In All Things

Web log, star date seven, twenty-five, o’nine:

I just got back from a walk to the Big Apple Meat Market on 42^nd Street and 9^th Avenue, prior to which I communed with the Lord over what I should speak about today. And whereas I have been thinking and praying about a great deal of things lately, I feel led to write out my thoughts and God’s thoughts about the following.

What I’m about to go into has been almost my universal experience as a Christian thus far. The fact that it has been almost my universal Christian experience is disappointing because what I’m about to describe to you is evidence of immature Christianity and the result of wrong thinking. What I have noticed is that almost all the Christians I know (except for a small few) are individually proponents of one way of doing things—call it a method, system of thinking, preference or particular passion—over and against all others. This is a little hard to explain, so I’ll give you examples.

What I have found by and large is that if you talk to Christian A about, say, “How to reach the lost,” they are going to give you their preferential way of going about doing that, and usually, this is based on either their own personal experiences and desires or lack thereof. So let’s say Christian A holds the position that the best (and whether they say it or not, in fact, the only) way to reach the lost is to just love them and wait for them to ask you questions about your faith. This is a relational type of doing evangelism; a perfectly good way to reach the lost. HOWEVER, this is not the ONLY way to do evangelism, nor should it stop at this single approach. But what I, and I suspect, you have often found is that when challenged to think broader than his or her personal preferences this type of Christian either recoils or reacts, sometimes vehemently. And I ask myself and the Lord, “why is this?”

I’m just going to call this what it is, if you will bear with me. This sort of “my way or no way at all” mentality is the very natural stance of the rebel. This is nothing less than the obstinate position of the kind of man or woman who has never encountered God’s authority. This is the type of Christian who is quick to say “I want to be obedient to the Lord’s will,” but in their hearts they are liars because what they really believe is, “God I will be obedient, but I will be obedient only to the things I want to be obedient to and I will do it my way.” This is the same attitude as that of Satan and, unfortunately, it is just as subtle and difficult to detect. But, fortunately for the discerning of heart, it will eventually be made known that the rebel is indeed a rebel, no matter how he or she tries to cover it up with his good deeds and sacrifices, for out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. It just so happens that people like this usually like to talk a lot, proclaim their own goodness, and impose their opinions on you. You can always tell if a person is rebellious when they are unwilling to listen to other’s opinions, or to mutually submit to one another out of reverence and love to God. They are especially unwilling to receive correction. They think things like, “If God has anything to say to me, I will listen, but nobody can tell me what to do. I don’t need to hear what man has to say.” This sounds very good and almost right, doesn’t it? But this only reveals that they have no concept of God’s delegated authority. Ephesians 4:11-14 makes it clear enough that God delegates His authority to men. It says,

“And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, 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.”

It is true that God speaks directly to us, but often He speaks through His delegated authorities. Anyone who God legitimately speaks through is His delegated authority because that messenger speaks the very word of God which is to be believed and obeyed; he speaks on God’s behalf as his representative. Such was the case with Moses, Samuel, Nathan, Elijah and all of God’s prophets. Priests too were delegated with God’s authority to minister atonement on His behalf to the people. In fact, every minister is God’s delegated authority in that particular ministry, which means that we all (as members of the body of Christ) represent God’s authority to a degree in some way or another, because we have all been gifted by Jesus with a particular gift for ministry; we all have a specific role to play as members of one body. Since that is the case, to insist that things must always be done “this way” (which is really another way of saying “my way”), is to be at odds with the rest of the body and worse than that, to be in rebellion against God. It is like the eye saying to the hand, “You must see. That’s the only thing that matters—seeing. If you can’t see then you’re useless or weak.” That is the attitude that will ultimately make the eye useless, because if the whole body were an eye, then where would the hearing be? In fact, if the whole body were an eye then the body would die because it could not protect itself or provide for a thousand of its other needs. The point is, just because you or I have been gifted a certain way, and thus have particular preferences in the way we approach different things, doesn’t mean that we should insist that everybody else should be like us and impose our preferences on them. This leads to a noxious and arrogant self-righteousness, and it is a result of many Christians attempting to establish themselves as authorities or as superiors. But this is not the way God ordained authority in the body of Christ. We are to mutually submit to one another’s delegated authority in our particular ministry out of love and need for one another, and out of sincere worship to God. The body cannot function properly without all the members working together as a unit. The head of the body is Christ, so we know the head is functioning properly, and since that is the case, we each ought to readily, even involuntarily obey whatever the Head commands, if in fact we have had an encounter with His authority.

Any Christian who claims that “this” is always the proper action in this or that scenario, or “this” is always the proper way to think, or “this” always ought to be our focus, causes me to become skeptical. Fill in the blank for whatever “this” may be. I’ll give you a personal example. I was just meeting an otherwise well-intentioned brother (we did not previously have an acquaintance) with whom I shared that I had just graduated from college because he asked me if I was a student. He asked me what my major was and I told him that I received my bachelor’s in religion from Liberty. He then proceeded to explain to me the dangers of having religious knowledge. Now remember, he did not know me from Adam’s housecat! He presumed that I was just an educated Pharisee who learned dead religion from the cemetery--(that is a sarcastic idiom for seminary). And what was funny and ironic to me was that he used his knowledge in order to educate me that knowledge is bad (he even quoted 1 Corinthians 2:4-5) and that having a “religious” education is dangerous. And to be honest it bothered me, until I remembered the Lord Jesus in earnest again. Thankfully the Holy Spirit had been speaking to me about that very thing, in 2 Corinthians chapter six. Paul relates,

“We give no offense in anything, that our ministry may not be blamed. But in all things we commend ourselves as ministers of God; in much patience, in tribulations, in needs, in distresses, in stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labors, in sleeplessness, in fastings; by purity, by knowledge, by longsuffering, by kindness, by the Holy Spirit, by sincere love, by the word of truth, by the power of God, by the armor of righteousness on the right hand and the left, by honor and dishonor, by evil report and good report; as deceivers, and yet true; as unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and behold we live; as chastened, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things.”—2 Corinthians 6:3-10.

I don’t know if you noticed, but Paul includes knowledge in that list of things by which he endeavored to commend himself as a minister of God. I did not stress that fact because it would be wrong to emphasize the importance of one of these items over the other. And that is just the point. Paul says “in all things we commend ourselves as ministers of God.” Not just in this thing or that thing, but in all things. After all, why forsake the word of truth for the sake of kindness? Or why keep the power of God at the expense of sincere love? Or why exclude purity for the sake of knowledge when you can retain knowledge and purity and also uphold all the other things? For Proverbs 15:2 says, “The tongue of the wise uses knowledge rightly…” As long as one is wise, which implies humility, knowledge doesn’t have to puff you up. You can use knowledge rightly along with all other things in order to do the will of God. The problem is those Christians who insist on emphasizing one item as more important than another because of their personal preferences, passions, or particular giftings. In the case of Christian A, if he is passionate about and/or gifted in relational evangelism then let him make friends with the lost in hopes of winning them for Christ. But let him not insist that his way of doing things is the only way and the way that everyone else should do it. That is the attitude of pride and rebellion. God has gifted us all differently and given us each different passions according to the way He made us. So let us all bear with one another and accept each other’s particular passions and support each other’s specific giftings. We each benefit from what the other members supply, and the result is that edification, unity, and maturity of the body of Christ (Ephesians 4) occurs. We need each other and the world needs everything we have to offer, not just bits and pieces.

Thanks, grace to you all, and sorry this one is so long.