Mark's Letters

G. K. Chesterton said, “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been tried and found difficult.” I think this is true of church too. Church is hard. The church is God’s tumbler where God throws together those he has gathered and lets them rub each other the wrong way until beautiful.

When I polish agates in my tumblers, I will run them for days on a coarse grit and then open up the cans and wash all the grit off, put a finer grit in and start them tumbling again. Often I feel this way about church. Just when I think this friction is over and I have matured enough to love unselfishly, the tumbling and grinding starts again.

After years in the church, seeing the good, bad, and ugly—I understand why Paul was always urging early Christians to be loving, forgiving, forbearing, and patient with one another. If we aren’t, we would jump out of the tumbler and back into the world.

Small churches are often the best tumblers because people can’t just hang-out with people who share their interests and lifestyle. In small churches the rich and poor, educated and uneducated, and Republicans and Democrats must rub shoulders. In our little church, young folks have to get along with old folks. It creates a good friction that tests our love and polishes our character.

When my agates have gone through  the final polish, I wash them and enjoy the smoothness of each stone. I hold each up to the light and marvel at the beauty as the sun shines through.

Motivational speakers have always been popular in evangelical churches. The gospel of positive thinking blends easily with the American tradition of self-reliance, self-improvement, and rugged individualism. We see ourselves as a nation that has pulled itself up by its own boot-straps. Even from pulpits, we have been urged to have a can-do-it attitude.

Certainly Paul testified, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” To make this message more marketable we sometimes leave out the “through Christ” part and just focus on the importance of believing we can do all things.  It is true that a positive attitude can be a great help in achieving one’s goals. At games we see fans waving “We believe” signs.

But too often this kind of positive thinking leads to positive arrogance and self-congratulation. Like players winning championship games, we often take center court and raise our finger indicating we are number one.

Instead of a can-do-it attitude, I think we need a conduit attitude. I want to be conduit for God’s grace, love, and power. Being a conduit guards our hearts from pride and ego- centricity. A conduit attitude guarantees that it is God—not us—that touches the lives of the people around us. When grace flows freely through us, our life also becomes a conduit for praise flowing back to God.

When Paul goes to Athens, he ends up preaching at the Areopagus (the Hill of Mars), a place surrounded by idols and altars dedicated to various gods. Spotting an altar dedicated to the unknown god, Paul proceeds to tell them about the God who created all things.

What he didn’t do is instructive. He didn’t knock down the idols, or even spend a lot time railing against idol worship. He did argue that the Athenians “ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and thought of man.” Some sneered, but others believed and joined with them. However, the Athenian’s last words were, “We shall hear you again concerning this.”

However, we do find many times in the Old Testament when God’s servants are cutting down the idols. After he was visited by God, Gideon and his men pulled down altars to Baal and Asherah, cut them up, and offered a burnt offering to God. All of this is done before the amazing battle of Gideon’s three hundred. In fact, it may have been a precondition of victory.

So should Christians be tearing down idols like Gideon or wading into the midst of idolatry and proclaiming the gospel like Paul? Are we living in Athens or Israel? Because Christians are confused about this, we make the mistake of engaging in cultural and political wars  against the American idolatry. We bemoan our nation’s drift from God as though we lived in theocratic Israel. We are ready to use Gideon’s axe against Athens’ idols. The result is that few unbelievers say to Christians what was said to Paul, “We shall hear you again concerning this.”

Despite the rich Christian heritage of the United States, we are not a Christian nation and never have been. We live in Athens, and go to church in Israel. And it is within the church that we need to be laying the axe to idols: pride, materialism, ethical relativism, selfishness, individualism, and even church tradition. Too often we get this backward and indignantly crusade against the idols of Americans—and they have many–while tolerating greed, sin, and personal ambition within the church.

And were the church more zealous about cleansing itself of idolatry, more of those in Athens might have ears to hear the good news.

A few Sundays back our Sunday School class looked at the life of Joseph: sold into slavery by his brothers, accused by Potiphar’s wife, thrown into prison, forgotten in prison, released from prison, made the second in charge of all Egypt, and his reconciliation with his brothers. The lesson book said that from a human standpoint that prison seemed like the worst place for Joseph, but from a divine perspective Joseph was in the best place.

I suggested that we can’t know it was the best place for Joseph in any absolute sense. If we assume God’s absolute control of everything and everyone, then we can, indeed, say God always does what is best and whatever happens is always for the best. This places every human decision to sin under the control and providence of God. It’s all good.

This means that not only was Joseph always in the best place, but Reuben was in the best place when selling his brother and lying to his parents. Of course, this comes close to making God the author of evil or making the accomplishing of God’s perfect plan dependent upon the sins of Joseph’s brothers.

Could God have worked out his plan for Joseph without his brothers’ sinning? If we say no, we limit God. And God’s best for us should never depend on the sins of others. It seems safe to say sin is never God’s will.

What is true is that a loving and powerful God took the regrettable and sinful actions of Joseph’s brothers and turned them to good. Would God’s will have been thwarted if Reuben had acted righteously? No. God is powerful and resourceful enough to work his plan without the help of sin. Within the confines of human sin and decisions, God did what was best for Joseph. But it would have been better if no one had sinned. And I really doubt that anyone acting righteously ever thwarts God’s plans.

The sins of others are never good in some grand providential way—they are always evil and hurtful. Jacob mourned for Joseph for years and Rachel died believing her son had been torn apart by wild animals. This suffering was not a necessary part of God’s plan. What we see, however, is that God works his will despite our sin—never because of it.

Perhaps I am “splitting hairs” as someone is my Sunday school class insisted. From my perspective, I am defending the righteousness and resourcefulness of God. God is holy and never needs our sin to accomplish his will. God is resourceful enough to accomplish his will despite people sinning, but He is also resourceful enough to accomplish his will without us sinning.

I certainly admit that I may be in over my head in these deep theological waters. Or am just splitting hairs? What do you think?