Subject: INVITATION |
Bible Note: IrishEyes- It may be that you have made a rush to judgment on this particular subject. Futhermore, by offering the poster advise to "seek another church..." you may be actually steering her away from where God has lead her. Consider 2 Corinthians 6:14. If we are commanded to not be "unequally yoked together with unbelievers" then it must be that it is possible to know a believer from an unbeliever. The answer is found in scripture and the place we start is John 13:35; working forwards and backwords from there. I'm not suggesting that I, or any other person, can know for sure the spiritual condition of another; whether he is saved or unsaved (nor do I believe that these passages are teaching that directly). But we are commanded to do the work of not allowing ourselves to become "unequally yoked". In the end, if we are fooled, let it not be because we are to lazy or uninterested in doing a proper investigation. Currently, my daughter is in a long-lasting relatinship with a man that she says she loves and wants to marry. She met him at church and originally knew him as someone who attended church and was "active". She recently put some distance between herself and him because she read something he had posted referring to himself as an agnostic. She confronted him and he admitted that the posting was true. I am not championing her as a righteous saint, but she said to him as well as her mother and me that she would not marry an unbeliever. Her heart was broken as she related it to me and she holds hope that Christ will save him. Otherwise, she is standing firm. To the young man's credit, he did not simply confess something he doesn't believe in order to have her hand though I know as much as a father can know that he wants to marry her. So let's be careful in how we give advise on the Forum and even more careful regarding what we declare is or is not in Scripture. Otherwise we err regardless of our good intentions. God Bless, Jeff |