Reign supreme over our own voices, and
Rein in our judgment that is based on our opinion.It is a lot of work to get out of the way of the Holy Spirit and take a back seat with our own thoughts on a given subject.
Years ago, when our church sought a pastor, I asked what I thought was the most expected question:
Why don't we ask God who he wants?You would have thought I committed heresy. The grain against which I so clearly moved was to ask the congregation--people--who they wanted.
We create a similar tide of people opinion over bible translations. I read The Message Translation because I am fascinated by the spiritedness of the language. The translator, Eugene Peterson, describes how his work came about:
While I was teaching a class on Galatians, I began to realize that the adults in my class weren't feeling the vitality and directness that I sensed as I read and studied the New Testament in its original Greek. Writing straight from the original text, I began to attempt to bring into English the rhythms and idioms of the original language. I knew that the early readers of the New Testament were captured and engaged by these writings and I wanted my congregation to be impacted the same way.Was this a decision to open the Holy Spirit app because the Spirit of God knew that people needed to be reached and Eugene Peterson had the skills to do it? Here's what happened in his class:
As he shared his version of Galatians with them, they quit stirring their coffee and started catching Paul's passion and excitement as he wrote to a group of Christians whom he was guiding in the ways of Jesus Christ.Is this good news to God or bad news?
Why are we, with our blistering criticism of The Message, trying to stop the spread of excitement for the Word of God?
That's one wrong turn I am not going to make.
The religion scholars of Jesus' time tried to stop the tide of people excitement over the power and person of Jesus Christ.
Oops. Very bad idea.
Pretty glad I'm not a religion scholar. I might get in the way of the Holy Spirit and think more highly of my opinion that his.
May we let the app of the Holy Spirit move our hearts. What we might find is the very unity that excited Paul (the beginning of Philippians 2):
If you've gotten anything at all out of following Christ, if his love has made any difference in your life, if being in a community of the Spirit means anything to you, if you have a heart, if you care--then do me a favor: Agree with each other, love each other, be deep-spirited friends.We could quit stirring our coffee together instead of pitching it at each other.
I think that would please God immensely.
Tomorrow: Acknowledging we don't know how it all plays out and how that might change our selling of the good news of Jesus.
Comments are welcome at feedyourstrength@gmail.com.
