When I was a kid, I never could understand going to the doctor. You are supposed to go to the doctor so he will make you feel better, yet almost everytime mom would take me to the doctor, he would end up poking me with a needle right in the tush! Now, maybe it was just me, but getting poked by a needle in the tush did not exactly make me feel dandy. In fact it hurt. I hated getting shots. It even left some emotional scar tissue. To this day, I tense up when I smell rubbing alcohol, illogically affraid that I was about to get poked by a needle. I did not get how that was supposed to make me feel better, so I despised going to the doctor. However, what I did not realize is that those little pokes kept me healthy, and would leave me worse off, should I reject the injection.
Have you ever done that with the Bible. You dive right in, having heard that it was a good book filled with love and butterflies and cute furry animals, but when you read it, you get a shot in the tush! And then you say one of two things: either you say “I don’t like reading the Bible, it hurts my feelings,” or you say “I don’t think that is what God really meant, because the Bible is a feel good book, so I’m going to skip right over shots.” Both are highly dangerous and damaging to our growth in Christ.
The first is how so many people become atheists. In general, they have this thought going in that God is a big teddy bear that just wants to hug us and want us to always be happy. And as soon as they read something offensive in the word, or have some “bad” thing happen in their life, they conclude that God is not some fluffy teddy bear, but really some big kid burning ants like us with a magnifying glass. And they, obviously, decide not to get on his good side 🙂 Why would they want to? They don’t want another shot in the tush. That hurts (mainly our pride, but that’s a whole other blog). What they don’t realize is that if they refuse to get these shots from the word, they will ultimately end up in a much worse pain. When the Bible says God will always protect us from harm, it sometimes includes shots, because it protects from a much bigger harm.
On the flip side, what if that person just decides to just skip those and read only the warm and fuzzy, teddy bear parts? This happens far more often than you may think. Have you ever gone hunting in scripture to find that one verse that proves that baptism means this or that? Once you find that verse, do you leave well enough alone and say that’s enough proof for anyone? Funny, we scream out “BIAS!” when scientists do that to “prove” evolution. Do you do the same thing? The Bible seldom only speaks on a topic once. Find ALL the verses on that topic and lay em out. Look up context. Look up Hebrew or Greek meaning. Look up something, but don’t just stop with one cliche verse and say you’ve solved it. What about when you accidentally find a verse that challenges that little belief you have? Do you just say “Well, God didn’t really mean that, because, see, my pastor says that its this other way.” WHO DO YOU SERVE?! Do you really serve God and bow to his absolute authority, or do you serve your own agenda of comfort or “wisdom”? As proclaimers of Christ, we should NEVER discard ANYTHING the Bible says. If it seems to collide with something else you’ve read or been taught, study it. Like I said before, look some stuff up. Make sure you read the context of scripture and study context of the culture. But don’t just pass it by. That is hypocrisy. Purposely denying a piece of text because you don’t agree with it after proclaiming Christ’s lordship in your life.
Are you ready to be offended by scripture? Because it probably will. Are you ready to take the shot and soak up the medicine?
Thank you mom for putting me in the path of a little pain to keep me healthy. And thank you daddy for loving me enough to send me through trials, tribulations, and tough, offensive passages that don’t quit. I am healthier for it. Blessed be your name! Amen.
