We’ve all had the experience and it’s a turn-off. It goes
like this: we ask a question of some expert-know-it-all and his answer turns us
off because it’s too smooth, too pat, to glib, too superficial. Whatever our
problem is, his answer makes it sound as if it’s no problem at all. His answer
comes across as, “You’re stupid; I’m smart.”
We weigh his answer in the balances and find it wanting; it
doesn’t fit real life—the question and the answer are more complicated than
he’s making them out to be because life is more complicated than he’s making it
out to be.
This is an occupational hazard with pastors. Their solutions
come packaged in three bullet points or six steps. They tell us in 30 minutes
or less that if we just follow the three points or do the steps, whatever the
problem is, lo and behold, it’s solved. All is neat and tidy, no loose ends, no
ifs, ands, or buts.
Books on the Christian family are also chief offenders
because they make it sound like raising children and building a good marriage
are a snap, like a walk in the park. They aren't because we're dealing with fallen humanity here, a collection of sin natures in close quarters.
THE STATLER BROTHERS
But as Warren Wiersbe points out, life isn’t lived by an
outline. Life is messy; Our sins and the sins of others complicate our lives.
Things aren’t as simple as an outline makes them. The outline, the steps are
simple, but when the steps collide with life, things can get complex. As the
Statler Brothers sang, “Things get complicated when you get past 18.” But we
pretend they don’t.
SHOT IN THE FOOT
And this is where we sabotage evangelism, shoot ourselves in
the foot--when a person asks us a difficult question and we answer as if his
question can be dismissed quickly—if he’ll just listen to us.
Let’s take a real life scenario: somebody asks a question about
the Trinity. We take the normal course and use the illustrations of water which
can be liquid, ice, or steam, or an egg (shell, yolk, white) or a person (wife,
mother, teacher). Really? Hold on. The explanation of the Trinity isn’t that
simple.
The doctrine of the Trinity isn’t like one person’s being a
wife, mother, and teacher because the Trinity of the Bible is three separate
and distinct Persons, each possessing the same attributes as the other. The
wife-mother-teacher metaphor was rightly condemned as heresy hundreds of years
ago because it’s Unitarianism. The egg and water illustrations won’t hold up
because when ice is steam or water, it doesn’t have the same attributes of ice
and the yolk doesn’t have the same characteristics of the white of the egg or
the eggshell. Neither have the attributes of the other.
WE SOUND SO SUPERCILIOUS
We’re claiming to be able to explain something that’s unexplainable
and that’s a turn-off because the other person knows we’re being superficial
and dismissive; we come across as arrogant.
Many great biblical thinkers, theologians one and all, have
wrestled with the doctrine of the Trinity and the outcome was like Jacob at
Peniel. (Cf. Gen. 32:22-31)
Dr. Lewis Sperry Chafer writes about the Trinity,
The fact that there are three
Persons in One is a revelation which belongs to the sphere of Heaven's perfect,
understanding (1 Cor. 13:12), and while we can now believe and receive all that
God has said to us, these truths cannot be compressed into the limited sphere
of human understanding.
The Trinity is a doctrine beyond the scope of man’s finite
mind. It lies outside the realm of natural reason or human logic. Dr. Walter Martin
pointed out:
No man can fully explain the
Trinity, though in every age scholars have propounded theories and advanced
hypotheses to explore this mysterious biblical teaching. But despite the worthy
efforts of these scholars, the Trinity is still largely incomprehensible to the
mind of man.
The reason for this is that the Trinity is beyond logic. It cannot
be made subject to human reason. Because of this, opponents of the doctrine
argue that the idea of the Trinity must be rejected as untenable. This
objection, however, makes man’s corrupted human reason the sole criterion for
determining the truth of divine revelation.
John Wesley, who had a way with words, said, “Bring me a
worm that can comprehend a man, and then I will show you a man that can comprehend
the triune God.”
It follows from all this that we
cannot and should not expect to understand the Bible exhaustively. If we could,
the Bible would not be divine but limited to human intelligence. A very
important idea comes out of this, something over which many non-Christians and
even Christians stumble: Since the Bible is an infinite revelation, it often
brings the reader beyond the limit of his intelligence.
FOUNDATIONAL
B. B. Warfield gave a balanced and concise biblical
definition of the Trinity when he wrote: “There is one only and true God, but
in the unity of the Godhead there are three coeternal and coequal Persons, the
same in substance but distinct in subsistence.”
However limited our human minds are, the doctrine of the
Trinity is foundational to Christianity. We can see why it’s important—because
without the revelation of the truth of the Trinity we would have a lonely God,
not sufficient within Himself, needing man. Without the Trinity, we have no grounding
for love and communication.
Yet when we’ve reached the limits of our intelligence, Tony Kritz
suggests we be honest with the questioner and say, “These ideas are so beyond
me that if God did reveal them to me, I am pretty sure my brain would
explode."
That would be honest evangelism, honest conversation, and
the result would be, more often than not, that the questioner would realize
that he’s talking to a person who speaks on the up and up, authentically, and
with humility.
And maybe he’d want to hear more.
TO BE CONTINUED
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