Let's Emphasize what the Bible Emphasizes!!!!

"The sufficiency of Scripture reminds us that in our doctrinal and ethical teaching we should emphasize what Scripture emphasizes and be content with what God has told us in Scripture. There are some subjects about which God has told us little or nothing in the Bible. We must remember that 'The secret things belong to the Lord our God' (Deut 29:29) and that God has revealed to us in Scripture exactly what He deemed right for us. We must accept this and not think that Scripture is something less than it should be, or begin to wish that God had given us much more information about subjects on which there are very few scriptural references."
- Grudem. Systematic Theology. 134.

So I was reading for my Theology I class last night, and this punched me in the face for two reasons.

1) If I look at my life right now, like honestly look at my life, it is plainly clear that my life (my actions, thoughts, feelings) do not hold the same emphasis, or focus, on the things that the Bible emphasizes or focuses on.

Here is an example with some arbitrary numbers: let's say that 7% of my life has been focused on romantic relationships with women. Well how much emphasis does God put on romantic relationships between people in the Bible? It is less than 7% for sure. Or here is another one: let's say that for 12% of my life I have either been playing, watching, thinking, or talking sports. Does this compute with Scripture? Definitly not. Does God care about human romantic relationships and sports? Of course! But my point is that my attention or focus put on it is out of proportion with the heart of God and His word. Or how about the amount of focus I put on people liking me, or being funny, or finding security in this life, or money, or worldly power, or worldly succes?

I could go down the line again and again with things that I emphasize in my life that don't match up with what God emphasizes in the Bible. If I were to really start getting in line with Scripture, it would mean more than just saying I believe a few things from it, but I would need to live my life 100% about the mission of God because the Bible is 100% about the mission of God. That is what God is about! So if I desire to be like Christ and have the mind of Christ, shouldn't I focus my life (actions, thoughts, feelings) on what Christ does?

This also has big implications for how I do ministry and disciple people. I probably spend way too much time talking about the things that God is not as focused on. My conversations should be soaked in scripture both in the sense of quoting it but also in the sense we are discussing here: that it is consistent in the emphasis or focus. I find myself all the time talking about romantic relationships, sports, and just other dumb stuff with other Christians. Man, I just think we need to get our minds off of these distractions and focus them on what God focuses on.

2) We as a church seem to emphasize topics that are relatively unemphasized in Scripture almost as a though we were intentionally trying to create disunity. Why else would we care so much about issues like church order of woship, musical style, the exact nature of Christ's presence in the Lord's supper, the exact way that Jesus is going to come back, the exact way that someone should be baptised, etc.? It is as if we defend these minor doctrinal points in order to make our denomination or church better/different than others. Is this desire not coming from our own pride, whether it be an attempt at self-justification or being able to tell other people they are wrong and thus wield influence and power?

THESE THINGS DON'T MATTER THAT MUCH in comparison to the bigger issues of the Scriptures: God's faithfulness to His people, the necessity and unexplainable value of Christ's death on the cross, God's glory, our need for Him, caring for the poor, preaching the gospel, our sin/depravity and the need for repentance, loving God and loving others, etc. Don't get me wrong, all that is in Scripture and all of life is valuable in His eyes, even the less significant issues, but God does not focus on clarifying them as extensively as we seem to desire. So what do we do? We try to do it ourselves, or fill in the supposed gaps that God seems to have mistakenly left in His word. Wouldn't it make sense that if it mattered so much, for example, whether or not it is actually Jesus' body and blood or just a representation when we take communion, that God would have clarified it in the Scriptures for us? He doesn't though, so shouldn't that tell us to stop focusing on that so much?

If we would just focus on what God focuses on in the Bible, it would be so much easier to have unity in the church without compromising at all. I'm not saying we should care less about doctrine, but I am saying that we should care less about the doctrine that God cares less about and care more about the doctrine that God cares more about. This doesn't mean we move to the popular "co-exist" movement that reeks of humanism and moves away from Jesus and the cross. This simply means we live Biblically, not pridefully.

I probably could have said all of this better...but I just kinda wanted to put these thoughts on here and see what people think. So please share thoughts, because as always I need help working through this stuff and need other perspectives.