Wrapping Up (11/30/02-12/17/02)
It's taken several days now to review what's been uncovered in this study. It will doubtless take several more to put together these final thoughts. In many ways, I've found my reflections turning back to my original considerations. With each reflection, though, those considerations seem to have taken on more shape. And, there have also been new things to contemplate. In this last section, then, I have been reviewing those things that struck me in the course of the last month, collecting what seem to me to be key points, and trying to organize them into some sensible form.
Of my original points to consider, both the topic of idolatry vs. symbology, and the topic of the crossroads have come up repeatedly. One of the two etymology trails I had thought to pursue turned out to be non-existent, and the other (crucial) while interesting, was not as revealing as I had hoped. New topics that I feel deserve further comment at this point include God's purposes, and what we learn about the true Way of the Cross. Finally, there are a series of mental images that have come out during this study that I think deserve at least being collected in one spot, and perhaps deserve further development.
Cross as Idol (12/5/02-12/6/02)
Misuse (12/5/02-12/6/02)
When does the cross become idol, rather than symbol? If our love of God is true, this is a critical question for us to answer. We must learn to recognize the roots of idolatrous turns in our pursuit of faith, and cut them off before they can flower. It seems to be an innate ability in fallen man to take just about anything and make an idol of it. Tools, symbols, people, ideas, protocols; all of these are capable of being good and useful things. But, they are equally capable of being made idols when we allow them too high a place in our opinions.
We like to think that this line between useful and idol is more clearly defined when the subject matter is of a worldly nature. We like to think we can recognize that boundary and shy away from it. But idols are sneaky things, and our hearts are wickedly deceptive. As proud as we are of our discernment, it's all too easy to find that our discernment has misled us, has allowed something to become more important to us than God.
It's no easier when we turn to matters of religion. The history given to us in the Bible makes clear that it is just as possible, perhaps even more likely, that we will allow the trappings of religion - even true religion - to become more important to us than God. When our view of church order is more important to us than God whose church it is, church order has become an idol. When our choice of a translation is more important to us than God whose Word was translated, our Bible has become an idol. When the cross is more meaningful to us than God who died upon that cross to bring us life, the cross has become an idol.
The world has done a phenomenal job of helping us to cross this line, and for the most part, we haven't even been paying attention to what's been happening. Go to your favorite Christian book store. What percentage of that store is actually given over to anything resembling serious Christian books? It's become a Christian mini-department store! As I pointed out before, pretty much anything the world offers, we can find merchandised with a cross, or a fish, or a 'WWJD' stamped on it somewhere, and somehow we are convinced that these are better choices, more holy choices!
What's the purpose with these things? Are they reminders for us? If so, how effective are they? Are they tools for reaching out to the lost around us? How many conversations have these trinkets managed to start? As I noted before, these kinds of things are as likely to ensure that everyone around us has a chance to get their shields up as they are to open opportunities for us. Face it. Most folks who will comment on these things are those who already believe!
What about the fish on the back of the car? What does it do? What does it proclaim? In many cases, it proclaims, "I'm a Christian and I break the speed limit, too. I drive as badly as the next person. I'm no different." It certainly can't be starting many conversations. It's hard to talk to somebody you're passing at 75 or 80 MPH. So, what's it's purpose? No doubt, many have good motives in putting these symbols on their cars. No doubt, just as many, if not more, haven't really considered why they do it. They're just doing what most consumers do, buying in to the commercialization.
If we are buying in to these trinkets to declare our Christianity, we have completely missed the boat. We shouldn't require badges to be identifiably different. The one badge we need was given us on the day of our redemption - it's the badge of the indwelling Holy Spirit of God. Scripture tells us that there is an identifiable fruit of the Spirit, a fruit that cannot help but show in our lives if the Spirit is truly resident in our hearts. Where that fruit is in evidence, we will stand out as a peculiar people, thoroughly unlike those lost souls around us. If we are the light, it's going to be mighty hard not to be exceedingly evident in the darkness that surrounds us.
Misunderstanding (12/6/02)
The greater danger in our allowing symbol to slip into idol is that we will lose our distinctiveness to those around us. The world is working hard to secularize religion, to make it just one facet of worldly life among many, just one choice among thousands. By letting 'trinketizing' our faith, we support their view of us. We are just one more club, no different.
If we insist on trying to approach the unsaved using the standard language and symbology of Christianity, we face another problem. We may as well speak to them in tongues, because the language of Christianity is largely a foreign language to the man on the street. Truth is largely a foreign language to the man of the 21st century world. Society at large has joined Pilate in wondering what truth is in the first place. Having rejected the one unchanging standard by which truth can be determined, rejecting the God of Truth, they have lost all ability to discern truth. Truth has become alien to them. Opinion is all that matters. We have entered the age of polls. What the polls say defines truth for modern man. Truth has been democratized. It's a matter of majority rule. If the majority say homosexuality is acceptable, then as far as modern man is concerned, it is. It's no longer matters of fundamental, universal moral standards, it's simply a matter of cultural habit. Truth and morality are a matter of what's normal to the culture, and what's normal is no more than what holds the majority position.
When we come insisting that we have the exclusive truth, we are incomprehensible to them. When we come speaking of a need for salvation, we speak to a people that has no clue what they might need saving from. When we speak of redemption, there is just nothing in their mental dictionary to reference. Sin is almost equally meaningless as a concept for them.
We need to learn from the examples of Jesus and Paul. Neither of them insisted on preaching or teaching exclusively at their own level. Jesus' parables are an extensive case study in bringing the incomprehensible truths of God down to the level of His listeners. He was constantly turning their attention to the everyday events of their own world and lives to give them a starting point. Beginning from what they did know and understand, He could then lead them to recognize similar but greater truths in regard to God's kingdom of righteousness.
Likewise, the history of Paul's missions shows that he took pains to understand the culture into which he was going. In Athens, he displayed great understanding of what the Athenians were like, of what they were thinking about, of what they understood. His preaching showed this. When he told them of God, he told them of the Answer to the very questions they themselves had been seeking to answer for years. They had struggled and debated over great philosophical points without ever reaching a conclusion, and Paul laid out the simple answer before them: In Him we live, move, and have being. He is that fundamental source of being they were looking for.
But, like the religious order of Jesus' day, the philosophical order would not have that answer. In Israel, the King had come, the long awaited Messiah, but to many He was an embarrassment. He was not what they were waiting for. So it was with the philosophers. Here was the answer to their fundamental question, but it was an embarrassment. It wasn't the answer they wanted to find. They were, I suspect, hoping to do away with religion altogether, to declare it no more than mythology. And, indeed, the religion of Greece at that time was no more than mythology. Their gods were not big enough, and their philosophers rejected these small gods. They could not possibly be the fundamental sources of being. They were in habit no better than the meanest of men. So when the answer came, and the answer was God, they were not prepared to accept that answer. It was counter to what they wanted to declare. It still is. Philosophy has wandered far and wide, and continues its meanderings today, hoping to find some other answer than the One who is the Answer. And, as much as most people would not claim any great philosophical understanding, the views of these misdirected thinkers still inform much of the world's thinking.
God is an embarrassment to modern man, a retrograde gene, a throwback to the Dark Ages, a crutch at best. The King is here, but to so many, He is an embarrassment. He insists on an identifiable Truth, and man is no longer prepared to accept such a concept. He insists that He is the source, the definition, the All in all, and man is no longer willing to be convinced that there can even be such a singularity. Having accepted that everything somehow evolved from chaos, having given up no some greater source, man has fallen into a state of thinking that man just happened. A freak collision of chromosomes somewhere in the misty past produced the accidental result of man, the rational thinker. And this, they claim as the result of their rational thought! Rationality is gone. Rationality would know better than to attribute a nothing with the creation of everything.
But, before we will ever convince this modern man that he has been deluded in his thinking, we will need to be able to discuss the matter with him in his terms, in his language. We will need the patience to help him learn. We will have to help him build the vocabulary of Truth beginning from the vocabulary he already has. We will need to teach him the language of God, before he can hope to understand the revelation of God.
