Some Detective Work

What matters in learning. . . is not to be taught, but to wake up.  [A good book] also imparts invaluable information, but in the process it should unquestionably wake any reader up; since it reveals a love and joy in acquiring knowledge, . . . which even the youngest of children may have in a fountain-like abundance - as his incessant rain of questions proves - until, alas, perhaps, he goes to school.  (Doorly, The Insect Man, Introduction)

Watch and beware of the leaven [teaching] of the Pharisees and Sadducees. . . .  Let them alone; they are blind guides.  And if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit.  (Matthew 16:6, 15:14)

Education in our culture is the end of learning rather than the beginning of learning.  Such education is punctuated by certificates, degrees, and awards that indicate achievement in a subject rather than interest in or commitment to a subject.  A person often has achieved something with a degree and that is good, but whether that person cares much about the subject after getting their degree is optional and perhaps not even expected.

One of the building blocks of this kind of education is an obsession with proof rather than understanding.  Getting proof marks the end of inquiry.  Getting understanding marks the beginning of inquiry.  Proofs are helpful when they are present, but they are relatively rare and only in subjects of less importance.  Understanding grasps the truth more tentatively but with more expansiveness than proof can grasp the truth.  Understanding can use truths that are immediately accessible through experience while not provable or even explainable.  All to say, a demand for proof is often an indication of a mind that has stopped inquiring, whereas seeking understanding welcomes conversation and questions.

The Pharisees and Sadducees came, and to test him they asked him to show them a sign from heaven.  Jesus answered them, . . .  'An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah.'  So he left them and departed.  (Matthew 16:1, 4)

In  a Bible study one of my daughters was hesitant to share much of anything because the leader kept asking for people to "prove" whatever they said from the Bible.  Instead of seeking to understand what people we saying, he was cutting off all inquiry by "testing" the people.  What a shame!  A time of Bible inquiry became a Bible Inquisition instead.  This is an example of the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees.  Proof over understanding.  Unfortunately typical.

In contrast to such teaching, Jesus asks a question of his disciples, "Who do people say the Son of Man is?"  After they answer, he brings greater understanding with a second question, "But who do you say I am?" (Matthew 16:13,15)  When Peter answers well, Jesus tells him not that he is right, but that he is blessed.  "Blessed are you, Simon Bar Jonah!  For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven."  Simon Peter had woken up to a new world!  The Father revealed what Peter had discovered.  Jesus did not just tell them he was Messiah, he allowed them to discover it and his Father to reveal it.  In the lives based on this revelation of Jesus by the Father, the gates for hell would not prevail and heaven would be unleashed on earth in a new way.  (vv. 18-20)

Peter continues to understand how Jesus teaches when he writes "Set your hope fully on the grace being brought to you in the revelation of Jesus Christ."  (1 Peter 1:13)  The blessing and grace of the Father is in the understanding of Jesus as the One, the Messiah.  Such grace and strength from God is evident and victorious in the "tested genuineness of your faith. . . found to result in praise and glory and honor in the revelation of Jesus Christ" even though "you have been grieved by many trials."  (vv. 6-7)  Peter implies that such revelation is given to those who "search and inquire carefully" like the prophets of old and that those who would be disciples need to "prepare their minds for action," not merely passive acceptance.  (v.10, 13)  There can be no discovery without revelation, but it seems there can be no revelation without discovery either.

Adequate proof and correctness will come with learning directed at understanding.  But seeking proof without understanding ends up with ignorance and blindness.  Although Peter had made a true confession of Jesus as the Christ, he and disciples went through a number of failures showing that they did not understand what the confession meant yet.  After Peter rebukes Jesus for his revelation of his death and resurrection, Jesus tells him, "You are a hindrance to me.  For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man." (v.23)  Peter was talking about Jesus instead of listening to him on the Mount of Transfiguration (17:5).  They failed to cast out a demon perhaps because they thought they had it right about Jesus when they actually had lost faith in him and understood him less (v. 20)  It seems nothing fails like success.

Our family enjoys a number of different detective shows.  The pathway to discovery is exciting to follow.  Also, I think the fact that truth will ultimately be revealed makes such searching satisfying, even in a TV show.  This is the kind of learning that Jesus would have in his followers: "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me." (Matthew 16:25)  Perhaps we have to do some detective work to follow Jesus at times, knowing that the hints and clues he gives will bring us to the truth about him and ourselves and the truth that is in him and in ourselves.  Perhaps only this is the sort of person Jesus says can be his disciple.

Two Kinds of Slavery

All who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.  For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back again into fear, but you have received the the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, "Abba!  Father!" The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs - heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified in him. (Romans 7:14-17, ESV)

Two Spirits

 "The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit."  Here is one of the clearest pictures of the "still, small voice" Elijah and many other friends of God have detected.  Through the agency of our own spirit, God speaks.  He speaks to us through us.   In this passage, Paul identifies the Spirit of adoption as the one who speaks through our own spirit of our dear place in God's hands and heart.

In contrast there is another spirit at work.  Another voice has spoken to us through our self-absorbed flesh, the systems that support this pride all around in the world, and the being that pushes and orchestrates it all - Satan.  The voice is the voice of slavery that pulls each person toward fear.  Many live is fear due to the slavery they sense.  The spirit of slavery may very well be the Devil himself and his work, which Jesus came to destroy.  He came to destroy the bondage to sin and the spirit that accompanies it.

Bondage to sin is accomplished by being "weakened by the flesh."  Our determination to live life without God and by the power of our natural abilities makes us unable to live a life pleasing to God or even ourselves.  We fail miserably.  We suffer deeply, knowing we cannot manage our lives, but we blame God for making a life unmanageable.  We find some comfort in building up our pride through various deeds and distractions.  We also find God's presence in his words, his works, and his ways only fills us with fear leading to loathing or indifference.  Such is the way of the flesh.  It brings a spirit of slavery that leads to a hateful fear of God or an indifference to God.

The freedom of the children of God stand in contrast to this life.  Freedom from sin is accomplished through the power of the cross.  Fundamentally this means that we accept the futility of the work of our flesh and actively put such works to death.  We learn to dispose of our natural abilities as avenues for our success and savlation.  This is the suffering and death of the cross in our lives.  The cross also points to resurrection.  A new life which begins immediately.  This new life is one not lived by our own means and in our own way, but under the instruction of Christ and empowered by his Spirit.  Just as we used to find comfort and pleasure in satisfying our desires, we now find comfort and pleasure in satisfying God's desires.  Instead of serving our desires and allowing God to get the leftovers of our efforts, we serve God's desires and allow our own desires to get the leftovers.  Instead of fearing God's presence, we find ourselves fearing and suffering sin and its consequences in our lives and in the lives around us.

The Spirit bears witness to this life within us through the cry of "Father" that breaks out from our hearts for God.  The Spirit uses our spirit as the voice for this cry.  Another witness to our adoption is that we suffer with Christ.  We suffer in the presence of sin instead of seeking it out.  We seek God out instead of just suffering his presence.  The thoughts and feelings associated with this love for God as Father and with the suffering of sin against him is the testimony of the Spirit through our spirits pointing to the new life in us.

Knock It Down or Cover It Up

There are two primary forms of religion that operate under the spirit of slavery.  Both lead to self-righteousness.  One form manages sin by speaking against it and feeling bad about it.  The other manages sin by trying to cover it up with certain good deeds or rituals.  Sin does not die in either religion, but ends up leading people away from Christ and his gospel and leading to further disappointment and corruption.

In both of these types of religion, sin is managed instead of destroyed.  The efforts to knock sin down or cover it up must be maintained.  When the will of the person or group is weakened and slackened, the sin resurfaces.  Religion then becomes the managment of such sin and the ways to maintain control.  This is not the teaching of Jesus nor the way of the Spirit.

Sin can only be destroyed through forgiveness.  Forgiveness is only received through the peace of a re-established relationship.  Forgiveness found through peace with God demonstrated and established through Christ at the cross makes such a relationship possible.  Both God's complete love for sinners and God's absolute rejection of sin are evidenced through Jesus' work on the cross.  We are forgiven, kept alive by his love, and scrubbed clean by his anger at evil.  Forgiveness is accomplished for the purpose of relationship.  Without the relationship, forgiveness has no meaning.

Sin management methods are ways of seeking forgiveness without relationship.  It seeks to make God happy without actually seeking him out.  It seeks to be right with God without actually being right with God.  Sin cannot be condemned or covered away, though.  God must take it from us manually, from our hands into his, for destruction.  Christ came to take our sin from our very own hands and breath his Spirit into our very own breaths.  Sin will only die in this "face to face" encounter with God in Christ.  There is nothing automatic about it.  Whether fast or slow, such freedom must come directly to a person through an encounter with God.

Forgiveness Is Freedom

Those who practice sin managment find such news disconcerting.  What if sin is not knocked down?  What if we don't do enough to cover it?   It seems to them that the world will fall apart.  Really sin management is a over-reliance on human ability to get God's work done for him.  Behind these methods is the suspicion that if sin is not managed, it will take over, and God will let it.  Sin seems to need our attention.

Forgivenss is certainly mentioned, but not really enacted or trusted.  People hear about forgiveness, but are not brought into relationship.  Instead they are excused from sin and brought to work for the all-to-human endeavors of managing sin and its consequences.  In their lives they are taught how they can keep their sin at bay without letting it destroying them.  Sins are defined by rules instead of relationships, by what hurts the organization instead what hurts the soul, and by what can be seen and controlled instead of what happens in the hidden parts of one's life.  The best they can offer are methods for coping.

In some cases, forgiveness that leads to freedom is called heresy.  We must feel bad about sin.  We must try to cover it up.  Statements that oppose these "golden rules" are treated with great suspicion, fear, and anger.  The managers of sin management set up their organizations to avoid or even condemn such freedom.  We find such places to be filled with rules and rituals concerning church and its leaders with very little about the kingdom of God.  The church receives all the attention and and concern and work and it is assumed the kingdom of God will take care of itself.

It turns out that sin does need our attention.  It needs our attention to continue.  Sin dies without adequate attention.  With Jesus, seeking the kingdom of God was the focus of his attention and the church and its leaders would "take care of themselves."  A good relationship with God is what matters to Jesus, and sin (both individual and corporate) will take care of itself.  The fear of sin and the extensive structures erected to manage it inside and outside of our lives come from slavery to sin - an existence apart from the influence and action of God in human life.  The solution lies in the personal reconnection of the human life to God in his words, his works, and his ways in the form of being received as a child and student.  God as "Father."

The Keys to Freedom

Abandoning church does not answer these problems.  Even "starting over" involves some level of rehabilitation from the ideas of sin managment that dominates the modern church setting.  No matter how big or small, in homes, churches, or coffee houses, young or old, the prevalence of sin management makes its presence felt.  Fierce individualism has never been the path forward for followers of Jesus who works to build his church.

It turns out that sin does need our attention.  It needs our attention to continue to exist.  Sin dies without adequate attention.  So in every age, people have needed to come face to face with God, to turn their attention to him.  From the beginning of time, that is what God has sought and developed.  Through various mediators and helps, he has sought once again to walk with each person the cool of the day as he did in the Garden long ago.  He still works in this way through his church, even if some have forgotten about this invitation.  The best reminders are those who will once again walk with God, allowing his presence to teach and keep them, to burn and heal them, to gather and unite them.  We give the cold shoulder to sin and our attention to God.

The work of Christ is continued through his church, those who respond to his invitation.  The access ("keys") to the kingdom of God continues to be mediated through those who trust in God and his plan to forgive and establish a relationship with each person.  The ones with the keys are the ones who have received the blessing of seeing Christ as he is and of hearing his voice as he speaks.  Only those with the blessing of such a revelation can hold the keys.

Being physical beings, we need places and times and groups to find such meetings with God.  We do not merely approach him abstractly.  Churches provide such a meeting ground.  They are not the only place or time or group where people can find God, but they do supply his address for those who would seek him.  The church is faithful enough to provide those who want to find Christ with encouragement and help and a place to serve.  The church is broken enough to provide those who do not want to find Christ with discouragemnt and disappoinment and a place to complain about.