The Common Denominator

Today I want to start at the end. In summarizing and concluding his book, Disarming Scripture: Cherry-Picking Liberals, Violence-Loving Conservatives and Why We All Need to Learn to Read the Bible Like Jesus Did, Derek Flood begins with:

“The primary purpose of Scripture (is) to lead us to the one who is Life, Love Truth, and the Way. Scripture has the primary task of leading us into a living relationship with God in Christ, and then after that to continue to be a window through which we can commune with God in which the Spirit can communicate God’s love to us, leading us to love others with that same Jesus-shaped love. That’s the devotional, Spirit-centered, gospel-focused reading that needs to be at the center of how we read Scripture as Scripture.”[1]

I closed my last blog by saying Jesus established Love as the common denominator for all who read Scripture. The Bible was never intended to be a taskmaster, placing a burden on our back; it was intended to act as a servant, leading us to love God, others and ourselves (Matthew 22:37-40). If we read it in any way that leads to the opposite of this, we get it wrong. So whenever the religious leaders interpreted the Law in any way that hindered people from finding healing, and life, Jesus publicly opposed their hurtful interpretation.

This emphasis on love as the final purpose of Scripture has major consequences because it differs quite sharply from the way the vast majority of us have learned to interpret Scripture. We are taught instead, to focus on the “correct” reading, with everything harmonizing and lining up perfectly. In most cases it’s a kind of circular approach that begins with a doctrine or dogma about the Bible and then uses the Bible to “prove” the doctrine.

But when the focus on “correct” interpretation takes priority, love takes a back seat. The focus “being right” is at the expense of love. It is precisely this “by the book” obsession that led American Christians in the past to justify slavery and eventually led to an uncivil war. And those who took the authority of Scripture most seriously were the ones most likely to conclude that the Bible sanctioned slavery. [2] Unspeakable cruelty and barbarity was committed in the name of submitting to the authority of Scripture.

This obsession with “being right” trumps love—almost always. The prioritizing of scriptural fidelity at the expense of grace is a direct parallel to the fundamentalism of the Pharisees Jesus so adamantly opposed. Despite their desire to “be right," modern-day Christian Pharisees get the Bible dead wrong. As Paul puts it, if we don’t have love, all our doctrines and biblical interpretations are just meaningless noise (I Corinthians 13:1-3). When read “right”, Scripture always leads to love.[3]

And we cannot afford to forget that Jesus loved the people on the fringes of society—the very ones the Pharisees considered unworthy of love; indeed, Jesus loved even those who hated him. And Jesus loved them without requiring them to change first. Indeed, it was his love, given freely and unconditionally, that empowered them to change. 

That last sentence may be the single most frequently missed part of the gospel message: Love/Grace precedes repentance and change; indeed, Love/Grace is the empowering factor behind repentance. We have seen--in history, in Scripture and in our own lives--that the law and the threat of punishment do not motivate repentance and change [how fast do you drive in a 55 mph zone?]. Only love, with its vision of wholeness and peace can do that.

During this final week of Lent—called Holy Week—I hope to make some personal application of the principles I've discovered during my Lenten Pilgrimage toward learning to read the Bible as Jesus did. But for now,

That’s the way I see it through the flawed glass that is my world view.

Together in the Walk,

Jim

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[1] Derek Flood, Disarming Scripture: Cherry-Picking Liberals, Violence-Loving Conservatives and Why We All Need to Learn to Read the Bible Like Jesus Did (San Francisco: Metanoia Press, 2014) Kindle edition, Location 3360.

[2] Mark A. Noll, The Civil War as a Theological Crisis (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006).

[3] Today’s blog is heavily dependent upon Derek Flood, op. cit., Chapter Three, Location 959ff, with an occasional insertion by yours truly.

Seven Biblical Principles of Unity--#3

The Foundation of Unity: Love

I Corinthians 13:4-7 (RSV) Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; ⁵it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; ⁶it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. ⁷Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. ⁸Love never ends.

These four verses often can be found inscribed in lovely calligraphy, framed and hung in homes and offices. “A hymn to love,” it’s called. But the beauty of the language may obscure the practical, compelling force of the words. The setting and context: a conflicted congregation caught up in a distorted spirituality, engaged in intense power struggles… all that may be lost in the admiration of the beautiful poetry.

The biblical preacher’s first task, then, is to anchor the text solidly in its context. Of course, the words are beautiful; but they are not written to rhapsodize love. They were written as a remedy for a church that was quarreling over whose spiritual gifts are more important (the gift of speaking in unknown tongues seems to have risen to the top of the pecking order). They’re boasting about how “spiritual” they are; and these words tell the Corinthian Christians that their fervent religiosity isn’t worth a plugged nickel apart from a new relationship with one another. Apart from love, “If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.”

The conflicts at Corinth emerge from a loveless spirituality. The remedy is not to further hone the gifts, but to practice—not to theorize or theologize or idealize, but to practice—“a still more excellent way” (12:31).

The spiritual gifts are not unimportant. They are essential to the full manifestation of the Body of Christ; but their end will come. Love, on the other hand, is the supreme quality of God’s reign and therefore “never ends.” As such it participates in and describes the unity that is that “Mystery of God’s Will” (the first biblical principle of unity). Rather than discount the exercise of spiritual gifts, love transforms their practice into a positive endeavor.

If the world’s population would live by this “still more excellent way”, there would be no problems. These four verses describe fifteen qualities of love:

1.      Love is patient, 

2.      and kind.

3.      Love is not jealous,

4.      or boastful;

^5.        it is not arrogant. 

6.      or rude. (NIV says, “It does not dishonor others,” MSG says, “…doesn’t force itself on others”)

7.      Love does not insist on its own way; (NLT says, “…does not demand its own way,” NIV says, “it is not self-seeking,” GNT says, “…it is not selfish,” MSG says, “…isn’t always ‘me first’”)

8.      it is not irritable “NIV says, “…easily angered,”) 

9.      or resentful; (NIV says, “…it keeps no record of wrongs.” MSG says, “…doesn’t keep score of the sins of others,” and the ERV says, “…does not remember wrongs done against it.”)

10.  does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right.

11.  Love bears all things, (The variations are very interesting here! NIV says, “…always protects,” NLT says, “…never gives up,” MSG says, “…puts up with anything,” and ERV says, “never gives up on people,”)

12.  believes all things, (NIV says, “…always trusts, NLT says, “…never loses faith,” MSG notes, specifically, “…trusts God always,”)

13.  Hopes all things, (MSG says, “…always looks for the best,”)

14.  endures all things. (NIV says, “…always perseveres.” MSG says, “…never looks back, but keeps going to the end.”

15.  Love never ends.

Whew! Are you exhausted? How can one ever love in the way this passage describes? Had we read the remainder of the chapter we would find a clue in the contrast between the passing, incomplete present and the permanent and fulfilled future. The images are powerful: like the difference between the way a child thinks and the way an adult thinks; like the difference between a distorted view through a flawed pane of glass and a face-to-face meeting.

Things get complicated when we begin with ourselves. But, I remember reading or hearing somewhere that love is best received when you do something for another that is a blessing to him or her "as she or he sees it."

No man ever loved a woman more than Jo Lynn’s dad loved her mom. They met when he was 13 and got a paper route and started delivering papers to her house. From the first moment he saw her, he was a goner. Never was there a more beautiful love story.

He loved to surprise her with romantic gifts—and she loved it (especially when it was cash!) In their later years Joe wanted to take her on a train trip across the country, and he made all the arrangements. He envisioned them holding hands in the club car, watching the Great Plains slide by. He envisioned sunset dinners in the dining car, with the Rocky Mountains majestically saluting as they rode by.

But there was a lump in the gravy. She didn’t like trains. She told him so. She didn’t want to take that trip; but, he wanted it so bad; and he was just sure that once she got aboard and the trip was underway, she’d love it.

The only harsh word I ever heard from either of the about the other, was her resentment about being pressured to go on that train trip. Truly loving someone means that he or she gets to decide what is the "loving way" in which to be treated.

Which is just another way of saying, “Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them” (Matthew 7:12 KJV).

And that’s the way I see it through the flawed glass that is my world view.

Together in the Walk,

Jim