I feel compelled to jump on the Martin Luther King bandwagon. So let's start with Martin Luther who said, "The Bible is the cradle in which Christ is laid." Christians should approach the Bible in the way that a mother approaches the cradle. It is not the cradle that is the object of their affection or attention but the child found within - for us, this is the living Christ.
John Wimber said that there is the menu and there is the meal. You can study and memorize the menu all you want, but the good part is the meal, the knowing God and doing the stuff part. He would caution not to spend all of our time studying the menu without ever eating the meal.
Instead, we should practice and obey it Encounter God in and through it and thereby be transformed by it. The menu describers the meal. The Bible is the menu that describes the meal. That is a relationship - real life with Jesus. We shouldn't eat the menu - we should eat the meal. Nourishment and strength come as you enjoy the meal, not as you eat the menu.
In order to be a biblical Christian, it is not enough to read / study / and memorize the Bible / and have right doctrine. Those are important, but we must learn to handle the word of truth responsibly and correctly and become and do what the Bible really says.
Which leads to Martin Luther King, Jr. - "There was a time when the church was very powerful. It was during that period when the early Christians rejoiced when they were deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed. In those days the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society. Whenever the early Christians entered a town the power structure got disturbed and immediately sought to convict them for being "disturbers of the peace" and "outside agitators." But they went on with the conviction that they were "a colony of heaven," and had to obey God rather than man. They were small in number but big in commitment."
We need to know the menu but because we read through "Christocentric" eyes, that must lead to transformation. And that transformation should result in something like a thermostat rather than a thermometer. Are you increasing your knowledge or are you increasing your impact? How are we, the body of Christ, affecting the community around us?
No comments:
Post a Comment