The Waiter

Imagine with me, please.

Imagine that you’re a minimum-wage waiter at a small, private restaurant. The owners are nice people, and it’s pleasant work, even though you don’t make much money. Most of the employees have worked there for a while, and know each other pretty well. The rooms are worn, but homey and comfortable. The food is not fancy, but it’s prepared well and served with pride.

Their banquet room stays pretty busy, with anniversaries and birthdays. Today, there’s a wedding reception, and it’s turned into kind of a rowdy bunch. In fact, a number of the guests are getting tipsy. They’re still nice, but their words are slurred and they walk funny. There’s been a line at the bar all night, and now there’s a line for the toilets.

The best man pulls you aside. “Yeah, we didn’t expect this many people! The beer is running out. Do you have a spare keg in your cooler? I’ll pay retail for it!” You check with your shift manager, and there’s no spare keg. The best man nearly panics. His eyes dart around the room.

At that point, one of the grandmothers interrupts. “Relax, John. I’ve got this.” She gestures for you to follow her, and walks off. John does NOT relax, but he’s got no options.

The grandma walks up to the young man who stands out among the crowd of rough men in the corner. You overhear a brief argument before she turns to you: “Do whatever he says to do,” and walks off. This is a woman you don’t argue with.

The guy – he might be thirty, and he looks rough, like it’s been a hard thirty years – turns to you and asks politely, “Where’s your dishwasher?” You lead him to the back.

“Excellent! Just what I was looking for!” He grins as he points at a stack of empty five gallon buckets draining on the drainage rack. “Fill all of these with water please. And this, too,” as he dumps the last pickle out of another bucket. He turns to continue his conversation with his friends.

You check to make sure all the pickles are out of the buckets and then you fill them from the dishwashing station. The guy is still talking. You tap his shoulder. “They’re full of water, sir.” You smell sardines on some of the guys.

“Perfect! Thank you! Now take this, please,” and he grabs a coffee cup from the dishwasher, and dips it into the pickle bucket, “to the best man, and ask him if it will do.” And he turns back to his buddies again.

You stare at the back of his head for a moment, mumbling to yourself, “Take dish water to the best man? Seriously? This guy’s not all there, is he?” But what else is there to do? The lady said to do what he told you.

The best man is behind the bar, nervously explaining to yet another bleary-eyed guest that *this* beer keg is empty, but they’ve sent someone out getting them another one. You tap on his shoulder and hand him the mug. “Will this do, sir?” He doesn’t even acknowledge your presence, but he takes the coffee mug from your hands while he repeats the same thing to a woman with smeared makeup.

He doesn’t look at the mug, but takes a sip, still talking to the bar patrons. You cringe: you know where that mug came from.

It takes a second to register, and you get ready to run. He pauses mid-sentence, and then he stops moving altogether, his eyes open wide. He looks down at the coffee cup, and you see that the water is unmistakably brown now. Oh no! It’s not even clean dishwater! You cringe again, as he slowly turns to look at you for the first time, his eyes bright.

“Yes. Yes, this will do very nicely! This is very good! Why did you save the best keg for last?” 

---------

Meditation on John, chapter two.

/nwp

Another Look at the Forsaking of Jesus

I grew up in a church that sang hymns. Lots of hymns. Old hymns. A big, red hymnbook full of hymns, each with a hymn number.

Did you know that many hymns, particularly the old hymns, often didn’t have titles. I don’t know if song titles hadn’t been invented yet, or if they didn’t want to waste the space, or what. That’s why we use hymn numbers, because often there was no name to use. In that old red hymnbook, Hymn 100 was “Joy to the World, the Lord has Come.”

Instead, they referred to the hymn by the first line. Several relatively well-known hymns are still known by their first lines. “Amazing Grace” is one of the more well known. I grew up singing hymns like “All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name” and “Blessed Assurance,” hymns that are still known by their first lines.

There’s a hymnbook that’s even older than the old red ones I grew up with. The Book of Psalms was the hymnbook of the Jews before Christ, as well as that of the early church.

Have you ever noticed that those psalms, like many hymns, don’t have titles. We generally refer to them by number (like we do with hymns). But the chapter numbers and verse numbers weren’t added until the middle ages (by Steven Langton, in the 12th century if you’re interested). Before that, there were no numbers associated with the psalms.

So before that, they used the first line as the title. People referred to that psalm which we now call “The Twenty Third Psalm” as “The Lord is My Shepherd.” It worked well, because that’s how everybody did it back then.

In fact, it functioned as kind of a shorthand as well. When someone spoke of “The Lord is My Shepherd,” others of their culture knew that was a reference to God’s faithfulness in trying circumstances. (Read Psalm 23 again: that’s what it’s about.)

Star Trek followers may remember “Darmok.” This memorable episode was about a race that spoke only by this sort of reference. In that context, the phrase, “Darmok and Jelad at Tanagra,” clearly spoke of cooperation, while “Sokath, his eyes uncovered” was an obvious reference to understanding or revelation.

The Psalms worked that way. Quoting the first line referenced the entire psalm, and brought the message of that psalm into people’s mind.

Another example: We talk about Psalm 22 only as the twenty-second song in a very long list of songs. But the Hebrew people knew that this psalm spoke about the Messiah, in more detail than many other passages.

Verse 8, for example, predicts his mocking: “He trusts in the LORD,” they say, “let the LORD rescue him. Let him deliver him, since he delights in him.” (See Matthew 27:43.) Or consider verse 18, which says that “They divide my clothes among them and cast lots for my garment.” (Compare that to John 19:24.)

When someone referenced Psalm 22, Hebrew listeners knew that they were talking about the suffering of the Messiah.

But they never called it Psalm 22, because the numbers hadn’t been added yet. They referenced it by quoting the first line: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

Do you remember Jesus saying that on the cross? (Matthew 27:46 and Mark 15:34)

When we hear Jesus quoting Psalm 22:1, we scratch our heads and wonder why Jesus was accusing God of abandoning him. But that question didn’t occur to someone who grew up with the Psalms, especially the Pharisees and Sadducees. To them, Jesus was clearly referencing Psalm 22. Jesus was reminding the people listening of the Messiah who suffers.

When Jesus quoted this verse, he was saying, “Guys, what you’re witnessing is the Messiah suffering. I am that Messiah, and you need to recognize it.”

Jesus wasn’t accusing God. He was announcing, finally, now at the end of his life, that yes, he was God’s Messiah. Messiah has come. Messiah has been killed. Now what are you going to do about it?

My Times with God

Sometimes it was in the morning, if I was able to drag myself out of bed. Mornings were my preference, and before too long, this confirmed night owl was up before the sunrise. Sometimes it happened before retiring for the night.

More often, I just grabbed an hour or so wherever I could. I remember many times in an abandoned church building near where I lived, at my dining room table, in an empty classroom or lunchroom or conference room or a table at the library. Often times I parked for a while in a rest stop, or some wide spot in the road between here and there.

The first thing after I sat down was usually a sigh, and I’d just sit there for a few minutes. Then I’d open my knapsack or reach to my bookshelf and pull out three things: my Bible, my journal, and a mechanical pencil.

But before I opened any of them, we’d talk. “Hi Dad. Love you! I’m looking forward to what you’re going to show me today. Help me to see, eh? Help me to recognize what you’re showing me, please. Thanks. You’re awesome!” And I’d open both books at the ribbon.

In my Bible, I was working my way through one of the books, section by section. Most translations have headings dividing up the text: I’d tackle no more than the space from one heading to the next.

In my journal, I listed the date and the passage, and then I pushed that book out of my way, and I devoted my attention to the Bible.

I read the passage through. You know the way you read a text book assignment that you don’t love? Yeah, this was not that. I read it slowly enough that my attention didn’t drift. If I could, I’d read it quietly out loud.

During this time, I turned my imagination loose to walk among these people, hear the sounds, smell the smells of the story I read. If I was in an epistle, I’d listen for the apostle’s tone of voice, and I’d imagine how the people it was addressed to felt as they read it. If I felt like it, I’d look at a few cross references, but I guarded against bunny trails.

But more than anything, I waited for the light to go on. Invariably, one verse would catch my attention, as if my Father were pointing to it, and saying, “Look here, son.” Sometimes it was just a word, or a phrase. Maybe it was a repeated word. Or an idea that never actually made it into words.

If it didn’t happen the first time, I’d go back and read it again. I’d often underline the verbs, using a set of markings I developed for myself after years of this. If there was a list of things or a progression, I’d number the points. Sometimes I circled adjectives and adverbs. Sometimes I’d ask questions, of the text, of Father, about what was going on. But everything was just keeping me involved with the text until my attention was drawn to one part.

That signal was like arriving at the X on a treasure map. It meant “Dig here.” That was the real assignment.

The first part of digging was to write – legibly – the verse that stuck out to me into my journal. And then I go to work to interact with that verse, that passage, to dig for treasure in that spot. I figure that the investment of an hour was just about right, and good success would probably show evidence of at least one full page, more or less, of reaction in my journal.

So I looked closely. My personal Bible always has cross references, but is never a “Study Bible.” I don’t want to hear what other people think. I want to discover what God thinks, and see if I can make my own thinking line up with that.

My first step was pretty often to “center myself” and to dig into that little nudge itself, the nudge that said, “Dig here.” Often, that would give me some direction for my searching or meditation.

I used different tools to dig. Sometimes I would literally outline the sentences, like in English class in high school. Sometimes, I chased down the cross references, both those in the margins and especially the ones in my own heart.

But sometimes, it was just meditating on my one verse, reflecting it, asking questions of it, that brought the reward.

For example, when reading through Mark 8, I was caught by verse 31: “And he began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again.”

This time, I found myself outlining what I saw in that verse:

1)      What are the “many things” he would suffer? (I listed them, cross referenced to Matthew 20:19 for details.)

2)      Who rejected him? (I listed them.)

3)      He would be killed: he doesn’t say by whom.

4)      He’d rise again after 3 days.

And as I was writing the outline, I realized I was thinking most about the fact that Jesus had never discussed this before. He was only free to talk about it after verse 29: after they realized that he was, in fact, the Messiah they were looking for.

I wrote for a while on what it must have been like, knowing that this terrible stuff was coming, and not having anybody – not a single person on the planet – that he could talk to about it.

I meditated for a while on how he himself learned of it, since he had been born as a normal baby (cf Philippians 2 and Hebrews 4:14,15) and he had to learn all this stuff in his own times with Father. I reflected on what that first conversation might have been like, when Father talked about what was going to happen.

And I realized that Jesus got his direction from – more or less – from the same thing that I was doing just now.

And I was done. Either I was out of time, or “the anointing lifted,” or something else. And that’s the point: I’m not looking to write a pretty article from this (though that came from it once or twice). I’m not looking for some big and powerful conclusion.

The big conclusion isn’t the point of this. The point is that Father and I have time together in his Word. Years later, I realized that he was training me – through these times – to hear his voice, and that it was remarkably effective. But even that training wasn’t the point. The point was our time together, our relationship.

Now, why have I just told you all this? It’s because of something I heard in our time together: I had the sense that some folks are pretty well grounded in hearing Father’s voice, but others are still scratching their heads and wondering how we do that?

Father showed me that during our times together, he was teaching me how to hear him, how to hear his voice and how to recognize his voice. And it seemed to me that he was suggesting that someone might want to follow the trail that he and I cleared together.

If you want to learn how to hear Father’s voice well, this is one way to learn. It has the additional benefit of giving you a solid grounding in the Bible.

If you decide to follow this trail, you have my blessing, and more important, Father’s. May you have as much fun in your time with Father on this trail as I have! I know he’ll enjoy his time with you!

The God Who Never Changes!

Every so often, usually when somebody is thinking outside the box, someone will quote the Bible that God doesn’t change, and then assert that we can’t change either. I got hit with that again this week.

We can’t think new things, because God doesn’t change, doncha know!

And there's some truth in that: God does declare, “For I the LORD do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed.” (Malachi 3:6)

And the New Testament declares, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.” (Hebrews 13:8)

Yep. It’s true that God doesn’t change. He’s the same forever.

But that doesn’t mean that change is ungodly. Think about it:

►    That God who never changes is an unchangingly creative God!

►    He is the One who declared, "Light, be!" when there was no light.

►    He is the One who decided to create man in his own image, when there had never been anything created in God's image before.

►    He is the One who proposed a covenant of intimate personal relationship (Ex 19:6) into a nation of slaves who knew no covenant, and who rejected his proposal outright (Ex 20:19).

►    He is the One who put on human skin, who became a living, breathing, squalling, pooping part of his creation so that he could re-offer a covenant of intimate personal relationship.

►    He is the One who is always creating something new, whether it’s manna in that generation or wine in this generation, or a new heaven and a new earth in this other generation. Or stars. Stars and planets before there were any generations.

►    He is the One who has adopted us, changing us, removing our slavery to sin and hell and making us his own children, his own heirs, and his own friends.

So yeah: God never changes. He's always the same, always changing everything around him, always up to something new and different that we've never seen before, always creating new ways to bring people into his family.

This is the same God that declares, “Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.”  (Isa 43:19)

Yeah: THAT is the God who never changes. He never stops being good, he never stops loving you and me, he never changes who he is. That’s really good.

But please stop trying to tell us that new things are evil because God doesn’t change. God is the greatest source of new things this universe has ever seen!

Responding to “Melchizedek Means You Must Tithe!”

Does Abraham's tithe to Melchizedek mean we must tithe?

When teaching on the topic of tithing, pastors generally refer to Genesis 14, where Abraham was just finishing wiping out four kings in a war to recover his captive family. Melchizedek, a priest, came out to congratulate Abe, who gave that priest 10% of the plunder. Here’s the story:

When Abram heard that his relative had been taken captive, he called out the 318 trained men born in his household and went in pursuit as far as Dan. During the night Abram divided his men to attack them and he routed them, pursuing them as far as Hobah, north of Damascus. He recovered all the goods and brought back his relative Lot and his possessions, together with the women and the other people.

After Abram returned from defeating Kedorlaomer and the kings allied with him, the king of Sodom came out to meet him in the Valley of Shaveh (that is, the King's Valley). Then Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine. He was priest of God Most High, and he blessed Abram, saying, “Blessed be Abram by God Most High, Creator of heaven and earth. And praise be to God Most High, who delivered your enemies into your hand.”

Then Abram gave him a tenth of everything.

The king of Sodom said to Abram, “Give me the people and keep the goods for yourself.” But Abram said to the king of Sodom, “With raised hand I have sworn an oath to the LORD, God Most High, Creator of heaven and earth, that I will accept nothing belonging to you, not even a thread or the strap of a sandal, so that you will never be able to say, 'I made Abram rich.’” - Genesis 14:14-23 

“The tithe precedes the Law!” they declaim. “So when the Law went away, the tithe stays: You must tithe because Abraham tithed before the Law!” (And they’ll often reference Hebrews 7, where the story is mentioned in passing in support of a whole different point.)

I hate that argument: it’s 98% irrelevant to the topic. (A little bit is relevant: One guy did tithe once before the law.)

But he tithed only once. One time only, Abraham gave 10% of the spoils of one war to Melchizedek, while he gave 90% to the kings of Sodom & Gomorrah. He never tithed from any other source, either before or after that day.

So we’re supposed to make application for our lives from this story. Here are some ways we can apply Abraham’s example of tithing to Melchizedek:

* Does this mean that we should tithe on the spoils of our war? Do we get the Pentagon involved in this, or do we limit ourselves just to wars that we ourselves lead? Are we limited only to foreign wars, or does a fight with my wife count?

* Does this mean that we tithe after we kill people? If so, whom shall we kill on Sunday morning? Abe killed people who held his family captive. Who would that be today?

* Does this mean that we should tithe when a priest brings bread and wine to our workplace and blesses us (as Melchizedek did here)? In that case, I should tithe to the traveling sales reps, I suppose. They bring food to my workplace, though they’re not really priests.

* Does this mean we should tithe only one day in our lives, as Abraham did? If so, how do we choose which one day we should tithe? Should it be when we’re young and strong, or when we’re old and wise? And should it be a work day, or a weekend day? If it only happens once, we should be careful to pick the right day.

* Does this mean that we should give 90% of our income to the leaders of “Sodom & Gomorrah”? I thought we were opposed to the pornography industry or the sex trade? Or are you saying we should just pick some worldly politicians and give them our life savings? (Sure glad that happens only one day in our life!)

My point is this: it is foolishly disingenuous to say, “You must apply this one detail out of this story, but ignore all the rest of it!” That’s religious manipulation at its worst! It is completely unworthy of the People of God.

Conclusion: This story is clearly not appropriate to use as a tool to demand that people give you 10% of their income.

But don’t take this too far.

I am not trying to say, “Do not tithe!” Nor am I saying, “Don’t be generous!” as some mistakenly say.

I’m saying that the People of God are not subject to the extortion that the tithe teaching has become: “If you don’t obey this Law, you’re a lousy Christian!” Many churches today deny members opportunities to serve, or to receive ministry, unless they’ve submitted to the extortion.

Christians are not under law. We are not required to tithe.

However, note that the law of sowing and reaping is part of our lives in the New Covenant. Consider 2Corinthians 9:6: “Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously.” That's for us. That’s real.

And the need for believers to be characterized by generosity, particularly to the poor, is incontrovertible! Really, 10% is a pretty wimpy standard for people who have generosity in their soul. Giving from a free heart is completely encouraged! And we’re free to give where we want to: to missions, to local congregations, to a benevolence group, directly to needy people, or to a secular group that does worthy things. And we’re free to donate money, or time, or sweat, or influence, or anything else we have to give.

So, if people read the story of Abraham and Melchizedek and then they say, “Well that proves it. I must give 10% of my income to you every week because Abraham gave 10% to a priest one time!” then somebody is not thinking clearly. That’s just the spirit of stupid.

But if they read the story of Abraham and Melchizedek and then they say “That’s cool! I want to do that!” then more power to them! That’s a beautiful thing! 

Just don’t try to make it a law. That would be a lie. And it’s not good to lie to the people of God.

The OTHER Benefit of the New Covenant

Our history with God is a history of covenants. Covenants between God and mankind. This is how the mighty Creator King and the human species relate: through a covenant.

We do it too. We’re up-front about it with marriage covenants, and more subtle about other covenants. There is a powerful – unwritten – parenting covenant: violate that one and society takes your children away from you.

Now hold still, I’m going to talk directly about covenant for a minute. Necessarily, I will engage in willful oversimplification of some details in order to illustrate my point: the actual situation is much more complicated than this simple explanation.

A covenant is a “promise to engage in or refrain from a specified action.” Covenants are how people agree to relate to each other. Covenant is how God relates to humanity.

Noah had a covenant. Abraham had a covenant. David had a covenant. But the Big One was the Mosaic Covenant, often called The Old Covenant.

The Old Covenant was kind of a failure in before it ever got going, of course. God proposed a covenant to the people of Israel that had a lot of the elements of our New Covenant in it. Before there even were the Ten Commandments, God offered Israel a covenant where every single person is a priest, every single person can come to God for himself or herself:

“Now therefore, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be a special treasure to Me above all people; for all the earth is Mine. ‘And you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words which you shall speak to the children of Israel.” (Exodus 19:6-7)

“Kingdom of priests and a holy nation”? Twice in the book of Revelation, we’re described as “kings and priests unto our God” (1:6 & 5:10). God was offering that relationship to the Israelites four thousand years ago? (Can you imagine what the world would be like if we hadn’t had the last four thousand years of legalistic bondage? But I digress.)

But the people who were offered this intimate “everybody is a priest” relationship with God reject that offer in the very next chapter.

“Then they said to Moses, “You speak with us, and we will hear; but let not God speak with us, lest we die.” (Exodus 20:19)

In the re-telling of it, it's even more clear:

“Go near and listen to all that the LORD our God says. Then tell us whatever the LORD our God tells you. We will listen and obey.” (Deuteronomy 5:27)

The people had rejected a “kingdom of priests” covenant, and propose a covenant that requires a priesthood, and is based on obedience. Neither the Levitical priesthood, nor an obey-the-rules covenant, was God’s idea!

And so the “everybody is a priest” covenant was put aside, and was replaced with a covenant based on the people’s obedience. Any covenant that’s based on obeying will necessarily have consequences for disobedience. Thus this is a covenant about blessings for obedience, and punishment (sometimes called “curses”) for disobeying.

Deuteronomy 28 functions as kind of a summary: You’ll be blessed when you obey, and you’ll be cursed (or punished) if you disobey. Verses 1 through 14 outline the blessings. The rest of the chapter talks about the punishment for disobeying, and it’s God that is charged with that punishment.

Frankly, that was a lousy covenant, it’s a poor substitute for God’s first proposal, but it’s a covenant! Even that poor replacement was better than no relationship at all between God and man!

We remember that the terms and conditions of the Old Covenant (which we call “The Law”) were intended to constrain the behavior of the humans in this covenant relationship. But we tend to forget that the Old Covenant constrained the behavior of BOTH parties of the Covenant: God had chosen to bind himself to the Old Covenant as well.’

So when we read in Deuteronomy 28 about “If you disobey, you’ll be punished.” Guess who the punisher has to be. Yeah, that’s God. He has bound himself to this busted-up covenant, because it’s better than no covenant – no relationship – whatsoever. Moreover, this was the only covenant that the people would agree to, so this was the covenant that he bound himself to.

And this covenant, proposed by fearful men, required that God punish (or “curse”) the people that he loves so very much, every time they disobey. (Seriously, go read Deuteronomy 29!)

Now let’s remember that there was a third party loose on the Earth, who was not a party to the covenant between God and man. Lucifer had already demonstrated his eagerness to accuse God at every opportunity (see Genesis 3:4-5). And he’s up to his old tricks here as well.

So every time the people disobeyed (and that happened so very often!) and God was required by the people’s busted-up covenant to punish them, Lucifer steps up to the microphone and declares, “Look how mean God is! Look how bloodthirsty he is! Look how angry God is!” completely ignoring the fact that God is merely complying with the conditions of the covenant that mankind offered him.

That’s a hot mess. I’ve oversimplified the story in this short article, but it’s easy to see the mess that the Old Covenant is: seriously, the only one who benefited from that debacle was Lucifer, and that’s not actually what we’re aiming for.

Now skip forward until Jesus is sitting in the Upper Room, where Jesus is offering – for the second time – a covenant of an “everybody is a priest” relationship between man and God: “For this is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.” (Matthew 26:28, Mark 14:24, Luke 22:20, 2 Corinthians 11:25.) But this time, the representatives (the twelve) accept the offer.

I still marvel at that cup, that biscuit. With that token meal, God removes us from the Old Covenant and makes us participants instead in the New Covenant (Hebrews 8:13 makes it clear: “In that He says, “A new covenant,” He has made the first obsolete.”). And this is a covenant whose sole commandment (John 13:34) is to love each other.

What an amazing relief that is: in a single moment, these guys are plucked from a covenant of “If you obey, I’ll bless you; if you disobey, I’ll punish you!” and dropped into a Covenant of Love.

The seminal New Covenant verse, John 3:16, says it beautifully: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” And if that wasn’t clear enough, verse 17 clarifies that the New Covenant is not about punishment: “For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.” What a relief that is!

All that is amazing, spectacular, and otherwise completely awesome.

But it is also only half of the story. The Old Covenant is made obsolete, and we are released from its bondage, but we were not the only ones held in bondage by it.

With the passing of the Old Covenant, God Himself is no longer constrained by the Law to provide blessings when people obey, like treats for a dog that sits when you tell him. More importantly, God is no longer constrained by the Law to bring punishment, curses, judgment on the people that he so desperately loves.

When the Old Covenant was replaced by the New Covenant, humanity could give a great, corporate sigh of relief. We’re no longer under the law, but now we’re under grace, under love.

But the greater relief may not be ours. In the New Covenant, God is now free to love us with all that is in his heart, as he has longed to do since the day he said, “Let us make man in our own image.” (Genesis 1:26). God is now free from the Old Covenant, and he’s more excited about it than we are. 

We are free. But more important, God Himself is free! 

The Commandments of Christ

I've heard John 14:15 quoted many times in reference to obeying some of the laws of the Old Testament:  “If you love Me, keep My commandments." Or they've quoted John, 15:14 "You are my friends if you do what I command."

The verse is thrown out as a prooftext: "You have to follow the commands of God!" though nobody's expected to follow all the commands: they don't promote blood sacrifices or stoning sinners. It's just an attempt to coerce believers into submitting to their own favorite part of the Law.

This is an attempt at control: whether from ignorance or malevolence, this is an attempt to wield the Law, as it has always been wielded, to exercise control over you: "You must do what I say you must do, because of this verse!" This is part of "the curse of the Law." And implicit in it is "If you don't do what I say, you're guilty!" and this is the rest of "the curse of the Law."

Let's look a little closer, shall we, at what Jesus said? Jesus doesn't say, "If you love me, keep all the commands of the Law," or even "If you love me, keep this particular group of the Law's commands."

What does he say? "Keep MY commandments." Keep the commandments that Jesus has given. Not the commandments of the Law: the commandments of Jesus!

What did Jesus command? Let's pull out a concordance and look, shall we?

Jhn 13:34
A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.

Jhn 15:12
My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.

Jhn 15:17
This is my command: Love each other.

You're welcome to look it up yourself (http://nwp.link/1HpK278); these are actually the only commandments that Jesus gave. It's pretty clear that, while he has commanded it several times, he only gave one command: love each other.

So yeah: if you love Jesus, keep the commandments he gave: they're all about love each other. That's it. This isn't about obeying the law, or about religious traditions, or about dietary requirements or even a command to "do good works."

It's about loving each other.

It probably is appropriate to point out that love - true ἀγαπάω love - is a pretty big topic. It's all about pursuing their good over your own good, and that's a costly love that will itself require much of us. But the command is love; the command is not about submitting to the Law, either the Old Covenant Law, or the rules that someone is trying to control you with.

Brothers and sisters, the Law is dead. Long live the command of love.

Fixing Our Eyes on the Good.

There have been some remarkable discoveries in physics recently, particularly in the realm of quantum mechanics (sub-atomic particles: the tiny things that make up every piece of matter in the universe): Oversimplified: The very fact of observation changes reality.

(This video does a pretty good job of explaining this. The first 5 minutes give you the basics.)

The physicists’ conclusion: “The very act of observing [subatomic particles] caused the wave function to collapse and create the existence of matter.” In other words, observation creates real matter.

This has epic implications: what we observe becomes real. In fact, physicist Anton Zeilinger declares that “What we perceive as reality now depends on our earlier decision what to measure [or observe].”

Let’s describe this in Kingdom vocabulary: it clearly suggests that sons of the Most High create reality not merely by their words, but also by simply paying attention.

This gives greater understanding to passages like Philippians 4:8: “Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things.”

Applying quantum physics to Scripture, this explains WHY we are directed to dwell – to observe, to fix our attention on – good things: because our observation of them causes them to manifest more completely in the physical realm.

By extension, the reverse is also true: if we do NOT give our attention to things that are negative or evil – we call them “bad reports” – then we do NOT help those things become reality. What we don’t pay attention to never becomes as real as the things we do pay attention to.

So one of the ways that we accomplish our task of “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven,” is in Hebrews 12: “And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.”

But the current research in quantum physics has learned even more: just observing subatomic particles not only causes them to actually exist, but it causes them to have already existed, prior to observation (around the 7:00 point of the video), or sometimes, in the future.

I hear this as both a powerful encouragement to focus our attention on good news, on things that are “worthy of praise,” and a clear articulation of WHY we need to pay attention to good things.

As Dr Zeilinger says, This is “a very, very deep message about the nature of reality, and our role in the universe. We are not just passive observers.”

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Feeding from the Old Testament

What's gotten people in trouble for so many centuries, is reading the Old Testament, without reading it through the lens of Jesus. (I speak from experience. Learn from my error, please.)

I don't recommend trying to understand God from the Old Testament any longer UNTIL individuals demonstrate they've got a handle on the first three verses of Hebrews, the letter written to the people of the Old Testament, which declares,

"In these last days [God has] spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things,... being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person..."

Until you can recognize that Jesus is the "express image" of God, until I learn to interpret whatever I read from the Old Testament through the revelation of the Father that is Jesus, then I WILL misunderstand God's nature. You will too.

Personally, I no longer listen to Bible teachers who haven't figured this out. Whenever someone shouts, "God is like this!!!" and points to the Old Testament to declare something about Him that is not in the revelation of Jesus, then I smile and nod, and I delete them from my Facebook Feed, or put their books in the Goodwill bin.

I won't drink from that polluted well any more. There's no life in it.

Good Treasure, or Evil?

“A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart brings forth evil. For out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.” [Luke 6:45]

Reflecting on the repeated word “good.” (Principle: when the Book repeats something, it’s worth paying attention to!)

The word for “good” is ἀγαθός, and it “describes that which, being “good” in its character or constitution, is beneficial in its effect; it is used
(a) of things physical, e.g., a tree.
(b) in a moral sense, frequently of persons and things. God is essentially, absolutely and consummately “good. (Vine's Dictionary of New Testament Words)

This tells me something that I don’t actually want to know: what I say (and presumably what I write about on FB) reveals my heart. If I’m talking about things that are beneficial in their effect, if I am pointing out that which is good about things, then this verse declares that I am a “good man” and I have “good treasure” in my heart.

But if what I say (and presumably what I write about on FB) is talking about things that are faults, or problems, or failures, or complaints or even just drivel, then this verse declares that I have “evil treasure” in my heart.

Certainly, I wish to apply this to myself: I can judge my own heart by watching what I say. Are my words revealing good or evil in my heart?

But I probably need to take this a step further as well: who am I reading, who am I following. If they’re speaking things that comfort me or challenge me or cause me to dig deeper into God, if they’re declaring what is true, noble, just, pure, lovely, of good report, virtuous or praiseworthy (see Philippians 4:8), then I can safely judge the fruit: this is “good treasure” coming from a good heart.

But if I’m listening to people or reports that are bringing fear, or outrage, or self-pity, or resentment, or entitlement, or powerlessness, or reports that are stirring worldly desires (“the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life,” 1 John 2:16), then I can – and must – judge that report as “evil treasure,” and recognize that it is coming from a motivation that has evil toward me in it, whether those speaking it mean for it to or not. (I’m not judging their heart; I’m judging their words.)

May I tell you a secret? That’s why I stopped watching the news. Father showed me this, and he called it my “devotional with the world.” I don’t hide from the news, but I get my news on my terms now, not on theirs.

I intend to judge fruit. I choose to be a fruit inspector. I choose to filter the fruit that others give me, to receive the good, and reject the evil.

Offense at God Stops the Promises

John the Baptist was aware, perhaps more than most people, that Jesus’ mandate (in Luke 4) included the anointing “To proclaim liberty to the captive...”.

But by Luke 7, John was himself a captive, a political prisoner rotting in a Roman jail, who presumably wanted his freedom. So he sent some boys ’round to ask Jesus, “Are You the Coming One, or do we look for another?”

Jesus let them watch his ministry for a while, and then replied, “Go and tell John the things you have seen and heard: that the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have the gospel preached to them.” In other words, “Yeah, I’m the one.”

And then he adds the kicker. He says to tell John, “And blessed is he who is not offended because of Me.”

And then Jesus goes on for fourteen verses – this is a pretty long speech for Him – who John is and why he’s awesome. “…there is not a greater prophet than John the Baptist.” That’s pretty high praise from the Incarnate Son of God.

One of the greatest offenses we can ever experience is “Why does it happen to them, but not for me?” It’s not hard to get discouraged in those circumstances. It’s hard NOT to be offended. John was offended: Jesus’ cousin, and the prophet sent to announce him. If the greatest prophet in the world got offended, it’s possible that it happens to more people than admit of it.

It’s hard not to see someone else get healed of something that you’ve been asking for healing of. It’s difficult not to be jealous when someone else gets the financial breakthrough that you need so desperately.

And it’s almost impossible (almost – but not quite) to not be offended when the promises that God has declared for you sit there, unfulfilled, despite your best efforts, despite your faithfulness, despite the fact that you have personally prepared the way for that other person that got the fulfillment of YOUR prophecy!

It’s so easy to be offended because of Jesus, especially when he does things that are different than you think he ought to do. When he does things in different ways, with different people, than you think he ought.

And then he adds the kicker. He says to us, “And blessed is he who is not offended because of Me.” Our blessing comes from avoiding that offense.

Said another way, being offended hinders our being blessed. One of the greatest hindrances to my promises being fulfilled is when I’m jealous of others’ blessings.

If my reaction to someone else getting a large amount of cash is to wish that it happened to me, then I am, by that offense, hindering God’s blessing in my own life.

If my response to your newfound ministry is to wish that it had come to me (“instead of to you,” or “as well as to you,” it doesn’t matter), then I’m hindering my own release. I’m demonstrating that I cannot yet “rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep” (Romans 12:15), and therefore I’m not yet ready to be trusted with that blessing.

If I can rejoice with others, weep with others, without thinking of myself before I think of them, then I’m getting past being offended with Him.

Fundamentally, if I see your blessing and I think of my lack, that’s a manifestation of self-centeredness. If I see your sorrow, and I breathe a sigh of relief, that’s a manifestation of self-centeredness.

I suspect that Father is breathing on that verse right now: “Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep.” (Romans 12:15)

If we want to keep up with what he’s doing, if we want to be part of what he’s doing, we’ll want to avoid being offended by Him, and rejoice – or weep – with others.

Thoughts About he Word of God

In areas subjects of theology, even a small change is formidable, and I believe we’re encountering the beginnings of such a change in how the people of God (or at least, for many of them) see the Bible.

And I’d appreciate you hearing me out

before you start picking up stones and coming after me. I’m reporting what I’m seeing. If you’re not seeing them, that’s cool. (Now, if you’re not willing to look, that’s another story, perhaps.)

Now before we talk about what the Bible “is not,” it might be best to remember what the Bible IS.

First, let’s acknowledge that “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and IS  profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the servant of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.” The Bible is the profitable foundation for doctrine, for reproof, for correction and for instruction so that we may be complete.

It is our only Sword of the Spirit, and is the best conceivable weapon against the enemy: it was for Jesus, and it is for us. It is a pillar of our faith, the indescribably precious treasure to all who walk in faith.

But there are some things that the Bible is not, which we have let it become. It seems to me that Father is correcting some of these errors in these days.

The first thing that I’m seeing happen is that the Bible is being removed from its traditional place in the Trinity. I know several denominations who have behaved (not taught!) that the Trinity was made up of Father, Son, and Holy Bible, that the Bible is itself, divine. They spoke and behaved as if their primary heavenly relationship was with the Bible, not with the person of God.

That’s actually a mistake, of course, and stopping to think about it will reveal the truth is that the Bible is not a person of the Trinity; it is not in itself, God. Rather, the Bible is about God, it leads us to God, and it speaks for God, which is to say that God speaks through it.

The Bible says of itself, as quoted above, that it is “given by inspiration of God.” Another translation reads “God-breathed.” Theologically, we say it’s “inspired writing.” Another way of saying that is to say that the men who wrote it were inspired by God when they wrote.

But let us acknowledge that while it is “profitable for teaching,” we might want to be careful what we teach and how we teach it, when we teach from the Bible.

There’s a fair bit of the Bible (most of the book of Job comes to mind) are accurate, inspired, infallible records of what people said, but the things that they said, though accurately recorded, are foolish lies about who God is and how he works. I advise not teaching theology from the lies that are accurately recorded.

A friend of mine – and probably some of yours have done this, too – once tested the “profitable” status of the Bible. She opened the Book randomly and plopped her finger on the page (I call this “Bible Roulette”), and read the verse she was on. It read, “and Judas went and hanged himself.” (Matthew 27:5) Since she couldn’t find anything useful in that, she flipped some more pages, and dropped her finger again, this time on Luke 10:37: “Then Jesus said to him, ‘Go and do likewise’.” She didn’t try that again. The Bible is not a fortune teller.

The point is this: while all of the Bible is inspired, and all of it is profitable to teach, it’s not all profitable to teach all things. My friend figured this out, and, fortunately, she chose not to go and hang herself.

I’m going to use a politically incorrect analogy. I am a huge fan of the glory that is embodied in the female half of our species. I’m constantly amazed by the richness of the difference between men (well, at least this man) and godly women. Women seem to have a better handle on gifts of mercy, of discernment, of encouragement. I’ve learned mountains from women pastors, women prophets, women intercessors, and at least one woman apostle. We could go on and on.

But there’s a phenomenon in our culture that does to women what much of the church has done to the Bible: we’ve objectified them. In our culture, the objectification of women shows up in glossy skin magazines, in a thriving porn industry, even in the use of unrelated pretty faces to get our attention in movies, advertisements, and the like.

If I may take a stand on that trend, I will say that this is NOT the right way to treat women, and for a whole lot of reasons. Not least of which, is that it completely denies the vast majority of the magnificent riches that women have and are. Brethren, it ought not be so!

But we do pretty much the same thing with the Bible. We look to the Bible to be our “quick fix.” We paste out-of-context Bible verses on pretty pictures and cover our Facebook walls. When we’re feeling needy, we look for fast answers from its pages; when we want direction, we search those pages for answers with the same attention that the followers of horoscopes search their own pages. Brethren, this, too, ought not be so.

It is not actually heresy for me to declare that the Bible is not a destination. God never planned that we’d use the revelations of his written Word as a replacement for a relationship with himself! That’s actually idolatry, or if you prefer, Bibliolatry. It’s a serious error.

The Bible is always a means TO an end. It’s a roadmap to understand God’s heart. It’s a love story from him to us, drawing us to him. It’s a garden, where we can sit with him under the apple tree and gaze into each other’s eyes. It’s a treasure map, showing us where to search out the treasures that he’s hidden, like Easter eggs, for us to find. It’s full of instructional stories, showing how many our brothers and sisters, our forefathers and foremothers discovered the riches of relationship with their eternal lover, or how they failed and fell short. All these are for us to learn from, not to be studied or memorized as a substitute for our won love relationship with God.

It is my hope that we’ll catch ourselves when our search stops merely at his Book, as wonderful, as powerful, as necessary as the Book is, and use the rich treasures of the Book to lead us to deeper relationship with its incredible Author.

A Biblical Perspective on the Bible

A number of folks I hang around with that are asking hard questions about the Bible and its place in the life of the child of God.

These conversations have been among friends, believers, individuals who are passionately committed to the Bible as the foundation for life, and who confidently acknowledge its profitability for teaching, reproof, correction, and training in righteousness. I have heard many honest people asking honest questions and expressing both conventional and unconventional points of view. Some of those perspectives are kind of weird. Some are troubling. Some make a lot of sense. A few qualify as “all of the above.”

Such is the way of mere mortals as we learn new truths. We poke and prod and ask questions; we wobble around and stumble; we get up and give it another try. I’m thankful for honest friends who are willing to help me in that stumbling. They’re not, WE are not questioning the foundation of the Bible, not in any way, shape, or form, but we are questioning the traditional ways God’s people have related to God’s word.

I’ve come to the realization that while the Bible is the First Word, while it is the Standard by which everything else is measured, it is not the Last Word. Sacred Scripture has nothing to say about flush toilets, social networking, pornography, pro sports, abortion, personal computers, masturbation, public schools, motorized transportation and ten thousand other topics (though it may speak to topics tangential to these). If we limit our thinking to only what the Word says, we’ll never be “prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks us.”
 I believe God is calling his Bride [hear me carefully here] to stop treating the Bible as a limitation, and to employ it more as a launch pad.

The Bible itself is filled with directives (eg John 3:8-10, 14:26, 21:25, even 1 Corinthians11:14), instructing us to extend our learning beyond the foundation of this magnificent, foundational Book. The Bible is our foundation, our starting point. But a foundation is useless unless one builds on it.

Several New Testament writers bemoan an unwillingness of Christians to grow up. Hebrews 6 clearly describes the “milk” the new believers’ curriculum of the first century: “…not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, of the doctrine of baptisms, of laying on of hands, of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment.” These are the baby steps (“milk”) of the apostle’s teaching. After we learn these, then we must move on to the “solid food” of the ways of God. Unfortunately, the apostle could not write about the meat that was on his heart, because those to whom that book was originally written were unready for real meat.

Someone wise has said, “It’s hard to expect the results of the first century church when we rely more on a book they didn’t have than the Spirit that they did have.” And we clearly do not have the results of the first century church. When measured by the 1st century standard, our 21st century church, which is well-grounded on the Book, has been an utter failure at changing the world around us. When was the last time you saw a spontaneous, accidental revival meeting in the streets of your hometown, with thousands coming to faith in Christ? When was the last time that your church saw someone so convicted of sin that they fell down dead? How many people have you raised from the dead? We are (mostly) well-grounded in the Word, but we are mostly powerless.

If sola scriptura (“doctrine that the Bible contains all knowledge necessary for salvation and holiness.”) were enough, we’d be walking in way more power, way more holiness, way more intimacy than we are.

Someone else has said, “If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always gotten.” If you are content with what you and your church are experiencing in God, then well and good. Keep up the good work!

Many believers, however, are not able to say, “Wow, my church is amazing! I can’t imagine things any better!” We want to find that “better.” My church, after twenty centuries of “growing,” should not lag so ridiculously far behind the beginners, the absolute rookies of Jerusalem and Antioch, who are the subjects of the Book of Acts: we’ve had two whole millennia of the Holy Spirit in our midst, but not one church in a thousand lives up to the first century, our “beginner’s standard.” If your church is that one, then hallelujah! Mine is not, I’m afraid. And I WILL NOT SETTLE FOR THIS WIMPY, POWERLESS CHRISTIANITY.

I will give everything I have to see the church in my region grow up into that which Jesus died for. I have already spent my fortune. I will risk my respectability, my reputation, my understanding, my sanity in order to attain to the high calling that is still un-touched before us. I will guard vigilantly against error, but because I am going where nobody that I know has ever gone, I expect I will make mistakes, I expect I will fall. But I will fall towards the goal, the high calling in Christ Jesus. I will NOT settle back in my pew, put another check in the plate, and pretend that we’re living up to the “greater works” that Jesus promised.

I haven’t raised a single person from the dead yet, but I’ve tried several times. I’ve not transported from here to there like Elijah and Philip and maybe even Jesus did, but it’s not for lack of trying. I have visited Heaven, as Jesus did. I’ve never walked on water like he did, but I’ve gotten soaked trying. I have changed the weather. I have sat with the King of Heaven as He fell in love with me and sang me love songs. I have plundered hell and brought back spoil for my King and my co-laborers. I have embarrassed myself more times than I can count, pressing forward to apprehend what has been promised to me.

Someone will say, “But you could get it wrong! You could make a mistake! I must warn you! I must protect you from the possibility of making a mistake!”

To which I answer: Of COURSE we’ll get it wrong! Of course we’ll make mistakes! We’ve never gone this way before. We’re rookies, for pity sake! We are NOT experts at this! But we’re not afraid of mistakes; we embrace them because they show progress. I’ve made a bundle of mistakes already, and I’ll bet you I’m not done yet. (Wonderfully educational things: mistakes.)

I will further answer that I will absolutely listen to the warnings and the encouragement of the Holy Spirit. That’s where we’re headed: “The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.” [emphasis added] He’s talking about us! We as a people are called to being blown by the Spirit anywhere He wishes. That is not the church that I’ve grown up in, not the church that I see today. I am not content with where I am.

I will also listen to warnings from my friends and companions who are running this race with me. If you feel the need to warn me, come run with me for a while; I’m sorry: I won’t pay much attention to people throwing stones, to people calling me names, to people trying to kill me or my reputation. And I won’t listen to Pharisees. If you want to be heard, this won’t work. I will not stop to have conversation with those trying to stop me from running the race that He has set before me.

I’m comforted knowing that Jesus faced people who were content to judge him, and he didn’t listen to them either. They were so content with their system that they opposed, and then they killed, the King of Glory. They murdered a whole bunch of His followers, too. Those are not the people whose counsel I will be seeking in this race.

We often talk about how every movement of God is opposed by the participants of the previous move of God: it’s true. There are likely to be Christians – our own brothers and sisters – who oppose our march toward “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven!” It’s sad, but it is a reality.

I invite you to join us. I invite you to leave your traditions, your respectability, your doctrines and join in this mad passionate pursuit of Heaven! If you are satisfied, if you don’t understand, or if the price is too high for you, that’s OK: we offer no condemnation: stand aside, and watch us march, run, wander, fall, get up and run again toward the finish line.

If you choose to be one of the naysayers, please don’t be offended if we don’t stop and take notes on why you think that the things we’re doing are impossible. Please don’t feel hurt if we don’t defer to your contentment or your fear, or if we don’t abandon our passion for Jesus in favor of your restraint and hesitation. I’ll try not to hurt you as I march past. But I will not stop to listen to your fears.

I’m pressing forward. Lead, follow, or get out of my way. 

Learning From the Book and Beyond

I’ve been talking with a bunch of very cool people about the Gospel of John recently. It’s important to me to be fresh with what I’m talking about, so I’ve been burying myself in the first part of the book recently, more listening than reading this time, just for a new perspective. And indeed, I’ve heard things I’ve never seen in there.

I’ve been attracted to the very fascinating story of Nicodemus in John 3. There are so many interesting things in that encounter! Specifically, I’ve been watching how Jesus and Nick interact, and frankly, I’ve been sympathizing with Nick’s confusion in that conversation. We teach regularly from some of the content of that conversation. I’d like to look at the nature of the conversation itself, the context of it. 

A little background: Nicodemus is a Pharisee, which means he’s spent his life studying the Bible of his day, our Old Testament. Moreover, he’s “a ruler of the Jews,” which means that he’s been studying the Bible for a very long time, and that he has the additional weight of leading the People of God, by means of his immense knowledge of the Book. He’s probably a member of the Sanhedran, and he probably teaches teachers in Israel. 

I was taught from Sunday School on up that Pharisees are “the bad guys,” but Nick embodies all that is good about them. He comes to Jesus, seeking, recognizing God’s presence in Jesus’ miraculous ministry. He’s teachable! And so Jesus, who is the Word of God (John 1:1), teaches the teacher of the Word of God.

And Jesus is dropping some pretty heavy stuff on him. In a few short paragraphs (which may merely be a condensation of several of hours of conversation), Jesus introduces him to the concepts of being born again and being led by the Spirit. We think of these subjects as relatively foundational in the church today, but these would be revolutionary to a Pharisee who has only had the Old Testament to study. He’s studied the Word all of his life, but it hasn’t prepared him for the topics that Jesus is opening up to him. I’m impressed that he stays in the conversation; he doesn’t blow Jesus off, which tells me that he tastes some truth, some life, in it.

In the midst of this earthshaking conversation, Jesus drops in the fact that he, himself, makes visits Heaven while he’s on Earth (verse 13: “No one has ascended to heaven but He who came down from heaven,” whom he clarifies as being himself.) Even in our post-Resurrection era, the idea of visiting Heaven one is a bit of a stretch for many Christians. Fortunately, it allows us to experience a tiny bit of the paradigm shift that Nick was reeling under: this Man, clearly from God, is teaching some things that are waaaay outside the lines of Nick’s religious experience, just as most churches would consider visiting heaven at least “outside the lines” and possible “heresy.” This is what Nicodemus is dealing with.

This is no light conversation between Jesus and Nick. In this context we find the archetypal New Testament verse, John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” This is that conversation: foundational.

Let’s look at our context: Today, we live in a season that has a lot of this kind of conversation in it. For decades, even for generations, we’ve known what we believed; our theology was settled, grounded, not really subject to change. And then Jesus steps in and suddenly it shifts. Suddenly, those theological foundations are remarkably less solid than we thought they were. Nicodemus experienced that shift, and we are also dealing with the that kind of shift, as the Holy Spirit brings up new topics for us as well. Think about the subjects of revival, apostolic ministry, street-healing, visiting Heaven, even translocation; things these were even not part of the conversation a few years ago. Like Nick’s conversation, these also are topics that are not easily supported from inductive study. 

Then verse 10 of Nick’s conversation with Jesus hit me: “Jesus answered and said to him, ‘Are you the teacher of Israel, and do not know these things?’” Jesus acknowledged that he was speaking to “the teacher” of Israel (the definite article really is in the Greek), and knew that he was speaking of content that was not supportable from exegetical or inductive study of the Old Testament, but He expected the teacher to know anyway. The topics did not reveal themselves in the Word, but Jesus expected “the teacher of Israel” to know – or at least have some familiarity with them – anyway. 

 

If an Old Covenant teacher (“the teacher of Israel”) was somehow expected to understand things that were not directly supportable from the Scripture of the day, is it not reasonable that we who are teachers, leaders, thought-shapers of the New Covenant may likewise also be expected to draw some of our understanding from sources OTHER than strict didactic study of the Word? 

If we stop and say it slowly, it’s not quite as scary: “There are more places to learn things than the pages of the Bible.” But we have a hard time with the subject. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard, “Show me that in scripture!” (Comment: they said that to Jesus too. He gave them grief for it.)

Now, I am NOT suggesting that we teach – or personally hold to – any doctrine or practice about which the Word says “Don’t do it!” We don’t contravene scripture. End of story.  

Nor am I suggesting that we listen to every self-appointed spiritual authority out there. I’m suggesting that the Bible is about God speaking to us: let’s listen to God. I’m am suggesting that we allow ourselves and others to draw from non-Biblical sources – including personal revelation, supernatural encounters, and interesting conversations after hours – in order to correctly form our understanding of what the Spirit is doing and saying to the churches today.

Am I saying “The Bible is not enough”? Not quite. I’m saying, “Jesus seems to be declaring that there’s substantially more to learning than just the Bible.”

It looks to me as if Jesus doesn’t believe in the concept of “Sola Scriptura,” the doctrine that the Bible contains all knowledge necessary for salvation and holiness. The amazing thing about the Bible is that God is speaking. Why do we assume that just because we wrapped it in leather, He has stopped speaking?  The more I know Him, the more I am inclined to follow Him instead of the Book. And I'm coming to the radical conclusion that he has more to say than merely what had already been said and recorded

Personally, I am feeling challenged by the Spirit: that if I do NOT stretch my learning – more than just the Word, not replacing learning from the Word – at least in the data-gathering phase of my study, that I am short-changing what He can do in me and say to me. It is fine to teach from the Bible, to teach what God has said. But I suspect that we’ll be more and more relying on what God is saying. And I believe that’s the way it’s supposed to be.

The real issue with Nicodemus was that the Spirit alone can unlock scripture; Nick’s head knowledge could never reveal mysteries of the Spirit. You know, I really don’t want Jesus saying to me, “You’re my child, and you still don’t get it?”