If you have ever put together LEGO® sets, you typically have extra pieces when you finish the instructions. It’s not that you missed something (sometimes, but not if you paid good attention) because they always have some extras thrown in. I’m unsure if the reason is a machine error or deliberate, but there are always a few left. I would either throw them in the box of other LEGO®s or maybe add them in the model somewhere if they fit. If you have been following the Foundational Living Framework I have outlined, you will most likely find some “extra pieces”.
Those “extra pieces” are beliefs, ideas, and theological points that Scripture does not fully outline or explain. They are not part of the Foundation I have laid per se, but they still have some meaning or part to play. You could just throw them out, but sometimes, there are places where you can fit them into the Foundation.
I will give some personal examples (and these would be my examples; don’t take those as something you would also consider an “extra piece” unless you feel led to): end times, what the afterlife is, politics, and things of that nature. For example, end-time prophecy is something I find interesting, and I like to listen to opinions; I don’t hold on to anything too strictly, and it’s fantastic to see how God has fulfilled things, but it’s not part of my core Foundation. I would say it’s an extra piece that is tacked along and may change, but it does not alter the laid Foundation. Same with many other things, or something like politics that is not mentioned, I don’t tack that on anywhere.
Now, there is a word of caution: Do not tack so many things onto the Foundation that it stops looking like what it was meant to be. I fully believe that God intended salvation to be simple in nature, but we humans tend to keep complicating things. Foundational Living is quite simple at the heart, but passages like 1 Corinthians 3 show we are supposed to mature in our faith. Sometimes, we mistake the difference between maturing and learning. Maturing would add to our Foundation, but learning carried too far can start to make the Foundation look like a house that has been added onto too many times.
Matthew 18:3 – “Truly I say to you, unless you are converted and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.” This is a pivotal passage to this. A child’s faith is simple and not clouded by details of a lot of head knowledge, but they still mature in the relationship. I remember reading about former people of faith who made huge differences, such as Luther or C.S. Lewis. During the prime of their ministry, they believed and wrote many good things, but toward the end, they started to drift and came up with many strange ideas and beliefs. Sometimes, too much digging will take you away from the relationship, and Foundation laid out in the first place. And those “extra pieces” start to change the Foundation rather than the Foundation supporting them.
I am not saying that learning is wrong or that you should not dig deeper. I have made a point of studying Scripture in its original context and language, which can open up many things. But there comes a point where you dig so deep that you question everything and complicate the gospel. Eventually, it ends up just being by faith because you can’t “learn” yourself into faith anyway. I love to look deeply into something in Scripture, but at the same time, I am cautious not to take it so deeply that I lose the child-like faith and relationship that Christ talked about. More than once, I listened to someone, and it was fascinating and profound, only to go from rabbit hole to rabbit hole and end up feeling like everyone has everything wrong and we all will face the flames. They tacked on so many “extra pieces” that you completely lost the relationship’s simplicity.
When all is said and done, I hope my model looks like the set that God intended without a bunch of “extra pieces” that distort His model He gave me. Like a relationship, I don’t think He gave each of us the same set, but the core Foundation we have been covering should be the framework that the set is modeled after. Just be careful of the “extra pieces”.
Leave a Reply