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This article was started by Dave Leach R-IA Bible Lover-musician-grandpa (talk) 09:59, 28 September 2019 (UTC). Interaction from other writers will be distinguished with horizontal lines above and below. Your response to anything you read here is most welcome. Please add your response next to what you are responding to. If your reaction is not to any specific part of this article, please add general comments on the "Discussion" page.

Overview

Saltshaker Forums are designed to serve in a mission given to churches by the Bible but discouraged by traditions and apathy: shining light in Darkness. Shining Light In Darkness includes involvement in politics to the extent politics is involved in Darkness, but it is not limited to politics.

Secular meetings are kept orderly by Robert's Rules of Order. Saltshaker Forums are not just kept orderly, but kept respectful and bathed in love and humility, by the following rules based on Scripture which you are invited to help improve.

God's rules for fellowship discussions are important because moving from talk to action about very important matters makes agreement more important, and makes the discovery of disagreement more disturbing. God's rules help develop the relationship skills we need to work and reason together in harmony.

We need rules that keep discussion orderly, productive, sensible and friendly

Titus 1:10 For there are many unruly [insubordinate, disobedient] and vain [Gr: senseless, 
or mischievous] talkers and deceivers... 11 Whose mouths must be stopped,

1 Peter 5:5 ...Yea, all of you be subject one to another, and be clothed with humility:...

Luke 22:26 But ye shall not be so: but he that is greatest among you, let him be as the younger;
...he that is chief, as he that doth serve.

“Rules” help the “unruly” become productive. “Law is...made...for the lawless”, 1 Timothy 1:9. But it isn’t just “the other guy” who is in need. We need help, ourselves, developing our ability to reason with others even when we disagree, in Christian love.

Our culture provides a school for these relationship skills which The Darkness has nearly destroyed: Family. God offers another school of skills able to heal families and other relationships: the 1 Corinthians 14 Fellowship we seek to re-establish. As conflicts arise, we need to continually meditate on the Word of God for solutions.

Jesus established a new measure of authority, which has become the foundation of Western Civilization: service. People choose authority which they judge will best serve them.

Our groups may choose a moderator, or to only have rules and to mutually share the function of moderating, depending on the size and personality of the group. The group needs to make a decision its members can honor.

The Bible is our rule book

Isaiah 1:18 Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins 
be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; ...

Acts 17:2 And Paul, as his manner was, went in unto them, and three sabbath days 
reasoned with them out of the scriptures,

Luke 2:46 And it came to pass three days after, that they found him in the Temple,
sitting in the midst of the doctors, both hearing them, and asking them questions: 
47 And all that heard him, were astonied [astonished] at his understanding and answers.

We should search the Bible for how to reason together in Christian love, because the Bible, as in no other religion, is where we find Reason and Truth the ultimate weapons against evil, with the sword raised only in self defense.

God begs us to reason together, which was Paul’s “manner”, or way of presenting the Gospel. It was how Jesus began His ministry at age 12, and it is the manner in which God presents the Four Gospels: out of the 146 situations in which Jesus taught in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, only 20 – 1/7th – were not verbal interaction with others. And Jesus never discouraged verbal interaction.

In fact, neither Jesus nor Paul nor anyone else in the Bible are recorded as ever giving an uninterruptible “sermon” which no one could question or clarify. Reasoning is the Bible rule, so the Bible must surely show us how to reason in love.

Secular meetings from courts to legislatures to corporate board meetings to Parent-Teacher Associations have rules that are some adaption of Robert’s Rules of Order. Such rules aim for civility and productivity, but not for Christian love. Roberts’ introduction says his goal was “a set of rules for conduct at meetings, that allows everyone to be heard and to make decisions without confusion.” Which is a goal given in 1 Corinthians 14:40. That is certainly a goal of love. But perhaps people reasoning with each other would feel more love if their rules were clearly based on and related to Scripture.

Roberts’ contribution certainly merits our consideration as we search the Scriptures. Many churches have adapted his rules. But Roberts gave no Bible references in support of his rules. Surely there deeper relationships are possible when bound with Scripture than when merely bound by convenient rules that do not credit God.