The aim of our charge
is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere
faith. Certain persons, by swerving from these, have wandered away into vain
discussion, desiring to be teachers of the law, without understanding either
what they are saying or the things about which they make confident assertions. |
1 Timothy 1:5–7
I had the privilege of preaching twice Sunday (I did not consult the daylight savings calendar when I agreed to that schedule). In the morning, I preached at Communion Church from John 8. In the evening I preached at Roots church from John 4. The text from John 8 dealt with a conversation between Jesus and a group of Jewish believers, and is focused on where true freedom comes from. John 4 is the story of Jesus and the woman at the well and is about how Jesus offers dignity to a person who is a social outcast – a person Jesus has every reason to not only ignore, but shun.
While these are very different stories, there is also some overlap. In both of these stories, we see people finding their identity in something other than God, with Jesus trying to bring them back to the source. For the Jews, the hindrance is that they are secure in the identity they already have; for the woman at the well, the shame of her earthly position is her identity. What Jesus offers is exciting to the Samaritan woman while it is discouraging to the Jewish crowd (they have more to lose in placing their identity in Jesus).
There is another aspect common to both of these stories: in both, the people are unable to hear what Jesus is saying because they are focused on some small detail of religious practice. In the story of the woman at the well, she is focused on the temple on Mt. Gerizim. In the story of the Jewish crowd, they defend the purity of their bloodline. In both, this focus on lesser details gets in the way of what Jesus is actually saying. Their prioritization of details means that they can not hear His saving truth.
I can’t help but wonder how often we do the same thing. What are the petty arguments that we allow to take precedence over what Jesus actually wants us to hear? This may be where you think that I am going to make a statement about keeping the main thing, the main thing, or open-handed vs. close-handed issues, but that isn’t the case. I have always hated how the truth of God easily gets compartmentalized into salvific and non-salvific issues, as if God decided to give us a bunch of unimportant fluff in His self-revelation. Our problem is not that we should stop talking about ALL that God has given to us, but that we spend a lot of time talking about things that have nothing to do with what God has revealed.
What we need to do is make sure that we are spending an appropriate amount of time on the things that God HAS revealed. One of my guiding verses is Deuteronomy 29:29:
The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.
This doesn’t mean that we never discuss the secret things. I believe that God has given us imagination to think about heaven and to ponder why God does some of the things He does. The problem becomes when these thoughts become more concrete than what God has given us to know. As Paul says to Timothy above: vain discussions are vain because they are carried on without understanding either what they are saying or the things about which they make confident assertions. Paul’s point is not that these people are dumb, or that the things they are talking about are evil. The problem is that they have jumped to issues of discernment and application without first understanding the principles. Their conversations are vain because they are not grounded in the truth of God.
The problem for many in the church is a discontentment with the gospel. When people are discontent, they add to it; then they begin to focus on the additions much more then the adorned. Like the Jewish people and the Samaritan woman in John, they construct a narrative around the source that eliminates the source. Much of what passes for Christianity today replaces Jesus with a list of rules, a 12-step plan to fulfillment, a spiritual experience, an obsession with end-times prophecy, or a political viewpoint. The problem with this is that it obscures the truth of Jesus redeeming sinful people and calling them back to Himself. There is a problem when we become so focused on the wrapping that we miss the gift.
Let us never tire of the truth of Jesus Christ. While the implications of the gospel are endless, let us never allow their vastness to shield us from what makes it all possible. We are part of God’s family by grace alone, through faith alone, in Jesus Christ alone. May all conversations beyond this maintain the supremacy of the story of redemption!