Learning from Jesus - Part 1

I love to learn and to grow through learning; as I continue to learn, the Spirit of God lovingly reminds me that learning can be either life-giving or deadly. For it to be life-giving in the full sense of the meaning, it must be in Jesus and from Him. I don't mean by this that our growth in knowledge has to be only about "spiritual" things nor that it has to be in what we typically imagine to be a "spiritual" setting (such as a religious institute or church gathering, etc.), but that whatever we're learning is intended by God to expand our capacity to receive His love and truth and in turn, to love Him and others.

When learning is driven by lust for knowledge, it feeds the fleshly sense of "right" and "wrong" and sets me up in pride to judge others as "wrong/lesser" and myself as "right/greater"; on the other hand, learning that is from Jesus and is dependent on Him leads the learner to meekness and lowliness of heart towards God and towards others. The apostle Paul, in dealing with the priority of love over certain knowledge, says in I Corinthians 8:1: "Now concerning food offered to idols: we know that 'all of us possess knowledge.' This 'knowledge' puffs up, but love builds up."
   
I believe that because of the fall, there are limitations to what we are meant to know, and that God in His kindness and mercy wants to protect us from knowing independently of Him. Knowledge is a form of power and control; man's eating of the tree of knowledge and later his building of the tower of Babel was his insistence on going beyond those loving boundaries in order to be in control. The access to knowledge that we have today through technology is an expression of the full flowering of the quest for knowledge and control, and we are increasingly exposed to information that humans aren't meant to be able to process/digest properly apart from Jesus.

As followers of Jesus, we are not immune to this temptation. Even in our quest to know Him, there are times when He leads us away from external sources of knowledge (such as books - even the Bible, internet, TV, recordings of teaching, etc) for awhile and invites us to rest in Him; it may be for minutes, hours, or days (each case is different). The point is to listen and obey and trust that He knows when and how much external input is growing my capacity for love and humility and not simply "puffing me up"!

Next week I want to follow up on this with Matthew 11:25-30 where I believe we can find some practical help from Jesus about learning from Him. Have a great week, and God bless you!

Relaxing-Squinting-Staring...to See Jesus

I meet each week with some young ladies, and we have been working through "The Bible Made Impossible" together. Because the book is very scholarly, it's been a challenge and at times a struggle to understand what the author is saying; this has been good for us. This week as we were praying together, we sensed the Lord encouraging us to approach the book sort of like we would look at this plaque:

Look for the word JESUS on the plaque.

We've all seen these kinds of illusions; we know that the way to see what we are meant to see in them is either to step back a little ways from it or to squint the eyes when looking at it or to stare at it for awhile. In other words, you have to quit trying to focus so hard on all the details of the picture in order to capture the meaning of it. As I've thought about this, I believe it can be applied to how we approach Scripture; and I believe this, in part, is what Christian Smith is attempting to say in "The Bible Made Impossible." The big main message of the Bible (which is JESUS) should be our primary pursuit, rather than the many other topics that appear there.

Far from being a cop out or excuse for laziness, this approach requires dependence on the Holy Spirit, prayer, and a willingness to step back a little ways from entrenched ways of scrutinizing Scripture in order to see JESUS, and that process is difficult and requires effort!

And so again, I pray for the help of the Spirit of God for myself and for all His people as we lean on Him to lead us to JESUS, the living Word who is the Center and Focus of the written Word! Blessings on your week...

Smoked Glasses Held Up in Front of God

For the next few weeks I plan to share more quotes from God's people, perhaps interspersed with some random thoughts from my heart.

This week I have another quote from George MacDonald (who is one of my all-time favorite authors). For you who may want to know more about MacDonald, here's a link to a brief biography of him: http://www.macdonaldphillips.com/legacy.html  C.S. Lewis said of MacDonald: "I know hardly any other writer who seems to be closer, or more continually close, to the Spirit of Christ Himself."

The following is from his novel, The Shepherd's Castle. Speaking of a young girl in his story, MacDonald says:

       "...Unhappily, she had not gone direct to the very word of the Master himself. How could she? From very childhood her mind had been filled with traditional utterances concerning the divine character and the divine plans - the merest inventions of men far more desirous of understanding what they were required to understand than of doing what they were required to do.

       She had had a governess of the so-called orthodox type, a large proportion of whose teaching was of the worst kind of heresy, for it was lies against Him who is light. Her doctrines were so many smoked glasses held up between the mind of her pupil and the glory of the living God - such as she would have seen for herself in time had she gone to the only knowable truth concerning God, the face of Jesus Christ..."

Have a blessed week of looking on the face of Jesus Christ (without the "smoked glass" of religion) and seeing there the glory and beauty of God!

The Secret of Uncertainty (George MacDonald)

I want to share two quotes from George MacDonald this week that sum up in simple terms part of the message that I believe Christian Smith was wanting to convey in "The Bible Made Impossible":

"To know God is to be in the secret place of all knowledge; and to trust him changes the whole outlook surrounding mystery and seeming contradictions and unanswered questions from one of doubt or fear or bewilderment to one of hope. The unknown may be some lovely truth in store for us, which we are not yet ready to apprehend. Not to be intellectually certain of a truth does not prevent the heart that loves and obeys that truth from getting the goodness out of it, from drawing life from it because it is loved, not because it is understood."  (from MacDonald's book, "The Lady's Confession")

"Doubts are the messengers of the Living One to rouse the honest heart. They are the first knock at our door of things that are not yet, but have to be, understood...Doubts must precede every deeper assurance. For uncertainties are what we first see when we look into a region hitherto unknown, unexplored, unannexed."   (from the book, "Discovering the Character of God")

Grace and peace to you this week as you trust our loving, living God...

Afterthoughts - "The Bible Made Impossible"

Peter Enns: "The high view of the Bible is one that recognizes its lowliness..."

Because the Lord has used this book, The Bible Made Impossible, to make a major shift in my thinking related to God's purpose in giving us the Bible, I want to share a few unorganized thoughts about it and its impact on me personally. I'm aware that such a book will hit different people in different ways, so I want to clarify that I am writing this from where I "sit" now in my journey with God. I am now in my 60's having lived my entire life as a minister/leader in the evangelical-holiness/charismatic-missions stream of the church and having been brought up with a biblicist view of the Bible (though I didn't know to call it that). In recent years the Lord has been leading me into new ways of walking with Him and His people, changing mindsets in various areas, and this has been one of them. Others are on different journeys so may respond differently to this book...

As I said in my original post introducing this book (http://nitasbookclub.blogspot.com/2011/12/increase-of-truth-looks-like-error.html), its appeal to me was that the author boldly and unashamedly argues that the primary intention in God's giving us the Bible is to reveal His Son Jesus. That was enough for me to want to explore more in light of the increase of differing opinions today about what Scripture says.

I was not disappointed, and I am grateful to the Lord for bringing this book (and others) to my attention, and I am grateful to Christian Smith for writing it. I'll begin with a summary statement in the book about the purpose of the Bible and then share a few thoughts about why this has meant so much to me personally (without trying to flesh them all out, which would take many pages).

Notice in this summary statement of the purpose of the Bible that everything listed is with Jesus at the core of it: "It witnesses to the incarnate person and work of Christ. It offers apostolic theological reflections on Christ for the church and the world. It shows the difference that Christ made in human life during the earliest years of the church. It tells us who and what we really are in light of Christ. And it sends us on a mission in life in response to the good news of Christ..."

How The Bible Made Impossible impacted me

1. It affirmed and has given me language and boldness for what I have intuitively understood for many years - that Jesus is always the center of God's focus in scripture.
2. It has urged and encouraged me to begin reading and listening to scripture with more intentional focus on Jesus - I'm discovering that this is easier said than done.
3. It has deepened my love for God in seeing once again how much He has condescended to fallen humans in the writing of scripture by the way He has given us the Bible.
   
4. It has moved me away from trying to find fool-proof biblical evidence to emphasize particular doctrines and secondary issues; this has made it easier to genuinely listen to my brothers and sisters with love and acceptance without having to agree about everything.
5. It has made me even more aware of how deeply marked our generation of western Christians has been by the Enlightenment, resulting in our being severely self-conscious analytical people who find it very difficult to accept ambiguity and mystery as a real part of a loving God and His ways. This is inspiring me to pray for the healing of our mind as God's people in America.
6. It has renewed in me an appreciation of the importance of living my life dependent on Jesus (tree of life) rather than on a "manual" that will answer all of my needs and questions (tree of knowledge).

Why I think the truth in this book matters

1. First and foremost, I'm convinced that it really does matter to Jesus that His people genuinely accept and have affection for one another. Geoffrey Bromiley says: "...the Bible can serve as a means of Christian unity only when Jesus Christ is placed at its center..." We'll always have different viewpoints on many issues, but we should be known for our love for one another, not for our attacks on one another (John 13:35). Really loving one another is difficult to do at a deep heart level if our mindset is such that we see our main calling to be that of defending secondary issues using the Bible because we believe we aren't being true to God if we don't.
2. It can help us as people of God to be less "vicious" and defensive in the eyes of the unbeliever if we are willing to be honest about confusing parts of the Bible.
3. It helps move us away from idolatry related to the Bible and puts the Living Word squarely in the place of highest honor and worship.
4. It pushes the follower of Jesus to follow Jesus, a person (as opposed to following instructions from a handbook) - to seek to know Him (with the help of scripture and God's people throughout history), to listen to Him and to obey as best we can.
5. It helps us approach God and scripture and others with a humbler, more open mind and heart.

This is sketchy, and there's more I could share, but I'll close by recommending a couple of others books that are along the lines of this book, in case you're wanting to look further into the topic. If you read the reviews on them at the amazon.com site, you'll get an idea of what they are about:

• The Blue Parakeet by Scot McKnight (http://www.amazon.com/Blue-Parakeet-Rethinking-Read-Bible/dp/0310331668/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1330544536&sr=8-1)
• Inspiration and Incarnation by Peter Enns (http://www.amazon.com/Inspiration-Incarnation-Evangelicals-Problem-Testament/dp/0801027306/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1330544669&sr=1-1)
• Scripture and the Authority of God: How to Read the Bible Today by N.T.Wright  http://www.amazon.com/Scripture-Authority-God-Bible-Today/dp/0062011952/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1330640066&sr=1-3

My prayer for myself and for God's people, particularly in the west, is that the Spirit of Jesus would cause Him to loom so large both in His written word and in our hearts that all other issues will lose their ability to distract and derail us from loving Him and others. Grace and peace to you!