From the Pastor |
Mr. Whitson taught sixth-grade science. On the first day of class, he gave the students a lecture about an interesting creature called the cattywampus, a nocturnal animal that was wiped out during the Ice Age. He passed around a skull as he talked. The students all took notes and later had a quiz.
When he returned the papers, the students were SHOCKED to see a big red X through each answer. Everyone in the class had failed. There had to be some mistake! What happened? “It is very simple,” Mr. Whitson explained. “I made up all the stuff about the cattywampus. There has never been any such animal. The information in your notes was, therefore, incorrect. Do you expect credit for incorrect answers?” Needless to say, the class was pretty upset by this… “You should have figured it out,” Mr. Whitson said. “After all, at the very moment I was passing around the cat skull, I told you that no trace of the animal remained?” He had described its amazing night vision, the color of its fur and any number of other facts he couldn't have known. He had even given the animal a ridiculous name, and they still hadn't been suspicious. They all failed because not one student had questioned anything about it… Mr. Whitson taught his class a valuable lesson. Ask questions? Don’t assume that simply because someone else says something is true that it is. Ask questions… learn the answers for yourself. There were so many times that Jesus made his listeners think and reflect and come up with their own answers to their questions. In fact, quite often he would answer a question posed to him by asking a question in return… (Don’t you hate when people do that?) Today’s Gospel reading is one such occasion… prior to one of the most popular parables of the New Testament, the Parable of the Good Samaritan, we find an intriguing Q&A session between Jesus and an expert on religious law. The lawyer begins the conversation by asking “Teacher… what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Instead of simply answering, Jesus responds with questions of his own. “What is written in the law? What do you read there?” Jesus is not wanting to know what the man has “read”… but what he understands… what he knows is the truth in the scriptures? The lawyer offers his interpretation by quoting the Law of Moses from Deuteronomy and Leviticus. “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” Jesus replies “You have given the right answer;[now] do this, and you will live.” Easy Peasy! Jesus does not create some new rule… he did not change the path that was set forth in the Hebrew Scriptures. For as the scriptures said… the perfect love of God and of our neighbor leads to the perfection of righteousness. The answer is right there in the sacred scriptures. The Laws found in the Old Testament do indeed give people the rules by which they must live their lives, in order to obtain salvation in the sight of God… but honestly, can anyone really perform to the standard the Law requires… I mean, after this exchange, Jesus goes on to show exactly what the law “requires” with the Parable of the Good Samaritan. The Law requires loving God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength… and loving our neighbors as ourselves … ALL of our neighbors… EVERY. SINGLE. ONE… even those we disagree with; even those who are our enemies… Who here can say they are successful in that each and every day? NOBODY? WOW we might be some trouble here. Thankfully, although Jesus came to teach us the true meaning of the God’s Laws… to demonstrate them and put them into the proper practice, he also came to share God’s great love… and now through Christ we have scriptures that assure us of salvation through faith… we have the New Testament. Through the Gospel, we find the truth of God’s Grace. God calls us to repent of our failures in loving God and our neighbors. He calls us to trust that God will forgive us when we fail to live the Law of Love. “What is written in the law? What do you read there?” Jesus asked the “lawyer”, and, he asks that same question of each one of us, too. “What is written in the Bible? What do you read there?” The fact that Jesus asks these questions tells us a great deal. First, there is the understanding that we can find the true answer to the question of what must be done to inherit eternal life in the Bible. We find that although we are called to live the law of love… salvation comes through faith by the grace of God. Second, we study scripture to find direction in our lives. The Bible is the inspired Word of God. It is God’s Instruction Book to humankind. It answers every important question in life. It explains how to live—and reveals the road to salvation. And third, much like the lesson taught by Mr. Whitson, every person is responsible for reading and learning the answer for him/herself. Studying the scriptures is important because prepares us for and is a prerequisite to receiving our own personal revelation of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit won’t bring us understanding if we are not looking for the answers. The Bible, both the Old and New Testaments, is the revelation of God given for us. It is the rule we have for life. It is the standard for behavior. It is the only authority. When the Bible speaks, it is the voice of God. This is why it is very important for every Christian to learn what the Bible says. Not simply to repeat what they have been told, or accept another’s word as truth. Unfortunately, reading the Bible is challenging to say the least. Understanding the context, the intricate cultural meanings and historical anomalies is daunting enough, and easily misunderstood and twisted. This problem has been seen throughout history… scripture has been used over and over again to rationalize and support horrible atrocities. The Bible has been quoted to support wars, genocide and slavery. Charles Manson used scripture to support his actions. Most recently, it was quoted by a member of our own UMC to support the separation of families at our southern border. A person can usually find a verse within scripture that can be used to support just about ANY idea or want. The thing we need to remember is that when Bible verses are taken out of context and become contrary to both the Gospel message and the Law of Moses which state “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself” then something is wrong. Even Peter knew this to be true when he wrote: “There are some things in [Paul’s letters] that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures.” (2 Peter 3:16b) Every Christian needs to study God’s Holy Word for themselves. Not simply a few select verses… but the entire Book. We need to look at both the Old and New Testaments and how they fit together to reveal God’s Law AND God’s Grace because the two go hand in hand. Do not simply read the Bible… investigate it… reflect upon it… discover how it fits in around God’s “Law of Love” that makes up the greatest of all commandments. To be sure, the objective one true message of all our scriptures is consistently clear, both about the demands of the law and the gracious gift of the Gospel... The question is, do we simply read the Bible? Or, are we learning what scripture truly says so that we might understand and obey God’s word fully? Do you know and understand what the “Good Book” says… or do you simply trust what you’ve been told? The question is not, can we “correctly understand the Word of God?” The question is, will we do the hard work necessary so we can present ourselves to God as those who have learned and reflected… those who have been tried and tested, unashamed, because we have done our best to handle God’s Word well, striving both to understand it and live it out? Those ready to look at the Lord and answer the question: “What is written in [scripture]? What do you read there?” NOTE: Mr. Whitson Story by David Owen - Adapted from Reader's Digest April 1991
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Yeon Shin
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