Dangers of Being in a Church that Loves God's Word: #5 Creating an Intimidating Atmosphere for Visitors or New Believers

I am continuing the series on potential dangers we face in regards to being a church that loves the Bible. We now come to the fifth one. In case you missed the earlier ones, they are:

1. Forgetting the Importance of Reminders
2. Failing to Apply the Word
3. Missing the Goal of the Bible
4. Speaking the Truth without Love 

The fourth one and the one we will look at today both deal more with how we interact with others while the first three have dealt more with our individual spiritual life.

Danger #5 Creating an Intimidating Atmosphere for Visitors or New Believers
As with all the other "dangers," this is not a problem inherent to a church that loves the Bible. In otherwords, it does not automatically follow that a church that loves the Bible will struggle in these areas. It is simply the case that we might be more prone to fall short in these ways.

In this case, the danger is that we are so biblically literate that we might put off an intimidating attitude to those newer to the Bible. We can quickly find the book of Habakkuk (maybe not). We can use the proper theological terms to refer to the great doctrines of the faith (harmatology, theology proper, Christology, etc.). We can (hopefully) remember a pertinent passage when trying to help a friend.

There is nothing wrong with these abilities. We should all strive to grow in our biblical agility. We should know more today than we did two years ago. We do not need to try and hide our knowledge, but we don't need to boast about it either.

Furthermore, we don't need to make someone who is relatively untaught feel like a second rate Christian. We should not look at them like they are crazy for using a translation of the Bible that is not as "solid"  as ours.

To be clear, we should encourage one another to grow in our knowledge and ability to handle the Bible. But we must also be gracious and hospitable. Hospitality is the act of welcoming a person and showing them kindness. When people come to church, and they are not as well versed in the Scripture, we out to welcome them and enjoy seeing them grow as their hunger for the deep and accurate teaching of the Word is satisfied.