- What is required to maintain it?
- Is it the easy path?
- What role does personal responsibility, accountability play in securing and maintaining freedom?
- How are individuals responsible and accountable for those same ideas when they are part of a group. How is freedom for the individual secured by the control, governance of a larger assembly/body?
- Others Views: history, scholars, commentaries, preachers, teachers...
- My View: Personal study, life experience, meditation, cross referencing with other sources
- Jesus Christ, our personal relationship
- Holy Spirit, working within us, individually and collectively.
- We control, and we choose to be prescriptive of actions or descriptive of actions.
- Control is applied individually or collectively how?
- Do we use it to coerce others, under the guise of influence, manipulation, politics, leadership, and management? (Creeds)
- Do we use it to build self confidence, self control, self governing actions which then showcase the righteous paths for others through results and actions. (Confessions, Statements of Faith)
The reference scriptures are:
Hebrews 1:1-2,
Going through a long line of prophets, God has been addressing our ancestors in different ways for centuries. Recently he spoke to us directly through his Son. By his Son, God created the world in the beginning, and it will all belong to the Son at the end. This Son perfectly mirrors God, and is stamped with God's nature. He holds everything together by what he says—powerful words!
Hebrews 4:12-13
God means what he says. What he says goes. His powerful Word is sharp as a surgeon's scalpel, cutting through everything, whether doubt or defense, laying us open to listen and obey. Nothing and no one is impervious to God's Word. We can't get away from it—no matter what.
1 comment:
Hi all, I had a good time in class today, though I missed a lot of you. It was a lot of fun to discuss and study what it means to be a Baptist and how the doctrine of Bible Freedom informs our decisions and actions every day.
I really appreciate the discussion we had today. I think it was honest, open and it demonstrated the best about what makes Open Door "distinctive". Even Tracee commented on how much she enjoyed the debate, the challenges to some of my statements and ideas and the general mood of the class. Thank you for that.
Personal notes: Today was special for me personally as I was ordained to the Deacon body at HRBC. Thank you for your support and continual willingness to share your time and knowledge in our life community. You all will play an important part in my continuing service to our church. My primary focus is inreach to Open Door, so please continue to tell me how I can best serve you and your family.
Next week: Tracee and I will be in San Francisco next weekend as we celebrate our 17th wedding anniversary. Huge thank you to Jenny and Tim for helping out with our kids. Love you guys.
OPEN DOOR NEEDS:
* Open Door is seeking a substitute for next week and 1-2 assistant teachers. I need some help so that we can keep the class on track and meeting even when Tracee and I aren't there. You would only be asked to facilitate a few lessons each quarter, so please consider it.
* We also need some help with fellowship event coordination. Need to calendar a Christmas party as well as a Dinner for the ladies of the class, ASAP.
* Last but not least, we need some to be our weekly class sec'y to track and report out to the SS Office so we can have less class interruptions and try and demonstrate better membership behavior.
See you in a few weeks,
jeff
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