammered gold. Make the entire lampstand and its decorations of one piece—the base, center stem, lamp cups, buds, and petals. ³² Make it with six branches going out from the center stem, three on each side. ³³ Each of the six branches will have three lamp cups shaped like almond blossoms, complete with buds and petals. ³⁴ Craft the center stem of the lampstand with four lamp cups shaped like almond blossoms, complete with buds and petals. ³⁵ There will also be an almond bud beneath each pair of branches where the six branches extend from the center stem. ³⁶ The almond buds and branches must all be of one piece with the center stem, and they must be hammered from pure gold. ³⁷ Then make the seven lamps for the lampstand, and set them so they reflect their light forward. ³⁸ The lamp snuffers and trays must also be made of pure gold. ³⁹ You will need seventy-five pounds of pure gold for the lampstand and its accessories.

 ⁴⁰ “Be sure that you make everything according to the pattern I have shown you here on the mountain.

I had this thought...  You know a lot of church controversies are based in situations where there's a bit of doubt in what the Scriptures actually say.  Some people read it one way, some read it another, and a lot of the time, each side can say "I see where  you got that."

Still, there are other mild areas that people seem to take hard stances on it, even though Scripture isn't real explicit on the stance itself.  It's usually, "if this means that and that means this, then obviously..." type of stuff, and you think, "Well, that makes sense".  We say "well, we just needed to figure that out.  It was a little tricky, but we solved the riddle".  It's almost like God is too big to be real specific about things, but...then  you read a passage like this in Exodus 25.

You begin to realize that, along with loads of other passages throughout the Word, God gets real specific when He wants to and the areas He tends to drill down on aren't the parts I would have chosen, but regardless, He does when He feels it's necessary.

It occurred to me....maybe we should try to think like He does.  If He doesn't spend so much time trying to define the one and only acceptable way that "really" spiritual people would do it, in the absence of God's specifically addressing the details, maybe we should follow His example and lighten up a little....maybe God...stay with me here...is absolutely able of saying exactly what He means to say in all the detail necessary, without me explaining it and clarifying it for Him.

Maybe, if God doesn't address it down to the color, length, height and time, as long as it doesn't violate other places in Scripture, He didn't think it needed to spelled out to the last and we need to take the cue.  Just sayin'.