on the walk

I love it when it happens. Sometimes it happens regularly. In other seasons it won’t happen for a while. The last big one I had came 7 months ago, but I think that I am on the verge of a bunch more during my upcoming Romans class.

I love it when I am reading the bible and I realize that I have consistently and unthinkingly misunderstood a biblical text. I don’t just meant that the text has taken on new meaning and significance in my life. I mean that I used to think that the text meant one thing and then I realize that I was wrong and it means something else. I also love it when I get to help someone else have this same experience.

I’ll give you a warm-up example first. Mainly because it is one of my favorites.

Read Matt 18:15-17. Some of you may already know where I am going but for those who don’t, work through it with me.

I say, “At the end of this process, if someone has refused all opportunities to repent and reconcile, how should we treat them?”

You say, “Like a pagan/gentile and a tax collector/publican.”

I say, “Very good. And in practical terms how should we treat these kinds of notorious sinners?”

You say, “Well I guess we should excommunicate them. They certainly can’t keep being leaders in the church and maybe we should kick them out of the church.”

I say, “Slow down a bit. Who is speaking here?” You say, “Jesus.” I say, “And how did Jesus treat these kind of people.”

You start to get excited. “Well they were the main focus of his ministry. He especially loved them and cared for them. He went to parties at their house. He invited them to follow him. He spent so much time with them that he was called a drunk. Sometimes when he went to fancy religious parties he would invite them to some along.”

I say, “I think you are on to something. So if Jesus is talking here, and we know how he treated this kind of people, what do you think he is saying here.”

You say, “Well this text must mean the exact opposite of everything I ever thought it meant. This means that when a person falls into sin instead of being shut out by the church instead they again become the special passionate focus of the church. they again become the target of the irrepressible transforming love of the church. We don’t shut the out of church life, on the contrary we invite the over to our homes and into our lives and love them just as intentionally and faithfully as we do for the lost.”

I say, “Yep. that is what this text means. Now of course the need to step out of positions of leadership but not because we reject them but rather because they need to be served and loved for a while until they are restored and can serve again. They may not see it that way. If they are unrepentant. They may not want to be loved and they probably won’t want to be forgiven. But for our part, this text teaches that we love and love and then if all else fails we love them some more.”

Isn’t that a wonderful experience. Maybe you have already been invited to re-understand that text. Or maybe it just happened as you read that imaginary conversation. If you want to talk about that text, feel free to make a comment. I’ll move on to the text that just hit me in a new way about 7 months ago.

But to begin we need to talk about chapters.

Chapter and verse numbering systems are a wonderful benefit to analyzing and discussing any piece of literature. The Bible is no exception to this rule. This simple system allows us to readily organize texts for study, conversation, memorization, etc. Nevertheless, they are not scripture and in some subtle but significant ways they can pose a problem. I’ll mention two.

1. They can obscure genre. The very fact that things are number chops up our reading into little bits and can make the great narratives of scripture look like lists of propositions. This encourages us to take out little bits and use them as independent nuggets of truth apart from context.
2. They shape (sometimes incorrectly) how we understand the flow of scripture. We can easily assume that the chapters of a biblical book function like the chapters of a well-written novel. Each is in some sense an independent literary unit, a defined section of plot and character and that chapter endings therefor create natural stopping and starting points. It is this error that brings me to my most recent aha text.

Hebrew 12:1 – Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.

This seems at first instinct to represent a natural starting point. But it isn’t. As Ben pointed out in his sermon the “Therefore” is a clue that this point follows from what has just been said. It is integrally related to what has come before and it’s truth depends upon the truth of what has already been said.

So anyway, seven months or so ago I was reading Hebrews, and as an exercise I was ignoring the chapter markings as best I could and I dawned on me. I had been misreading the phrase “clouds of witnesses.” When I started at chapter 12, the only sense I could make of the text was that this big gang of people was watching me run. But the “therefore since” makes it clear that he is trying to summarize something that he has just been saying and in chapter 11 he has not been talking about a gang of people watching me run. Instead he has been talking about a group of people whose lives bear witness to the truth that if we will trust in God, God can work in amazing ways even through ordinary and sometimes despicable people like Abraham, Jacob, Samson, Jephthah, etc. As Ben said, this is why we are so glad that Jephthah’s awful story is in the book of Judges and that the author of Hebrews draws our attention to him.

And then I remembered that the word witness (and the Greek word it translates) comes form the world of the court room and it describes someone who has seen something and tells about it. And the emphasis is on the telling not the watching. So when the author of Hebrews tells us that we are surrounded by a bunch of witnesses he is not saying, “Wow there sure are lots of people watching you.” (That may be true, I don’t know, but it isn’t what he is saying here.) Here he is saying, “Wow look at all these people whose lives proclaim (bear witness) that if we will but trust in God we can do all the things to which God has called us.

When I am doing something very difficult that I have never tried before, an audience makes me nervous. But if dozens of people come to me and say, “I tried it, it will be okay.” I feel better. That is what Hebrews wants them to see. He says to his original readers and me.

“Look around, study church history, study the bible and see. You can run this race, because no one who put their faith in God, was ever disappointed. I no that you are not strong enough. I know that you have fallen. I know that you were broken. But I can point to witness after witness who can give testimony that God is strong enough, and good enough and forgiving enough if you will just put your faith in him throw off what hinders you and start running stay focused on Christ. I don’t just know a few witnesses, I know a great cloud of witnesses.”

Wow. I misread that text for 32 years. I always wondered why do I need the extra pressure of all those people watching me. Now I realize it is not extra pressure, it is extra assurance.

on the walk

-Ethan

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