Do these things really matter?

Have you ever heard someone say "doctrine divides" therefore we don't study these kind of things in our church. Well the term doctrine was very important to the apostle Paul as we read in Titus 1:9 - holding fast the faithful word which is in accordance with the teaching, so that he will be able both to exhort in sound doctrine and to refute those who contradict. And again he gives a warning about doctrine in 2Tim. 4:3 - For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires.

It seems that Christians today are not very tolerant about wrestling through and being able to discuss areas in which they differ in doctrine. Instead we leave and go gather with a group of people who look like us, talk like us, think like us and act like us. We become involved in our holy huddles which precludes us from getting outside our frame of reference even at the sacrifice of understanding the Bible.

Dr. Bruce Ware is one of the leading theologians of our time. I am posting the links for a conference he did in 2007. In this Resurgence Conference he takes an in depth look at the three basic camps within the evangelical church. You can either go to the video or audio links for these lectures but I highly recommend you take time to listen.

Teaching session #1 - Uncertain hands of God and men: Providence in process thought and open theology

Teaching session #2 - Independent hands of God and men:Providence in classic Arminianism

Teaching session #3 - Coordinated hands of God and men:Providence in the Reformed Tradition

All you need to do is click on this LINK and then scroll down to the teaching session and decide if you want the video or the audio session.

As I continue to teach about the sovereignty of God in all things the question that keeps coming up is how about the human will or the will of man. Dr. Ware takes a look at the human will and does an excellent job in explaining this position from all three camps.

Should you listen to these teaching sessions then my question to you will be this "Does this really matter?"