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The Wrong Ingredient
From time to time, my daughter, Beth, and I more or less collaborate in making chocolate pies (a family favorite which my wife made spectacularly, and left us a recipe for). We usually make it a team effort, but my part is at the very end, so she starts and essentially does everything but the meringue. My workplace is in the living room, and she was in the kitchen making the pie, when I heard a moan and an “Oh, no!”. She was at the stage where the chocolate filling is supposed to get lumpy before being loaded into the crust, and it was NOT getting lumpy – in fact it was expanding and bubbling over the boiler. We stirred and stirred, let it cool and stirred some more, but nothing helped. So we got another batch, went through the stages, and when it came time for the filling to get lumpy, the same thing happened. After much soul searching and retracing each step, we finally realized that we were mixing baking soda instead of corn starch – it made a world of difference!
In our brotherhood, things are “bubbling up”, and they ought not to be. As always, disturbances – both in cooking and in life – happen because of added or substituted ingredients. There is a “recipe” – a plan to follow, but it requires following to the letter. Any substitutions or additions will radically alter the finished product.
When men disrespect God’s pattern for salvation, and His authority with respect to His church, many things happen, and they are all bad. The irony is that, all too often, men don’t realize they have deviated from it, or feel that a small infraction here and there will not change things. One thing we must remember: open and honest discussion of all the scripture teaches, and a yielding heart that is honest and sincere, is part of the pattern. Limiting those things is a recipe for disaster, and helps to explain the current conditions among us. Even now I am hearing pleas to stay with the pattern, but some come from those who have already significantly deviated from it. The solution is the same one Beth and I had to take – go back to the original recipe, compare it step by step with the steps we have taken, and be open to correction. Our common ground brethren, is still to “NOT GO BEYOND WHAT IS WRITTEN” (1 Cor 4:6)...Our only collective hope is to give more than lip service to it.
