BibleScribbler

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Turning from Idle Conspiracy Theories to Acting on the Truth

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This was a Facebook comment from a thread that linked to the quote below. I wanted to keep it here because I think it’s a helpful way to address conspiracy theory hobbyists.

“Do you see how peddling a conspiracy theory is a lot like evangelism? It’s a tragic substitute. A deflection and distraction to what’s really important and what can actually change a person’s life – both Christian lives and non-Christians lives: The gospel of the kingdom.” –Frank Viola

Frank Viola – https://frankviola.org/2020/05/14/shamdemic

He does come on pretty strong selling the books. I think the point is that our attention and contemplation be on Jesus and God’s glory instead of all of the wicked things we theorize that people are doing. The only action I can take on a theory is to spread the theory. That is why it is a counterfeit to evangelism. If I convince you Fauci and the Chinese created this virus to wreck the economy and make millions, what have I gained? If I used that same zeal to convince you of Jesus’ amazing grace and care for you, I have accomplished so much more! Conspiracy theories are puffed up and last a few weeks! The word of the Lord endures forever. Let’s focus on that!

Maybe some of this has to do with disposition too. When I watch the news, I get frustrated because people know more about Fauci or the news celebrity of the week than they do their next door neighbors. “Wuhan invented the virus” doesn’t give me a single action step. I don’t care if I ‘wake up’ to the reality around me, that doesn’t change my actions at all. I live in Indiana. I currently have no dealings with scientists in Wuhan.

I’d say these passions and theories start out harmless enough as an intellectual hobby, but then they turn into a divisive, accusing, slandering lifestyle that does not bless Christ.

American news exists to keep everyone excited and paying attention and often helps craft the stories that we all try to fit these facts into. With some anxiety and rebellion and time on our hands, we can put all kinds of puzzle pieces together and feel like we’ve really accomplished something. I think all we get out of it though is just like the AHA! you get when you realize who the real bad guy is in a movie.

Now what do I do with it? How does the conspiracy of the week guide and change my life? How am I going to exhibit the fruit of the Holy Spirit in light of the new findings that Bill Gates did this or that? If I spend all of my intellectual and emotional energy on that, do I have any left for the couple that is arguing with each other in the park across from house? What if I saved some of this emotional power and reasoning for them?

I’d say these passions and theories start out harmless enough as an intellectual hobby, but then they turn into a divisive, accusing, slandering lifestyle that does not bless Christ.

1Tim. 1:3 As I urged you when I was going to Macedonia, remain at Ephesus so that you may charge certain persons not to teach any different doctrine,
1Tim. 1:4 nor to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies, which promote speculations rather than the stewardship from God that is by faith.
1Tim. 1:5 The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.

Paul is urging love, not speculations. Truth, and not suspicions. If I waste all of my time and skill trying to prove something of little consequence that may or may not be true, what validity will I have proving the love of Christ, which is of GREAT CONSEQUENCE and our lives depend on it being true?

Titus 3:8 The saying is trustworthy, and I want you to insist on these things, so that those who have believed in God may be careful to devote themselves to good works. These things are excellent and profitable for people.
Titus 3:9 But avoid foolish controversies, genealogies, dissensions, and quarrels about the law, for they are unprofitable and worthless.

Paul’s language to Titus only gets stronger after this quote. I know that everything people post on Facebook isn’t something they believe in with great passion, but sometimes it is, and it’s hard to tell the difference in print. We can only go off of the caricatures that we are constantly forming about one another (which are probably wrong, right guys? We would talk about much more fun things in person.)

And this last one, I hope we are on the right side of this. Note it doesn’t say to be quiet and let people believe falsehood, but note what it does say to do:

2Tim. 2:22 ¶ So flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart.
2Tim. 2:23 Have nothing to do with foolish, ignorant controversies; you know that they breed quarrels.
2Tim. 2:24 And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil,
2Tim. 2:25 correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth,

Speaking the Truth in Love

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The other day a few of us were talking about “speaking the truth in love”. We, of course, were trying to correct a guy that was not doing that. It was a tough conversation because I think the guy was holding onto truth tighter than he was holding onto love. The challenge for me during that conversation was to hold on to truth AND love at the same time. It’s easy to hate a hateful person, but that would put me in league with the hateful person out of hate. I wanted to be in league with him because we are both in Christ.

Later in the day, I looked up that verse. We always quote “speak the truth in love” but what is its context? What else goes with that saying? It turns out a LOT.

The opening of Ephesians 4 is about unity. Paul urges the Ephesian church, from prison, to do whatever they can to maintain the unity of the Holy Spirit by being at peace with each other. It is by humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love that this happens.

That is probably the first red flag. We achieve unity through humility. The further we get away from humility, the further away we will be from unity. At the last supper, when Jesus was addressing the disciples who had spent part of the meal arguing who was the most important, He told them that “all men will know you are my disciples” by their love for one another. Love and unity go hand in hand because you can’t love each other and be fighting.

How about this part:

[11] And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, [12] to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ,
(Ephesians 4:11–12 ESV)

I have heard ‘prophets’ and ‘teachers’ say before that they are ‘just telling the truth.’ I can agree with them. All too often, though, they are speaking the truth without love. Considering the high stakes of Christian unity and the Body of Christ, you would think that truth would not have so killed off love in the Church. 

Love is bearing with others. Love is considering that you don’t have to tell your brother where he is wrong, but you can instead teach by your own lifestyle and loving conversation instead of the truth grenade. Jesus did yell at the scribes and the Pharisees, but that was after a long series of loving face to face conversations. 

Prophets and evangelists (good news tellers) are given to build up the body of Christ. This building up doesn’t happen by chopping off the sick parts and denying friendship with the parts that don’t look like us. Think of how the human body works. If a part is sick or injured or just plain wrong, the body sends white blood cells, antibodies, extra blood and oxygen, platelets, etc until the wound is healed. What if that is how we responded with truth? 

What would happen if we held on to truth (which is Christ) and increased our love? What if we increased our love even more for those that we disagree with, or are even our enemies? That is one of Christ’s most compelling teachings and that fits right in line with these things from Paul and Christ’s words of forgiveness from the cross. 

[15] Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, [16] from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.  
(Ephesians 4:15–16 ESV)

Copper is Green

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We have a lot of brown doorknobs around our house. Our house was built in 1904, so to say that they are the original doorknobs could be true or could be an innocent but incorrect guess. They could be original from when they did renovations in 1919, or after the great flood of 1937. Either way, they are old.

If you asked anybody what they were made of, you might think they were brown. An adult would assume brass, or just some “metal” that is brown.

The statue of liberty is green. And by green I mean PANTONE 15-5519 Turquoise green. It would be interesting to conduct a survey of people on the street to see how many people think that it’s always been green, or how many people think that copper is green.

The bummer is, it’s been green for so long, I’m not sure that people can imagine it being copper.

Sometimes, in an unexpected place, I have seen pure, raw, unoxidized copper. Like when my grandma got out the vinegar and salt and cleaned her copper pots or when I re-did the plumbing and electrical in my house. Copper pipes freshly cut and copper wires freshly stripped all shine as bright as can be. If you told me that’s what the Statue of Liberty used to look like, I’d be stunned.

Really I’m not sure I can even imagine that in my head. A shiny copper statue of liberty. It would be blinding when the sun hit it!

But that’s what it is! That’s the truth of it. So just because we can’t see it, and just because we can’t even imagine it, doesn’t mean it’s not true. And it also means, that with a ton of work, it could be restored.

They restored some of Lady Liberty in 1986 when they celebrated her birthday. But they didn’t scrub off all of the green. That could only be done with a tremendous investment of time, labor, materials, and of course, fund raising. Or at least a lot of salt & vinegar.

But I’m not talking about the Statue of Liberty, or even copper, am I? I’m talking about the church. I’m talking about Christianity and the Gospel.

I talk to people a lot (it’s about 80% of my job except for the administrivia of preparing and reporting on the talking) and often times when I tell someone something from the Bible, pure and true, it is unbelievable – Even if they are a Christian.

For by grace you are saved through faith, and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God; it is not from works, so that no one can boast.
Ephesians 2:8-9 NET

I wonder if we have seen a turquoise Christian life for so long, if we have altered the meaning of “Love your enemies” or “saved by grace” or “Righteousness apart from our actions.” so much that we think something is supposed to be green instead of gleaming like the SON?

The thing is, if we are going to ever see the beauty of an untarnished, clean, true Church, it is going to take a lot of work, and it isn’t going to be pretty in the process.

And along the way, we will meet a lot of doubters.

I asked my wife what she thought those brown doorknobs were made of. She thought brass, just like me.

When I put them in salt and vinegar (Thanks Grandma!) they turned out to be something we didn’t expect. Even after we cleaned it, I can’t imagine why somebody would want something so sparkly and bright on our dark brown doors.two doorknobs

“Maybe they used it because they knew that it would tarnish and turn brown and not look so blingy?” my wife supposed.

The original builders of my house are long gone, and they may have expected the knobs to turn brown, but it is not the same for Christ’s church.

He is still around, and is still seeking for His Bride to shine like a blingy knob on a darkwood door.

Matthew 5.14-16

You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.

The Truth as Plain as a Fedex Truck

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John 8.31-32 ‚ÄúSo Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him,  ‚ÄúIf you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, 32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.‚Äù‚Äù

Today we read that and we only have a figurative understanding of the word free, but to the people Jesus was talking to, they understood literally and practically what being set free was all about. Slavery and servitude was common, not to mention they lived in a land occupied by a foreign ruler, so they knew all about what it meant to be set free. That’s why they object when Jesus says, “you’ll be free” because they think they are. ONCE AGAIN Jesus is challenging them to think differently, to look beyond the world they understand into something else.

All too often, this v. 32 is used out of context to talk about the truth instead of Jesus who is The Truth. Honesty or understanding a clear fact is not freedom. Resting, living, thinking, moving, tarrying in Jesus’ teaching, lifestyle, motivation, and thought is how we will know the truth.

Jesus just said that He always does what the Father wants, so the Father doesn’t leave Him. Now He adds on to that that WE TOO can be His disciples (carbon copies and replicas) and know the truth. The root of truth here is unconcealed, unhidden. As we walk in Jesus’ ways, the truth of God is revealed. It is only hidden if you don’t look for it, but as soon as you begin to look it jumps right out at you.

Reminds me of the arrow on the Fedex logo. If you don’t know about it, you would never notice it, or know that it was there, but as soon as somebody tells you there is an arrow in the logo, that’s all you see.

Jesus is telling them, if you reside in His teaching, you will know the truth and not be enslaved any more. And that truth will be continually revealed to you by God, unconcealed and available.