Skating on Thin Ice

"The person who speaks to this hour's need will always be skirting the edge of heresy, but only the person who risks these heresies can gain the truth"  -  Helmut Thielicke

Jesus was a risk taker but when it comes to Christian theology, Christians are to play it safe and are certainly not to be innovative or say something different than what theologians in the past have said.
Much like modern Christian commentaries that plagiarize and copy off each other, so should modern Christians stay within the boundaries of orthodoxy.  Certainly staying within the parameters of ancient wisdom is good but what if some of what modern Christian Bible Colleges and Seminaries are teaching these young intellectuals more concurs with conventional wisdom of Christendom than what God or His Word actually teaches us?  It's not that what Christian schools or churches is saying in necessarily wrong but it is often backwards and that's a big problem.  Here are some things I was taught that I have had to unlearn as I read Scripture or listen to the voice of the Holy Spirit.

1.  The physical world proves the spiritual world.  Things like water, food, exercise, and changing seasons of the year correlate to things like the Holy Spirit is living water, reading and digesting the Bible is like spiritual food, spiritual disciplines exercises our spiritual muscles and grows the inner person, and there are spiritual seasons to go through just like the different seasons we go through in a year.  But the physical world does not prove the spiritual world as if the spiritual world is a shadowy vapor of the real physical world but the real world is the world of the Spirit and this earthly existence is the shadow of that reality (See Hebrews 8:4-5; 9:23-24).

2.  God is self-sufficient and does not need us or anything else.  It is true that God can do anything God wants to do and God does not depend on the world that God created and lives in perfect community within the beauty of the Trinity.  Often theology tries to protect God but if there is something God does not need, God does not need our theologies and our protection.  God is perfectly capable of protecting oneself without needing our help.  And what does it really say to people that "God doesn't really need you."  Obviously there is something within God that needs to create, needs to love, needs to call into existence because that is what God does.  We need God and God needs us because that is what love does.  We depend on God as if everything depends upon God and God depends on us for fruitful living.

3.  We are human beings seeking spiritual experiences with God.  If there is one thing that Scripture keeps pointing us towards are heavenly realities and spiritual truths.  God's Spirit speaks to our spirit because we are spiritual beings having a human experience.  People have confused their worldly attachments and many illusions of this world onto their identity as if doing things make us become what God wants us to become.  We have twisted, complicated, and turned things around so badly where God simply wants us to be who we truly are and from our being and true self leads to what we should be doing.

4.  God wants to have first place in your life.  Prepare yourself but first place is not enough for the God who made, designed, and created you.  God does not love you with an everlasting love just to be first among many loves in your life.  God wants the only place in your life.  This does not mean you can not have other loves and other interests.  What it does mean is once you have given God the only place in your life, your love becomes multiplied and your creative interests become innumerable.

5.  God wants us to burn out rather than rust out.  This conventional wisdom found often in the church is exactly what leads to much exhaustion, burnout, and instability in the ministry.  We are trying so hard to work for God, others, and the world that we do not take care of our own health much less our souls in the process.  God wants us to love ourselves if we are going to love our neighbor.  God wants us to live sacrificially but it is on God's terms and God's power and not on our own success driven mentality and unrealistic demands of church ministry today.

6.  Adam and Eve fell in the garden because they wanted to be like God.  The early church fathers and even scripture itself infers that we are like God.  The desire to be in God's likeness is not a bad desire.  The reason Adam and Eve fell in the garden is they wanted to be like God without God.  And herein is the same problem that persists today.  People want to be like God on their own terms and without God.  In other words, they want to be their own God without submitting to God who is Sovereign and rules over all.  It is only God who make us truly like God.

7.  God does God's part and we are to do our part.  There is some smuggled form of works righteousness when we think God's part ends and our part begins.  The whole Christian existence is a life of grace.  It starts with grace, is sustained by grace, and ends in grace.  Even when we do good works, the work we do is not from our self but from the gift of God's grace and Spirit working within us. Even when we have done what should be done, all we can do is praise God and give God the glory for God does the good work in us and for us to accomplish God's good purposes.