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BY
GLENN PEASE
CHAPTER
1.PARADOXICAL PARTNERS BASED ON ROM. 12:9
CHAPTER 2.WHEN
OPPOSITES ARE THE SAME BASED ON Rom. 14:6
CHAPTER 3.THE FOOLISHNESS OF THE CROSS- I COR. 1:18-31
CHAPTER 4.THE POWER OF WEAKNESS BASED ON II COR.
12:1-10
CHAPTER 5.THE PARADOX OF BURDENS Based on Gal. 6:1-10
CHAPTER 6.THE PARADOX OF BLESSING BASED ON
GAL.6:1-10
CHAPTER 7.THE PARADOX OF PRIDE Based on Gal. 6:3
CHAPTER 8.PRAISEWORTHY PRIDE Based on Gal. 6:4
CHAPTER 9.GOOD OUT OF EVIL Based on Phil. 1:12-26
CHAPTER 10.FRUITFUL FRUSTRATION Based on I Thess. 2:13F
CHAPTER 11.THE PARADOX OF MONEY Based on I Tim. 6:3-10
CHAPTER 12. PAUL'S
PARADOXICAL PERSONALITY Acts 21:17-26
1.
PARADOXICAL PARTNERS Based on Rom. 12:9
A truck had run off the road and crashed into a tree forcing
the engine back into the cab. The
driver was trapped in the twisted wreckage.
The doors were crushed and bent out of shape, and he had his feet caught
between the clutch and the brake pedal.
To make matters worse, a fire started in the cab. Concerned people on the scene began to
panic, for it was obvious that the driver would burn to death before the fire
engine could arrive.
Then a man by the name of Charles Jones appeared, and he took
hold of the doors and began to pull.
His muscles so expanded that they literally tore his shirt sleeves. People could not believe it when the door
began to give way. Jones reached inside
and bare-handedly bent the brake and clutch pedals out of the way, and freed
the man's legs. He snuffed out the fire
with his hands, and then crawled inside the cab, and with his back against the
top lifted the roof so other spectators could pull the driver to safety.
We have all heard stories of how mothers have lifted cars, and
done other superhuman things to rescue their children, because they are
motivated by love, but this man was a stranger. There was no relationship to the driver. If he was a brother, or son, or even a good
friend, we could see how love would motivate one to such a feat of
strength. But this was not the
case. What then was the motivation that
enabled this stranger to do such a powerful act of love? It was hate. Charles Jones was later interviewed, and was asked why and how he
was able to accomplish such a Herculean feat.
He simply replied, "I hate fire." He had good reason for his deep hatred, for a few months earlier
he had to stand by and watch helplessly as his little daughter burned to
death. His intense hatred for this
enemy gave him enormous strength to fight it.
His hate led him to a great act of love.
On the other hand, love can lead to hate. Most of the stories of hatred you read about
are directly connected with love. Just
recently I read of a man who shot his wife and her two brothers because she was
leaving him. The statistics show that
most murders in our country happen in families. People are most likely to kill those whom they love, or once
loved. Love is the cause of so many
acts of hate.
What a paradox, that these two strong and opposite emotions
can so often be linked together. Paul
in verse 9 puts them side by side, and urges Christians to feel them both in
the same breath. He says love must be
sincere, and then demands that we hate what is evil. Paul was not the founder of this paradoxical partnership of love
and hate. The unity of these two
emotions runs all through the Bible. I
counted 27 verses in the Bible where love and hate are in the same verse
together. We remember the old song,
Love and Marriage that says they go together like a horse and carriage, but it
is equally Biblical to say, love and hate go together. Listen to a partial reading of how the Bible
links these two emotions in partnership.
Psalm 45:7 "You love righteousness
and hate wickedness. Therefore God, your God has set you above your companions
by anointing you with the oil of joy."
Psalm97:10 "Let those
who love the Lord hate evil for he guards the lives of his faithful ones."
Eccles. 3:8 "There is a
time to love and a time to hate."
Isa. 61:8 "For I, the
Lord, love justice; I hate robbery and iniquity." The love-hate partnership begins in the very
nature of God. God could not be sincere
in his love if he did not hate that which destroys love. To be God like and Christlike is to combine
in our being, love and hate.
Rev. 2:6 Jesus says,
"...You have this in your favor:
You hate the practices of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate."
You cannot be a good Christian, and a truly loving Christian,
if you do not feel hate for that which is the enemy of love. There are many more texts we could read but
the point is established: Hatred is a
legitimate emotion in the Christian life.
In fact, it is a vital emotion if we are to be balanced. This is, however, one of those dangerous
truths that can lead to disaster if it is
not understood. These
paradoxical partners can still be bitter enemies. There is still the major distinction to be made between the
hatred of evil, which is good, and the evil of hatred, which is bad.
Hatred is still a deadly foe, and an emotion that has to be
kept in check, or it can lead us to become very unChristlike, and totally out
of God's will. I John 4:20 says, "If
anyone says, I love God, yet hates his brother he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother,
whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen." Hate destroys relationships of both God and
man. Prov. 8:36 has wisdom say,
"All who hate me love death."
Hate for what is good is love for what is evil, and when these two
emotions are reversed from the way God intended them to function, they are
destructive of all that is of value in life.
The traditional, and normal, concept of love and hate being
opposites and enemies is valid and true.
It is just that it is not the whole truth about love and hate. There is more,
and we must understand the
more, or we will not be in control, and use these emotions the way God intends. The area where we are weak is in this area
of understanding the paradoxical partnership of love and hate. Emotional health depends on our growth in
this area. To be what God expects us to
be, we need to understand the reality of what is called ambivalence. This word stands for that psychological
experience in which opposing emotions, such as love and hate, joy and sorrow,
or desire and fear, exist at the same time within the same person. Paul is urging Christians to be ambivalent
by telling them to feel love and hate at the same time. It is a cliché among Christians that we are
to love the sinner and hate the sin. It
is very hard to separate the two, and so we really are feeling both emotions at
the same time toward the same individual.
This is ambivalence. This leads
to much emotional turmoil in the person who does not see this mixture as
legitimate.
In marriage, for example, it is a common cause for the
breakdown of relationships. Many mates
have no understanding of the paradoxical partnership of love and hate. They are locked into a narrow view of
reality that says, I cannot love that which I hate, or vice versa. They discover that they feel hate toward
their mate for a variety of things, and thus they conclude, love has flown the
coop. I lost my love. Because of this false psychology that says,
love and hate cannot dwell together, they let their hate boot their love
out. It happens all the time that
people who really love each other get divorced just because they hate aspects
of each other.
Children run away, and mates shoot each other, and all sorts of
tragic behavior takes place because people do not understand it can be valid to
have hate for people you love. Almost
every child hates their parents at some point in life. Sometimes they verbalize it, and are not as
subtle as little Bryan. Little Bryan
had just been punished, and he sat in silence at lunch. Finally he looked up and said, "God can
do anything He wants to can't He?"
"Yes dear," his mother replied, "God can do anything." Bryan looked up again and said, "God
doesn't have parents does He?" God
doesn't have parents, but He does have children, and that relationship also leads
to ambivalence. God knows the mixed
emotions of love and hate.
Way back in the fourth century St. Augustine described the
divine ambivalence. He wrote,
"Wherefore in a wonderful and divine manner, He both hated us and loved us
at the same time. He hated us, as being
different from what He had made us; but as our iniquity had not entirely
destroyed His work in us, He could at the same time in every one of us hate
what we had done, and loved what proceeded from Himself." The cross becomes the central focus of the
divine ambivalence. The cross is where
God's wrath and judgment were poured out, and Jesus bore the hatred of God for
man's sin. Yet the cross is where the
love of God is brightest, for there He gave His Son, and the Son gave His life
to atone for sin, and make it possible for all men to be forgiven, redeemed,
and reconciled to Him in love.
Never again, and no where else do we see the paradoxical
partnership of love and hate working together on so grand a scale. If God did not hate sin, there would be no
cross, and if God did not love the sinner, there would be no cross. The cross is a love-hate symbol of the
divine ambivalence. So what does this
mean for our emotional system? It means
we need to accept our own ambivalence, and not flea from it, or seek to
suppress it, as if it made us abnormal.
Accept ambivalence as part of what it means to be made in the image of
God, with the capacity to both love and hate.
If mates could see it is okay to hate those we love, they
would not let their hate destroy their love.
Love makes its highest investments in a mate. Love is a commitment of trust.
When that trust is violated,
or rejected, it is one of life's sharpest pains. It hurts for someone you love to be unloving, and that hurt, if
persistent, leads to hate. It does not
mean you cease to love the one you hate, for if you didn't love them it would
not hurt, and you wouldn't hate them.
The more you love the more you hurt when love is rejected, and so you
can hate most those you love most.
Christians, for example, almost never hate atheists. Most Christian hatred is directed toward
other Christians in the family of God, because they are hurt by other
Christians, and not unbelievers. You do
not expect an unbeliever to be loving, and so you can handle their
rejection. But when another Christian
rejects your love it is a hurt that can lead to hate. This explains why the worse wars are civil wars. They are battles of people who are close,
and should be loving. Family conflicts
are the most dangerous of all, because they are between people who love each
other, and thus, they generate the hottest hostility.
The dangers of the love-hate ambivalence can be controlled by
awareness of what is happening, and an understanding of the why. We
need to see these two opposites can be partners, and not feel the stress
of a civil war when we have them both together. We need to see that love and hate have more in common than we
realize. They are both hot emotions,
and you can be a flame with love, or a flame with hatred. Both are called passions that make the blood
boil. Water can't quench the fire of
love sang Solomon, and the burning fire of hatred can quickly turn
relationships to ashes.
Both of these are intense emotions that tend to want to
dominate the whole personality, and push out all other interests. Love and hate both long to consume the
object of their passion. They are so
different, so much alike, because they both are based on the same value system. Paul says to hate what is evil, and to cling
to what is good. The Greek word for
cling is the same root Paul used in Eph. 5:31 where we read, "For this
reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined unto his
wife." To cling to, or cleave to
the good is to love the good, and want to be one with it, as we in love long to
be one with our mate. Jesus used the same word as Paul uses here in Matt.
19:6. "For this reason a man will
leave his father and mother and be united to his wife." The words cleave, and cling to, and adhere
to, runs all through the Bible to refer to the strong desires to love others
and God.
If we are to cleave to, and strongly love others and God, and
the good, the true, and the beautiful, it follows, as night follows the day, we
must hate what destroys these values. You
must hate what is false, and what ruins relationships between yourself and
others. If the world we live in is a
world of good and evil, then a healthy and realistic emotional system must
experience both love and hate. If you
love anything, you must hate something, and if you hate anything, it is because
you love something. You cannot have the
one without the other.
Life is a mixture of good and evil, therefore, the balanced
life is one of mixed emotions. Ambivalence is not neurotic, but it is
normal. It is the mixture of opposites
that gives life balance. The reason you
can eat a dessert even after you can't eat another bite of the food you have
been eating is because it is different.
Your body can take on a little more because of the variety, but any more
of the same is intolerable. The
balanced Christian life is one where there is no fear of any emotion because
there is an awareness that variety gives life balance. Some hate is needed in a loving life to give
balance. Just as recipes call for
opposites to create a dish pleasing to the palate, so the recipe for the mature
Christian life calls for opposites to be pleasing to God. The salt and the sugar go into the dish as
partners. The sweet and the sour do
also, and so love and hate are the paradoxical partners that make the Christian
life a tasty treat to God.
We all know, however, that too much of a good thing can really
ruin the whole dish. Proportion is the
key. You cannot just drop a package of
pepper in a dish that calls for a spoon full.
Ingredients have to be measured to be compatible partners in making a
good dish. So it is with love and hate,
and all other emotions of life. God is
love, but also has hate. Love is the
dominant character of God's being. Hate
is only a part of his personality that
enables him to be realistic in relating to a fallen world. John 3:16 could have said, "God so
hated the sin of the world that He poured out His wrath on His Son that man
might escape it, and be saved."
That would be true, but that is not the way the good news is
communicated. It says, "God so
loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son." Love is the dominate motive of God's
will. His hate is always secondary, and
under the control of His love. When we
can combine these paradoxical partners in this same way, we will have the
balance necessary for mature Christian living.
Note that Paul in verse 9 surrounds the legitimate hate of the
believer with the dominate love. Love
keeps hate in bounds. It is okay to
hate as long as you cling to what is good.
You must refuse to let hate rob you of your key values that you
love. If hate makes you lose the values you are to cling to, it
becomes an evil, and not a partner of love.
It is okay to hate all kinds of things about those whom you love, just
as long as you go on loving them for their values. It is all right to hate the fact that your mate was so
conditioned by their upbringing that they cannot express affection the way you
desire. There are all kinds of defects
in all of us that are hateful, because they fall so far short of the
ideal. Feeling negative about this is
realistic, but it becomes a destructive evil when we do not promote love as the
senior partner in this pair of paradoxical partners.
The Bible makes it clear that every human being is worthy of
love, no matter how far they fall short.
It is a Christian obligation to see that even our enemies have value,
and are to be objects of love. It is
the task of love to see all that is truly hateful, and yet find a way to make
love the dominate motivation. Edwin
Markham put it so well in his poem.
He drew a circle that shut
me out,
Heretic, rebel, a thing to
flout,
But love and I had the wit
to win,
We drew a circle that took
him in.
You can hate who you will, for what you will, and be in the
center of God's will if you have a sincere love that strives always to cling
to, and cleave to what is good in that person.
You cannot be healthy without hate, but you cannot be happy unless your
hate is always an assistant to love.
Let hate dominate, and you will be a sick and sad person. It is not
enough to love flowers to be a good gardener. You must also hate weeds. But
pity the poor gardener who becomes so obsessed with fighting weeds that he no
longer has any time to enjoy flowers. This is what happens to those who allow
hate to become the senior partner, and dominate their life.
In the healthy personality, the love-hate partnership operates
with a proper balance in relationship to oneself. We all hate our own defects, weaknesses, and sins. We get disgusted with ourselves often, but
we also quickly forgive ourselves, and press on, because our self-love
dominates over our self-depreciation.
When we make an error on the road that causes the other guy to curse and
shout, we feel a sense of guilt for our mistake,
but it does not last long
because we are so understanding of our humanness. We quickly forgive ourselves, and get on with living. We take a great step upward in maturity when
we can do this same thing with others.
Love is the senior partner in this paradoxical partnership when we can
soon get hate calmed down so that love can make the key decision on how we will
respond to the folly of others.
The two key steps to developing a healthy emotional life are,
(1) Accept ambivalence- it is okay, and
even God like to have mixed emotions.
(2) Advance love-to the level of
senior partner. In other words, love is
to be the leader over all other emotions.
It is vitally important then that love be real, genuine, and
sincere. Love is the leader and it must
be authentic. Love is the key to all
the other emotions doing what they ought to do. That is why Paul begins this passage with the demand that love must
be sincere. We all know that anything
of great value tends to be counterfeited, and love is the highest value in the
world of emotions, and so man has developed many ways to fake it.
Mark Twain dedicated one of his books to John Smith. It was not because he had any affection for
a man by that name, but because he discovered it was the most popular name in
the country, and if everyone by that name bought his book, he would have a
decent profit. Deception in love is
common because people really believe all is fair in love and war. A French restaurant has come up with a
gimmick that enables a man to appear very loving and generous. When he and his partner come in, both are
given a menu, but his has the real prices.
Her menu has highly inflated prices, so that when he orders, she is
struck dumb by his elaborate generosity for her. Not knowing it is not genuine generosity she will supposedly be
deeply grateful to him for what she feels is sincere love. The world is full of this sort of thing, and
the Christian is not beyond playing the same game.
Love is the first fruit of the Spirit, and the highest
Christian virtue, but faking it is not legitimate. In fact, if you get good at faking it, you may never develop the
real thing. Nothing leads to
superficiality in relationships faster than those that are based on flowery
language alone. The Christian needs to
watch this in relationship to God, and not build up a vocabulary of high
sounding praise which does not represent his heart. God knows when love is mere lip service. He has had all of history to experience the
insincere. It does not take long for a
mate or a friend to also learn that your talk can be cheap. A Chinese proverb says, "Never praise a
woman too highly. If you stop, she'll
think you don't love her anymore; if you keep it up she'll think she's too good
for you."
Sincere love seeks to learn the need of the other person, and
meet that need. You don't go by
proverbs or other people's advice, or faking it for effect. You find the need and you meet it. If your mate does not like a lot of flattery
you cut it out. If they crave more, you
give more, because you chose to love and satisfy that need. Sincere love is like the love of
Christ. He saw man's deepest need and He
met it. Jesus said that the Good
Samaritan was an ideal example of loving your neighbor. He saw the need and he met it. It is sincere love that will keep legitimate
hate in its place, and prevent illegitimate hate from fulfilling its evil
intention.
John and Mary Edwards were driving along the New Jersey
Turnpike when they saw a young soldier thumbing a ride. They picked him up, and noticed he was very
sad and sullen. Mary began to talk
about her son who had also been in the service, and they invited him to come
and have lunch with them. They observed
a change of attitude, and he began to relax.
He told of his homesickness and frustration with army life. He began to smile. When they reached his destination, John pressed a folded ten
dollar bill into his hand, and a slip with their address saying, when you get
out of the army, come see me and I'll give you a job. The young man had tears in his eyes as he mumbled his thanks. Two weeks later the Edwards received a
letter from him. He told of how bitter
and resentful he was that day they met.
He was AWOL from the army, and was in a spirit of hatred for
everyone. He said he had made up his
mind to kill the first person who picked him up. You were the first, but you were so good and kind to me I
couldn't do it, so when you were not looking I took the bayonet out of my hand,
and slide it under the rear seat. You
will find it there, and they did.
Sincere love encountered bitter hate, and they were not
partners, but fierce foes. Love drove
hate from the field and won the battle because it tried sincerely to meet the
needs of that young man. They let him know that it is a world where people do
care, and there are values worth living for.
Love is stronger than hate, and when they are enemies, love is to be so
sincere that it will drive hate from the field defeated. But even when they are partners, love must
see to it that even though hate adds to the whole picture, it is always to be
the case that the ultimate goal is the goal of love.
When hate arises in your feelings, do not fear it, but call on
all the forces of love within you to surround it, and contain it, so that it
does not move you toward goals displeasing to God. Make sure it moves you to figure out how love can use the energy
of hate for its goals. This is the
Godlike and Christlike way to use these paradoxical partners.
WHEN OPPOSITES ARE THE SAME Based on Rom. 14:6
A cartoon pictures the door of an office in the central
government building of Moscow. The sign reads, Commissar for the
Electrification of all the Russias.
Underneath is a bit of paper on which is written, "Please knock‑bell
out of order." We can see the
humor in the great inconsistency of one who plans to bring electricity to everybody
else, but whose own bell is out of order.
It would be helpful if we could see it in ourselves as easily as see it
in others. The church is the only
organization on earth that claims to be able to set the bells of joy ringing in
every heart. Yet, the claim is often
mocked, because our own bell is out of order.
While we claim to be able to give light to all in darkness, our own
light often flickers, and even goes out.
Kenneth Slack said, "The world cannot believe claims which are
denied in the very body which makes them."
For example, in the early church there was a movement among
high caste Hindus in South India toward the Christian faith. They found Hinduism inadequate to meet the
challenge of modern knowledge. On the
very threshold of their baptism, however, they discovered that Christianity was
divided, and that if they united all over the country with various missionary
societies, they would find themselves in separated parts of the church, which
did not cooperate with one another.
They quickly drew back, for why, they asked, should we who were united
in paganism enter a new faith which is supposedly superior where we will become
divided, and less of a unity and brotherhood.
The church had said, "come to us, for we ring the bells of
reconciliation for all men." But
when they came, they saw the small print which told them that the churches own
bell was out of order, and they left.
This is the tragedy of a divided church. Is the solution a great giant of a church
with all denominations united? This is
like trying to make peace among all animals by putting them in a common
cage. They might be together, but
without bars they would still tear each other to pieces. No external plan can fulfill spiritual
ideals. The solution to the problem of
Christian unity is for Christians to learn to live according to Biblical
principles. It is folly to work for
conformity, which is unrealistic. It is
wisdom to give heed to Paul's clear teaching that opposites can be the same. Paul teaches that Christians can dwell in
unity even though they have opposite convictions. Eating meat, and not eating meat, are opposites. Keeping the Sabbath, and not keeping it, are
opposites. Yet, Paul says Christians
can be on each of these sides for the same reason; with the same motive, and
with the same result‑the glory of God.
When two men saw a log one pulls while the other one pushes,
and then they reverse. They are always doing the opposite thing from each
other, but all the time they are working together for the same end. T. DeWitt Talmage says this idea relates to
the church. He writes, "The
different denominations were intended, by holy rivalry and honest competition,
to keep each other wide awake. While
each denomination ought to preach all the doctrines of the Bible, I think it is
the mission of each more emphatically
to preach some one doctrine. The
Calvinistic churches to preach the sovereignty of God, the Arminian man's free
agency etc. ..." Each denomination
has its unique contribution to make.
If this be so, then it is Billy Graham and not his critics who
is on Biblical ground by cooperating with men of opposite convictions. Graham is operating on the Biblical principle that opposites can be the
same, that is, that men can have radically different views, but be equally
holding those views for the glory of God.
The critics object that some of the things believed by certain groups
are not Biblical. Paul is fully aware
that some Christians may be in error, but he clearly teaches here that a
Christian has the right to be sincerely wrong on non‑essential
issues. In fact, it is better to be
sincerely wrong on a non‑essential issue than to be indifferently
correct, for conviction is what counts in these areas.
Paul knew that the weak Christians were wrong in their
attitude on meat and certain days, but he recognized that if they were
persuaded in their own minds, they could practice their mistakes for the glory
of God. Is Paul saying, Christians can
be weak, and have strange, almost superstitious, convictions and practices, and
still be pleasing to God? That is
precisely what he is saying. I can
believe that parents can sincerely believe that having water sprinkled on their
child's head will make their salvation more probable. If they believe this, and do not have it done, they are guilty of
sin. Therefore, if they act on their
conviction, and do it, they are doing so to obey and please God. But if it is not objectively true that such
an act helps, is it still pleasing to God?
Just as pleasing as not eating meat when God really does not care if you
eat it or not.
It is hard for Christians to believe this paradoxical truth
that opposites can be the same. That is why so few Christians have a Biblical
attitude toward other Christians who hold opposite views. Paul paradoxical principle is just too
radical for most Christians. It means a
Christian can be right in being sincerely wrong. You can't be sincerely wrong about Jesus and still be right, but
you can on a multitude of other subjects.
It is, according to Paul, one of the privileges of Christian liberty to
risk making mistakes, either by being overly conservative, or by being overly
progressive. As long as one stops
within the bonds of doing all he does with a thankful heart, and with a desire
to please his master, he is free to make mistakes on minor matters, and take
positions opposite of other Christians.
Henry Ward Beecher, one of the greatest preachers America ever
produced, said, "There are many
who are called Christians in whom the kingdom of God is no bigger than a
thimble. There are men who have a few
ideas, who are orthodox, and who make no mistakes in theology, but woe be to
the man who does not make any mistakes.
Count the sands of the sea, if you can, without misreckoning....If you
have a huge bucket, and a pint of water in it, you will never make the mistake
of spilling the water, but if a man is carrying a huge bucket full of water he
will be certain to spill it." In
other words, if you stay in the shallow water of addition, you may always be
right, but greater is the adventure of launching out into the deep of
multiplication where the marvels and mysteries of God's majesty will leave your
finite mind open to the risk of mistakes.
Liberty is always dangerous.
The mistakes the strong Christians made in the Roman church
were mistakes of attitude toward the weak Christians, and Paul later teaches
them how to correct these mistakes. The
weak Christians, however, immediately object that the strong Christians not
only offend them by their opposite views and conduct, but they side with the
world against others of God's children.
This is why the principle of opposites being the same cannot hold water,
for what fellowship hath light with darkness.
No one can tell us that Christians can agree with non‑Christians
against other Christians, and still be doing it for the glory of God.
This sounds like a powerful argument against Paul's
paradoxical principle that opposites can be the same. As a matter of fact, however, it does not alter the principle at
all. It is only opposites among
believers that can be equally for the glory of God. Naturally, if an unbeliever takes a position opposite a believer,
he is not doing it for the glory of God.
Nevertheless, the unbeliever can hold a position that is held by a
believer. Some non‑Christians are
on the same side as Christians on almost all controversial issues. Non‑Christians oppose drinking,
immorality, drugs and pornography just as Christians do. Christians and non‑Christians stand
together on all kinds of issues. There
are Christians and atheists in both political party's.
The strong Christians in Rome were doing the same things as
the pagans. They bought they same meat,
and instead of closing up shop on the Sabbath with the Jewish Christians, they
work right along with the pagans. They
did so, however, not out of indifference, but out of conviction, and Paul says
their conduct, therefore, was pleasing to God, even though it conformed to
pagan conduct, and was opposite to that of other Christians.
You mean a Christian can take a position opposite of mine, and
one that may be held by unbelievers, and still be as pleasing to God as I
am? That is exactly what Paul is
saying, and John Wesley, a man whom God used to change the course of history,
practiced this principle of Paul. He
wrote, "Men may die without any opinions, and yet be carried to Abraham's
bosom, but if we be without love, what will knowledge avail? I will not quarrel with you about
opinions. Only see that your heart be
right toward God, and that you know and love the Lord Jesus Christ, and
love your neighbor, and walk as your
Master walked, and I ask no more. I am
sick of opinions."
But an objection arises from the legalist. It is no mere matter of opinion where the
law of God is concerned. God commanded
us to keep the Sabbath, and also to not eat meat offered to idols. I can be tolerant of other opinions, but how
can I tolerate open defiance of God's revealed law? If you say Christian liberty allows one to disregard the Sabbath,
then why not disregard all of the commandments to the glory of God? Again, a strong objection to Paul's teaching
when carried out to a logical conclusion.
The problem is the objector fails to distinguish between law and
evil. Evil is that which is in and of
itself opposed to God's nature. No
Christian can ever do evil and be pleasing to God.
Paul's principle can never be used to justify any evil in
thinking or in conduct. However, a law, even a law of God, is something that
can be arbitrary, and may not deal with something that is evil in itself at
all. A law can be changed or eliminated
with no offense to God's nature. There
is nothing inherently evil in traveling on the 7th day, or in gathering wood,
and any other work. Yet, it was a sin
punishable by death under the law. It
was not evil in itself, however, and so the law could be eliminated and what
was forbidden could then be allowed without allowing anything evil. The same was true with many Old Testament
laws.
Just is the case with laws of the land. Not all laws are against evil. They are often to regulate behavior for our
convenience, but if they are no longer helpful they can be eliminated. Therefore, according to Paul, if you are
convinced in your mind that God no longer holds you responsible to obey the law
of the Sabbath, and the laws regulating eating, you are free to disregard them,
and be as pleasing in his sight as those who still obey them. If this be true
concerning those things that are actually mentioned in Scripture, how much more
does it apply to areas that are not mentioned.
For example, can it be that the Episcopalian with his rigid formality,
and the Pentecostal with his near chaotic informality are both pleasing to
God? Who can doubt it, if they are both
convinced in their own minds that these ways of worship are the best.
If a man can eat meat offered to an idol which would be a sin
for the weak Christian to eat, and yet do it for the glory of God, who can deny
that Christians can do many things opposite from other Christians, and do them
for the glory of God? Newell sees here
a principle to be applied in many areas of life and writes, "Let those of
legal tendencies mark this: That a man
may regard not what we regard, and do so unto the Lord." Christians do and believe many things which
are opposite to what others do and believe, but if they do so with the
conviction they are pleasing to God, then their opposites are the same.
THE FOOLISHNESS OF THE CROSS Based on I Cor. 1:18-31
The mayor and other dignitaries were looking into the vast pit
dug for the new hospital to be built.
The town half-wit came up and gazed into the pit, and asked the mayor
what he was going to do with this big hole.
The mayor decided to humor him and said, "We are going to round up
all the fools in town and pile them in there." The half-wit thought a moment and then said, "Whose gonna be
left to cover um up?"
Even a half-wit knows that in some sense all men are fools,
but I have to confess I never really realized to what degree this is true until
I studied what the Bible says about fools and foolishness. The subject is so vast, and the evidence is
so overwhelming that only a fool would deny that all men are fools. This does not sound very nice, however, and
so it is wise for us to see there is a positive side to being a fool. So much so, that Paul in I Cor. 3:18 urges
Christians to be fools, and in 4:10 he says, "We are fools for
Christ."
To add to the paradox of being a Christian fool, Paul in this
passage of I Cor. 1:18-31 glories in Christian folly, and links almost
everything of Christian nobility to foolishness. He writes of the foolishness
of the cross; the foolishness of wisdom, and the foolishness of preaching, and
most shocking of all, for it seems to border on blasphemy, Paul even writes in
verse 25 of the foolishness of God.
Then he says in verse 27 that God chose the foolish things of the world
to shame the wise. And the foolish
things are the Christians.
So what it comes down to is this: All men are in some sense fools, but sense all are not fools in
the same way, we have to make a distinction between worldly fools and wise
fools. The worldly fools are those who feel so wise they have no need of light
from God. These fools say in their
hearts that there is no God. Man is the
measure of all things, and He determines His own destiny. They say science and human philosophy is all
we need to produce a utopia. We do not
need the Bible or God to create our own heaven.
The wise fool, in contrast, recognizes that human wisdom is so
limited, and so there is a need for wisdom from above. They are seeing as fools from the point of
view of the worldly fool. God, however,
sees them as wise, and so the two perspectives make them wise fools-that is
people who seem to choose foolishness and trust in foolishness, but because it
is the foolishness of God they are wise.
So what we have here is a study in relativity. The worldly wise who reject God's revelation are, in relation to
eternal truth, fools. Those, however,
who choose the way of God are seen as fools, in relation to the way of the
world,
but in fact, they are the
truly wise. Type one fools seem wise to
men, but are fools to God. Type 2 fools seems fools to men, but are wise to
God. So wisdom and folly are relative
to whose perspective you are seeing them from.
Paul's whole battle with the Corinthians was to get them to
stop being wise before the world and fools before God, and to reverse that to
being fools before the world, and wise before God. The goal of the Christian is to become a wise fool. The Corinthians were missing this mark
because they came from a long tradition of philosophers who had all the
answers. As Greeks they were considered
a wise people. The result was, the
church was in chaos because of all the pride of worldly wisdom. Some thought Paul was the best. Others that
it was Peter, and still others that Apollos was number one. Some said they were all wrong, and we follow
Jesus only. The church was divided
because, in their pride,they were deciding what was best. They were also picking and choosing the
gifts they felt were best. In pride
Christians can set themselves up as the judge of what is wise and what is
foolish, and in so doing they make their human judgment, rather than God's revelation,
the basis for their value
system, and this is folly.
If human reason is going to be the standard of judgment, then
the whole plan of God is nothing but foolishness, and nothing is more foolish
than the foolishness of the cross. Just
look at the evidence of its folly.
1. The innocent dying for the guilty.
2. The folly of having a way out and not taking it.
3. The folly of having power to destroy your enemy, but letting them
destroy you.
4. The folly of surrender to a foe you could easily conquer.
5. The folly of suffering when comfort and pleasure is at your
command.
6. The folly of having the power to do miracles, and yet do nothing.