Stay focused on the mission!

I found this today over on Jerry Scott's blog

"Guard against majoring on minors! If the Devil cannot tempt us with gross sin, he will settle for making us totally ineffective in the Lord's work by getting us sidetracked into personal crusades that reflect our narrow prejudices over the clear teaching of the Word of God. Causes worthy of intense debate are few! But, we manage to debate and divide the Body of Christ about so many things! "

I see so much of this in the blogosphere. People getting on a pastor's blog and posting comments about how wrong he is, how he doesn't preach enough on hell/sin/repentence/fill-in-the-blank-with-your-favorite-topic. Or because someone doesn't like a method a church uses to bring people in, they are accused of being apostate and giving people a watered-down gospel.

I have to ask myself: Is the number of people these crusaders "save from error" greater than the number of people they totally turn off to Christ's message by their attitudes? Yes, if someone is presenting a watered-down gospel, they will have to give an account to the Master on judgement day. But I think those that drive people away from the message of Christ because of failing to temper their zeal for orthodoxy with Christ-like love will also have to answer for those souls who would have listened to the salvation message if the bad attitudes hadn't turned them off.

I'm not going to waste my time quibbling over minutae. Blatant heresy or cult beliefs? Yes, I'll confront them. But our mission is to go into all the world and make disciples. It's not being the Spanish Inquisition.

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