Some drive me crazy...

Perhaps one should get out more if they have yet to hear the simile cliché of “Opinions are like armpits (butts, feet, garlic breath)…everybody has them and they all stink.”  This is only true if the opinion happens to differ from your own opinion.  Woe to the one who shares a different opinion and is vocal about it.

Today’s passage of 1 Corinthians 1:10-17 reveals that hard and fast opinion has gotten in the way of the harmony that God intended for His church.  Things appeared to have escalated from simple preference to abrasive and personal offense between factions.  That would sound absurd if it wasn’t so evident in the church of the 21^st Century…of which we are all a part.

Case in point, if you were to search the internet for a very brief time, you could discover quickly that there are a lot of websites dedicated to diatribes about spiritual leaders.  These writings and videos range from everyday contrariness to outright venom…and it seems that the majority would fall closer to the latter category.  I find it strange that some would dedicate such an inordinate amount of time loudly trying to prove the heresy of a fellow Christian teacher (who coincidentally always seems to be more “successful”).  If only they would use their influence to preach the message of the cross so boldly.  Yes, I believe that false teaching should be called false teaching.  Let’s leave it at that though.

There are some teachers, preachers, pastors, evangelists that drive me crazy.  I can’t listen to them for more than a minute or two before I really want to move on to something else.  I’m sure they are wonderful men (or women) who love the Lord with all of their heart…but their style is outside of my ability to engage and receive.  Their style doesn’t line up with my personal preference.  Case in point, I recently went to a conference that all of the speakers were really good but the one that most resonated with me wasn’t the one that resonated with the others.  The one that I like was extremely conversational in style…most like me…go figure that he was the one I liked the best.

Some really like the extremely passionate, shouting, old-school, fire and brimstone, slow sing-songing while enunciating that last consonant before adding “uh”…i.e. “Go-duh see-suh wha-tuh is i-nuh your hear-tuh!” (Most readers spent the time to work that last sentence out in their heads but now know what I’m talking about.)  That is categorically NOT my preference, my opinion of good preaching.  On the other hand, there are many in our church (if they stuck around) that would give their left arm for me to have that style.

God made us so different and I think we often get caught up in our differentness to the point that we think the way that we are as individuals must be the right way.  No…just different.  Have we become like those believers in the Corinthian church who began to identify with different camps to the point of not being able to receive God’s truth because of the medium through which He is speaking?  Ouch, I just nailed myself.