Would You Yell At My Daughter?

As she was getting her diaper changed, my oldest daughter (19 months) heard a lawnmower outside. She listened very intently for about ten seconds and said, “A Plane!”

I smiled and said, “You are sooo stupid!! When’s the last time you saw an airplane cutting grass. SHEESH! IDIOT!!” (Dear cps agent, I didn’t actually say this)

I actually said, “That’s right, a plane!”

Was she right? No.

Was her rightness important? Not at all.

I once heard an angry preacher preach an angry sermon that made me think he would yell at my daughter.


He thought that we all needed to agree about everything before we could truly be one church.

I’ll admit, we do have to agree about some bits of information before we can be united in Christ (i.e. Jesus is the son of God, He died for us and was raised in three days, He was a white guy who was a good nine inches taller than everyone else, wore a blue beauty pageant sash and resembled Kenny Loggins etc.), but seriously? Everything?

When you hear a preacher say we all need to agree to be saved by Jesus, you are either listening to a lunatic or a very intelligent individual who has not thought through the ramifications of his or her argument.

One cannot say, “Everyone must agree,” without actually meaning, “Everyone must agree with me.”

So to believe that we all must agree on all things to be one church begins with an assumption that I am right about everything. The end result for this argument eliminates the need for grace (if I am always correct then why would I need to be forgiven of anything) and, sadly enough, the need for Jesus’ sacrifice (the the source of such grace).

I have some friends who think that God is going to come take some while leaving others behind. I think they are crazy and I tell them so.

Does this stop me from believing that I will celebrate God with them for an eternity? Not at all. We will worship God together for an eternity and we probably will have moments in which we acknowledge that we were all a little off about how the final reuniting with God would happen.

So go ahead, disagree. It’ll be ok

Paul disagreed with the Corinthians, the Galatians, the Romans, and many other Christians who lived in Jerusalem but he always referred to these Christians as brothers.

So we should celebrate our differences, rejoices in our diversity, and praise God, for He is a good Father who does not yell at us when we are wrong.