The Subversive Church

Becoming ever more convinced of how little I know about what it means to be the Kingdom of Heaven.

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Location: Boston, MA

Friday, February 02, 2007

A Hard Teaching

"This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?" - John 6:60

I've been chewing on this one for a while now. See, I'm finding that reading and understanding God's Word isn't as simple as it's made out to be. It's not like other books. Usually, if I put my mind to it, I can slog my way through something and understand most any book I've read (except maybe Milbank - that guy's impenetrable). But the Bible can be elusive... in parts, anyway. Not that I don't get any of it, but all the time I'm going back and reading a passage or book I know I've read a dozen times, and seeing things for the first time. Stuff I must have just glossed over the last eleven times I read it.

Of course the Bible is all true, valid, inerrant, whatever. But I wonder if sometimes we see some parts of it more readily than we see others because it's easier for us to understand, to break down into a simple do/don't rule. For example, 1 Tim 2:12, "I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent," is an easy teaching, in its own way. Straightforward, clear, easy to parse into a rule. The Bible says not to allow women to teach, therefore a female professor of Hebrew at a co-ed seminary is clearly acting contrary to Biblical principles, and must be dismissed at once. Easy. Easy to defend, anyway, and hard to argue against without "arguing against the Bible."

But how about 1 Thessalonians 5:12-15: "Now we ask you, brothers, to respect those who work hard among you, who are over you in the Lord and who admonish you. Hold them in the highest regard in love because of their work. Live in peace with each other. And we urge you, brothers, warn those who are idle, encourage the timid, help the weak, be patient with everyone. Make sure that nobody pays back wrong for wrong, but always try to be kind to each other and to everyone else."

This, my friends, is a hard teaching. Not many easy rules in there, nothing to hold up our actions (or the actions of others) and point out obvious discrepancies. Hard to make a case, say, that firing a professor for being female violates the rule of "holding workers in the highest regard in love," especially when one can just say, "Of course I hold her in the highest regard... and she's still fired."

I've been convicted in the last few months about those parts of God's Word that don't parse easily. I used to sort of skim over passages about being kind, gentle, loving and whatnot, and think to myself "Yadda yadda yadda, be nice, whatever..." I didn't treat them as actual rules for living, but more like cliches, platitudes. Like saying, "Have a nice day!" A nice sentiment, but not hard theology, not a firm doctrine for Christian living. But now I wonder...

I'm writing this, thinking that the brother who lives according to the Biblical command in 1 Thess 5:12-15 would never be so callous as to fire a fellow worker in Christ (at a seminary, not a church!) because she was female. Yet I read Philippians 2:3, "Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves," and think about my conceit in imagining that I have a better handle on Christ-like behavior than my brothers who fired the professor. Do I consider them better than myself? Paul says I should! Ah, but this is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

For me it is easier to understand what 1 Thessalonians 5 is saying, but harder to do. On the other hand, I don't understand what 1 Timothy is saying, but what it appears to say would seem easy to do apart from applying the rest of the bible, which is why I don't understand it.

2/22/2007 08:45:00 AM  

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