I know that on more than one occasion I’ve found myself passively reading through scripture in a very blasé sort of fashion. This is to say that I consume words but I don’t fully, if at all, digest them. I make a conscious effort to not do this but it’s sometimes like trying to kick a bad habit that has the persistence of a vicious addiction. It’s often more simple and somehow more convenient if we view scripture as some distant piece of fiction with a nameless narrator. It’s like reading “War of the World’s” by H.G. Wells. You see all this horrific “reality” passing under your pupils but somehow no tangible sense of reality registers. The narrator goes on, sometimes very energetically, with his story and sometimes you find yourself enthralled while at other times you find yourself wishing you were just back to the Martians blowing crap up. Yet at any time you can put the book down, walk away and the story is left behind. There is a dangerous inclination to commit this same act with scripture. It is beyond critical for us to remember the reality that gestates inside every single word of scripture.
A thought occurred to me recently and I was forced to ask myself a question, “What if I were a member of the Corinthian church during the time of Paul’s letters?” The weight of implication that this question carries is really kind of vast when you stop to truly consider it. Think about it. Here is this guy in some other part of the world telling you, armed with what you believe to be only secondhand information, what kind of a person you are and what kind of person you should be. Imagine that you were sitting around in the fellowship that day I Corinthians was read aloud. Imagine that some of the things in this letter were directly addressing you and you were dubiously aware of it. Do you think you would have sat there shaking your head and quietly saying to yourself, “Yes, I must try harder and be better? Well…I’m relieved our brother Paul said all that stuff. I feel so much better now.” To answer this question you need but ask yourself another one.
Has anyone ever related a scriptural truth, or any truth for that matter, to you that really ticked you off because it felt like they were personally attacking you, even if they weren’t? Years later you come to realize that you were wrong and they were right. Then what? Do you get upset because they had a point and you just didn’t want to admit it? Don’t you think there were potentially some in the Corinthian church who got really upset by Paul’s words and, in an absolute fury, might have said something like, “Who does this guy think he is to judge me like that? I’m not doing that stuff and yet here he is making accusations over the whole church like he’s got some kind of special privilege. That’s just not right.”
Here I think it’s important to draw a line between “accusation” and “correction”. An accusation is often filled through and through with that horrible infection of assumption. Correction merely throws the light of truth on a falsehood. The Corinthians, as well as many of the other churches that Paul and others ministered to, were riddled with falsehoods and general misunderstandings about the message of Christ. For example, if you read the letters of Paul with a careful eye you see that Paul makes no assumptions but merely confronts falsehoods that he knew, from proper evidence, were occurring in certain churches. There is no malice or ill intent in his words but merely a strident call to realize that there was a lie to be thrown aside so that truth could take it’s proper home in fellow believers hearts.
When we read any part of scripture we shouldn’t, for example, put the book down and say, “Those silly Corinthians. They were all messed up.” There is a greater reality to take from any reading than just that. Remember that real people were being addressed and that there were very real issues being confronted. None of these issues are remote or in any way not relevant to our modernized culture. The lessons we find in scripture are so timeless because they deal with our intrapersonal natures which, sadly, haven’t really come that far in the last couple thousand years or so. It’s easy to feel attacked by scripture and there have been a massive swell of bad teachers in church culture who have led this onslaught. We must realize that when we recognize something in scripture that speaks to our deficiencies, it is not our instruction to crawl in a hole to sulk for the next twenty years. It is our instruction to acknowledge our submission to something less than God’s will and begin making the necessary steps to return to God’s will. Scripture is not meant to attack and permanently wound you. Scripture is meant to strip away the many dressings of lies that we wear so that the truth can come to the surface and breathe.
Remember that old saying “the truth hurts”? I think this is often true in the spiritual sense because when we begin to grasp the spiritual truths of God we must literally tear ourselves away from a life that separates us from God. Along this trail of spiritual growth we will hear many lessons. Some lessons will not be pleasant to our ears because they represent the counter nature of something in our old lives that we’re still very attached to. In a moment like this we may find ourselves somewhat blind, or at least torn, between the actual truth and a cleverly represented lie. It is important to remember that at this pivotal crossroad God is the standard that everything else is measured against. So what does that mean for us exactly? Many people have opinions about God. Some of those opinions are correct while others are laughably off the mark. It is essential that we STUDY!!! This doesn’t just mean to sit down and read your Bible although I believe that this is a very essential part of what is being discussed here. To study up on a spiritual life properly I believe that you have to experience God not just theorize about Him. Experiencing God isn’t always cute and cuddly though. Sometimes God has very hard things to teach us but any such topic is always fair on God’s grounds. Remember, God doesn’t make accusations. God is the great leveler who brings correction in both stark and subtle shades. Please keep in your regard that accusation, which festers with assumption, is a human plague and it is, fortunately, not something from which God suffers. God simply delivers the truth whether it is to our liking or not.
And now we come to an endpoint where understanding between individuals must be met. As I just said, many people have opinions about God. I think it is safe to say that some individuals have a better understanding of God than others. This statement is not meant to make understanding God some kind of contest where the best and brightest compete in a sort of deity quiz bowl so that the winner can attain eternal favor with the creator. As we experience God together our goal should not be to one up each other but rather help to strengthen one another so that we all grow and share in an intensified understanding of what it means to live in the grace of God. As we share our understandings with one another we’re going to find that we don’t always meet in the center with everyone else’s views. Here I think it is important to remark that you should not measure your spiritual growth in terms of right and wrong. If you do that you only fertilize a breeding ground for pointless arguments that aren’t conducive to helping one another grow spiritually. We should be patient and nurturing with one another not confrontational. I want to end with a thought for you to ponder.
I’m going to propose a hypothetical situation. Let’s pretend for the moment that there is a standing issue in our Oasis fellowship that is causing great confusion over worship. Let’s pretend that Chris had gone away for three months and left us to continue our Sunday meetings on our own steam. Upon returning Chris finds that we have greatly botched what it means to have an orderly worship service. He’s so shocked by what he finds that he sets about correcting us. What do you think that Sunday morning teaching would be like? The word comfortable does not come to my mind in any way. In our scenario Chris would work his way through scripture to illustrate to us why we were in the wrong for the actions that occurred during his absence. Though he might not single any individual out, it would be clear by certain issues that were addressed who was responsible for this or that getting away from scriptural truth. This is the place where battle lines begin to get drawn. This is also that key moment when people might just feel vulnerable and settle themselves in to lash out in an attempt to justify their actions. Then Chris comes at us with a twist. He begins and ends his message with his vote of love for us as family in the body of Christ. I don’t know how I might respond to something like that especially if I had formerly held a strong belief that my previous actions were in no way wrong. I’d like to believe that I’d see the error of my ways and immediately turn on the dime to do the right thing. No doubt that would be the actions of many. But I also know that I’m stubborn and easily offended if somebody tells me I’ve been making bad choices. What might be a good prayer for somebody like me? I think it might be something like this: God help me to know you better in this situation. Open my ears to hear what your servants, who you’ve given great wisdom and discernment, have to say. Give me patience to know the truth and room to grow from ignorance to enlightenment in Your greater truth.
In short, the moral of this story is that we owe it to God and to ourselves to be patient with one another. Our lives together are bonded in the sacrifice of Christ and for no reason should we forsake that. Know this: we are all striving to know how to serve our God better. This is no self-serving credo but rather something that we should share with all who come into contact with us. Under the umbrella of God there are no secrets. We have each other for a reason and that reason is not to be embittered with one another. I believe that God puts us in this arena together because he knows that when it comes to his creation, two heads are better than one. And that’s nothing to get all steamed up about. It’s simply how we learn to grow.
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