Friday, February 26, 2016

Square Peg/Round Hole

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It was May, 2010 that I began my daily study of the mind of Christ, the Challenger Deep of the spiritual ocean. As expected this journey has taken me on a wild ride, one which is far from over. One observation I have thus far is that transformation into the thinking of Christ has been subtle and gradual. It is also about what He did not discuss as much as what He did teach. My feeble attempt to step into His world as He stepped into mine, to see what He saw, hear what He heard, and to notice how He responded to it all with supreme wisdom has enriched me beyond words. As I try to think His thoughts I find that I also, to some degree, share His feeling or emotion, both the more agitated extremes and the peaceful expressions.



What I have also attempted to step out of, as I explore the mind of Christ, is the world of Christian denominationalism, a world that did not exist in Jesus’ day. Of course He was no stranger to the division of Judaism and the pantheon of pagan gods, but His ministry of building His church and ushering in the Kingdom of God was not a reaction to competing religious groups. He was not presenting a better product to draw people away from their inferior ones. Jesus was not focused on persuading people to reject some denominational bias in favorite of the “truth” as presented by Him. He was not interested in rearranging doctrines to open some combination lock to get people into heaven. Jesus was not presenting an alternative to well-worn religions. He certainly corrected errors when these sought to force Him into their traditional molds. But, He presented no systematic theology to prove Calvinism or any other ism wrong.



Here we are today after 20 centuries of Christian squabbling over every conceivable point of doctrine and practice, divided into hundreds of competing views and positions. We have some idea that our job is to convince those, for the most part, who know of Jesus, and many who have had some Christian affiliation, to accept our brand, the ingredients of which vary from person to person and from church to church, and to become what we are. If we are successful we grow and the person who is so fortunate to actually find our peculiar recipe for doing Christianity will eat and be satisfied so that they need shop for no other place to eat.



This paradigm of thinking is a round hole into which we try to fit the square peg of the mind of Christ, and the teaching and practices which come from His mind. We have to figure out how Jesus might answer questions that were never raised in His day. Of course we have the rest of the New Testament along with the specific doctrinal and moral challenges to the gospel that provide more references from which to reason. But, we struggle to make our day fit with His and theirs. So as not to be misunderstood, I certainly believe that proper exegesis and hermeneutics can help us unravel modern denominational questions, but such is not a replacement for the purity of presenting Jesus “as is” to a world that is fundamentally flawed in exactly the same way it was when Jesus came.



Whether it is denominational dogmas of today, the emerging philosophies of today, or the prevalent psychological diagnoses of today, the words of Jesus cut through every one of them and finds the deepest needs of a person’s life. Those who trust any denominational position, any philosophy, or any therapeutic treatment for their salvation and quality of life here and there will miss Jesus’ most basic teaching. He and He alone makes us okay. Knowing Him is the essence of eternal life. Becoming His disciple is our calling, and becoming like Him in every way is our mission. I have found out over the past nearly six years of pursuing the Mind of Christ that it is so vast and deep and rich that there is much more than enough to keep me occupied for transformation into His image. If this is what we mean when we say we want to be just a Christian, then fine. But, we normally mean that we don’t want to be some denominational person (except for the group whose name we wear).



Imagine if we were to push a restart button on this thing we call Christianity and concentrate on knowing Jesus so that we can know God, which was His main reason for coming. What if we were to pursue the many-faceted implications of the gospel, the death, burial and resurrection of Christ? What if we were to focus on how Jesus went about training the twelve and what He thought they needed to know in order to carry out His mission to the world? What if we were to spend time struggling with the differences among the four different accounts of Jesus life and ministry? What if we were to spend a lot more time sitting in the seats of the apostles and hearing Jesus’ words for the first time? What if we explored our own fickled understandings and responses to what He said just as the early disciples struggled to understand what He intended? What if we wrote down His imperatives in His own words and tried to live them out? What if we just took His word at face value and believe He actually meant it? Wouldn’t these give us plenty to do in Christianity instead of codifying denominational doctrines? Isn’t His teachings on love enough to keep us busy?



Why does the history of Christianity focus almost entirely on the divisions and contentions of the church? What happened early on to lead to where we are today? Surely Jesus, Peter, John, and Paul warned us about those critical errors that lead us so far astray from a pure and sincere devotion to Christ. But, could the answer be instead of debating every twist and turn that routed us to our present day, we focus on simply becoming more purely and sincerely devoted to Christ? Is that just too simple?



Rod Myers

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