Tossed to and fro

till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, - Ephesians 4:13-14

I am not an old man by any means, and I have not been a Christian for an exceptionally long period of time. I those thirty or so years though I have seen all kinds of fads and trends come though the church.

It seems like every few years something comes along that captures the church’s attention. The “Prayer of Jabez” was one of those. An author wrote a book in which he said that if one prayed the Prayer of Jabez every day for 30 days they would see God do wonderful things for them.

There have been plenty of other examples. Some are much more dangerous than this. New ideas, new thoughts, and new doctrines seem to come out of nowhere and catch the church my storm. Sometimes these seem new, and sometimes they are just recycled old ideas brought back and modernised.

One of the reasons for edifying and maturing the body of the Christ is to ensure that it is not swayed and moved every time this happens. The church is not meant to be static, keeping to the principles of God’s word it will grow and adapt for times and cultures. At the same time when it comes to the teaching of God’s word, the doctrines, these are rock solid and unchangeable.

We are not to be like spiritual children, swayed by every spiritual ice cream man who drives be with his music playing and plethora of temptations which surely have destroyed far too many children’s evening tea,

Its about time that we grow up and stop being drawn by the tinny music of the ice cream van