Reading Between The Lines
~Authors preface: This particular subject must be included here before moving on with further issues of reform discussed in these articles. One of the greatest hindrances to unity in the church and so many other blessings of the cross concerns the issues of repentance and brokenness. It’s the starting point and the ending point of fruitfulness and true fulfillment in Christ. As long as people are laying out property lines and no trespassing signs around what they consider their personal private property in Christ; as long as they are toying with issues of control, position, recognition and power and tiptoeing around insecurities- they are flirting with a sleeping beast. Until all claims to self-advancement and preeminence fall helplessly at the foot of the cross and die, no amount of information or discussion will restore unity. Between the lines has to be a constant thread of selflessness.~ LC
The alter of repentance awaits us as we approach serious reformation. It’s a lonely obscure place but Jesus is there with open arms for those brave enough to approach. Biblical theology can never be apprehended with any kind of what we might call a “protective patch” on our hearts, immunizing us from the conviction that is naturally built into its truth. Understanding it is far more an outcome of the heart than of intelligence. “He that has an ear to hear” continues to be the cry of the Spirit and is the ultimate hermeneutic of understanding biblical truth. No one is brought into it with their hands tied behind their back. There has to be full complicity with its requirements; a total surrender to its dictates. It will not battle us into its domain. There are no chains of constraint holding us captive to its voice. It is a very soft voice that gently repeats itself over and over tenderly entreating us to come and each step closer leads to deeper and deeper surrender. It’s a landscape strewn with graves and all of them bearing your name. It has to be that way. “He must increase and I must decrease” were the words of John the Baptist and must be the words of everyone who wants to move forward in the things of God.
~Those who want the results of the cross without the price
will always go away empty handed no matter how they mask the results~ LC
Everything stops at the foot of the cross. There are no detours around it. Those who want the results of the cross without the price will always go away empty handed no matter how they mask the results. It’s this issue that we have got to grapple with first. “Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” were the words of both John the Baptist and our Lord, and they remain our guide into the things of the Kingdom. Are we willing to change our mind about things and deal with the fallout or not? There is no sense kidding ourselves on this. God’s truth only enters willing hearts and minds. Jesus spoke in parables to the multitudes because they didn’t have ears to hear. Isa.6:10 says “Make the heart of this people dull, and their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and return and be healed.” Their senses were actually made dull because for whatever the reason they would not receive the truth. So just what is the condition of our hearts before the Lord? Do we really have ears to hear and eyes to see and receive the truth or are we just fooling ourselves? Our generation is a very secular one both inside and outside the church. Trying to find an example and guidance there is generally in vain.
This is a very serious question and one that needs to be answered before we move on. Let’s be honest with ourselves. How we react to the truths we are discussing is not necessarily a reflection of the quality of the teaching as it is a reflection of the quality of our hearts toward it. Jesus said, “Take heed how you hear. For whoever has, to him more will be given; and whoever does not have, even what he seems to have will be taken from him” (Lk.8:18). This is where our way and God’s way intersect and we can either take note of the complete change of direction at that intersection or ignore it and continue on our way. Such points of intersection rarely come and always require repentance for change to occur. These are “kairos” moments, “appointed times” as our english translations call them. They are pregnant with opportunity and possibilities as well as great jeopardy. If we miss such moments it can be years before another one occurs if one occurs at all. We need to walk very lightly on this matter, not assume orthodoxy, and be prepared for change at any moment.
Israel of old was well schooled in this lesson as they traversed across the wilderness never knowing how long they would make camp in any particular place, which direction they would go when they left, and how long they would be on the move; which is exactly the way it is supposed to be as we walk with God. When God called Abraham the scripture informs us, “He went out not knowing where he was going”(Heb.11:8).It’s that element of uncertainty that we find very inconvenient today. It just doesn’t lead to strong walls and big followings. We like our theologies neat and safe. We like to keep God and our faith within certain parameters and we have sanctioned such thinking with years of justifications and traditions that keep us there. Within that box there is little room for repentance because the need rarely comes up. Everything is routine and we have covered the territory so many times we know just what to expect. Israel’s experience in the wilderness is little more than words on a page with practically no personal ramifications for ourselves or our churches. If repentance is going to become a viable part of our thinking again we have to be willing to embrace the “uncertainties” of faith and not make it so “doggone” predictable. Are we willing to do that? I repeat, are we willing to do that?! It’s the natural course of biblical truth to keep us a bit in suspense and move us toward uncertain moments. That’s to be expected. We don’t have everything figured out and much of what we still need to know is so far beyond our current grasp of things it’s bound to jar us a bit as it is revealed. Such jarring is good. It keeps us in touch with the huge disparity between our limited grasp of things and God’s limitless understanding. Welcome the jarring. Make It your friend. It makes this roller-coaster of faith just that much more adventurous and illuminating. Up the hills, down into the valleys and around the bends always moving forward. Surrender and repentance walk hand in hand and they are reaching out for your’s now. -Are you following me dear reader. Hang in there – (This is reformation 101).
~Sometimes you’ve got to get out of the box,
step back about 100 feet and see it’s not really a box, it is a prison~ LC
“Flesh and blood has not revealed this unto you” (Matt.16:17), Jesus said to Peter in response to his recognition of Christ as the Messiah, and the same is true regarding the subjects we are approaching. They are not “flesh and blood” subjects. They are a revelation. An unveiling of the scriptures. It moves beyond status quo conventional thinking: reformulations of the same old ten thousand times told thoughts that dominate so much of what the church has become, its pulpits, and it keeps us bottled up in irrelevance. No, we don’t like statements like that but they are implicit in much of the theo-baloney we will be looking at and have so much of the current Christian church system at a standstill. Statements that challenge the neat axioms that defend and define the church we have become or are trying to avoid!! Statements that fill us with an unsettling sense of confusion as we are forced to grapple with questions beyond what our current level of understanding can resolve. Questions that mess with our world. Questions that make us feel out on a limb that seems as if it is going to break. Questions that stretch us and challenge us to be a little more inquisitive and open. Questions that just don’t fit with our walls and with all the cookie-cutter theology that defends them. Yes we typically aren’t comfortable with such bold statements. But it’s such statements as these that we need to be comfortable with. They help us grow. They keep us moving on. They”re built into God’s system of things as a necessary check and balance to keep us in the strait and narrow. Only when things become static do such questions pose a problem. And right there is the issue before us. Things have become too static. It was the issue in the New Testament when Jesus and then his apostles came on the scene and challenged the system that was, and it is the issue now. We have become settled into the way things are and have built up a whole church system and theology that depends upon it staying that way. Like the Pharisees of old we have become the patrons of a system that promotes us and have no desire to tamper with it. But tamper with it we must. I said tamper with it We Must! Somehow we have got to release control of God’s plan and let it move on and take us with it. And that requires repentance.
When Jesus was coming on the scene, His ministry of grace and truth was preceded by the ministry of repentance through John the Baptist. You might call this a patterned happening because it is the type of thing that precedes every major work of God- if it is a true work of God. In order to build something new the old must come down and the rubble cleared away. Sad isn’t it? So often today in our breakneck speed to build “bigger and better” we leave the old in place and opt for just a fancy makeover. We attract the crowds, impress the dicken’s out of the youth, add a little hi-tech here and there and fill the menu with every kind of so-called church growth program are busy little minds can concoct and our strapped budget can afford. Yes “it’s all about Jesus”, or so we like to think. But underneath all this fancy facade is the same old tattered, dry-rotted infested thinking and unbelief that keeps us ‘fleshing out’ the same old story of “you have a name that you are alive but you are dead” as Jesus told the Sardician church (Rev.3:1).
We too often like to keep John the Baptist’s ministry within the pages of the bible and not where we live. As a matter of sacred history we celebrate it, but as a matter of reality we too often shun it. Bridging the gap between the history of scripture and its ever relevant truth is a paradox of vital faith every generation of the church has had to deal with; often times without success, and this especially applies to this major issue of repentance. Getting it off the page and into our hearts can’t be accomplished by just rehearsing nice stories and pretending orthodoxy. There has to be a willingness to open up to the story behind the story. The more personal one. The one that includes you and I. Can we join the dots and see that the picture includes us? Until we can do that the subjects before us will be nothing more than an add-on. Another piece of luggage thrown into the back of our theological car bouncing around with the rest of the baggage: its contents never discovered and truly appreciated. Only an attitude of repentance will change that. More next article.
Luther Canon
Sola Scriptura 