Sunday night we had our teens from church over to our house for fellowship.  They were discussing disputable matters that are in the church. We attend a very conservative church.  There is no contemporary praise and worship music, the teen girls are encouraged to wear dresses or skirts, the boys tucked in shirts and pants that actually fit and are worn around the waist.  The boys are taught to be gentlemen, dating is strongly discouraged  and even males wearing jewerly is discouraged!  The list goes on, but you get the idea.  This topic frusterated my teens when we first started attending this church 4 years ago.  We do love our church.  The preaching is straight out of the Bible, no fluff or feel good stuff.  In fact, if I don't get my toes stepped on weekly, it might be because I was not listening very closely!!

I have a friend who just moved with her family to another state.  They were having a hard time finding a good Bible believing church.  They finally found one that had solid Bible teaching, but she was concerned about the music.  It was all contemporary and NO HYMES!!  She had attended church with me before they moved and they are new Christians, so this was very strange and not right  to them.  She called and asked for my opinion.

I decided to reread Romans 14.  It touches on weak and strong Christians and disputable matters in the church.  Paul says we are not to quarrel about issues that are matters of opinion.  Our principle should be:in essentials, unity; in nonessentials, liberty; in everything,love.  The church must be uncompromising in its stand against activities that are expressly forbidden by Scripture, like adultery, homosexuality, murder, theft...but it should not make additionals rules and regulations and give them equal standing with God's law.  Sometimes Christians base thier moral judgments on opinions, personal dislikes, or culture bias rather than on the Word of God.  When they do this, they show that their own faith is weak.  We need to steer clear of actions forbidden by Scripture of course, but sometimes Scripture is silent.  Then we should follow our consciences.  "Everything that does not come from faith is sin" means that to go against a conviction will leave a person with a quilty or uneasy conscience.  When God shows us that something is wrong FOR US, we should avoid it.  But we should not look down on other Christians who exercise their freedom in those areas.

I will be reading and discussing this with my teens again soon.  I believe it's a good reminder to us all.

My husband and I give our teens a certain amount of "freedom" in these "disputable matters."  We may not always agree with their choices, but we believe that through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, they will be convicted by Him when necessary.  We chose to leave that up to Jesus Christ.... and much prayer!!