FAVORITE PREACHERS

 Unfortunately, I Corinthians 1:12ff has been misused to produce an unnecessary guilt on the part of believers. Here's the text: 

"Now I exhort you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all agree and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be made complete in the same mind and in the same judgment.  For I have been informed concerning you, my brethren, by Chloe’s people, that there are quarrels among you.  Now I mean this, that each one of you is saying, “I am of Paul,” and “I of Apollos,” and “I of Cephas,” and “I of Christ.”

The way this text has been used by some Bible teachers to create guilt is that people come away with the idea that if they have a favorite Bible teacher from whom they learn and grow, that such is sinful.  But that's not what Paul is saying.

We all have a teacher or teachers from whom we learn and grow more than others. Granting that your list of teachers with whom you are familiar contains names of those who are accurate in doctrine, yet, if you have a favorite, the text is used to make you feel guilty. Again, that's not what Paul is saying. 

There might be a name on your list that, although he's on the mark in doctrinal matters, to you, he's boring, repetitious to a fault, or you can't concentrate because of some mannerism he has such as having to read his sermon and never making eye contact or he says "uh," "ah" over and over.  

But then there's one to whom you resonate. Maybe he comes from a background similar to yours, geographically, educationally, or vocationally. Maybe his sense of humor appeals to you. He's on the top of your list. Is that wrong? Sinful? That isn't the reason Paul is being critical of the Corinthians. 

We find what he's warning against in verse 10: "that there be no divisions among you." For the Jewish believers in the Corinthian church, Peter was at the top of their list perhaps because he was the apostle to the Jews--he was the apostle who wrote I Peter specifically for Jewish converts; but the Gentiles would put Paul at the top of their list because he was the apostle to the gentiles. 

The problem is that, as each group had its favorite, each group was making an issue out of it. They were quarreling. It's like we hear today from some believers: "Isn't _____________ your favorite teacher?" Then if you have someone else at the top of your list , they have nothing to do with you. But we all have our preferences and to have a preference isn't a sin, yet it's made out to be and they let it cause divisions.

We're not talking about refusing to listen to someone for legitimate reasons such as his doctrine isn't orthodox or because of his moral failures. The issue is that we aren't to cause divisions in the church by quarreling over sound teachers.

 

ST. WEIRD

 Some one wrote, “It is difficult to think clearly about Francis of Assisi.” 

 
However with Bible in hand, we can think biblically and therefore clearly about him and come to the conclusion that he fundamentally misunderstood the Bible and his misunderstandings led him into bizarre thoughts and deeds. Yet his weirdness brought him misguided admiration that has lasted down through the centuries. 

Francis was born in 1182 in Assisi, Italy. When people think of him, the first thing that comes to mind is that he preached to birds and tamed wolves. (There’s weird and not biblical.) As the record states, “As Francis and some companions were traveling through the Spoleto Valley in Italy, Francis noticed that a huge flock of birds had gathered in some trees beside a field. He saw that the birds were watching him as if they were expecting something. He decided to preach a sermon about God's love for them. Francis walked over to a spot beside the trees and began a sermon, "My sweet little sisters, birds of the sky, you are bound to heaven, to God, your Creator. . . .”

According to “Catholicism Pure and Simple, “Francis wondered aloud to his companions why he had never preached to birds before. And from that day on, Francis made it his habit to solicitously invoke all birds, all animals and reptiles to praise and love their Creator.” [Score another point for weirdness.]

Later in his life, he believed that Christ spoke to him three times from a crucifix: One day as he prayed in a run-down church, he said that he heard Christ repeat from the crucifix: "Francis, go repair My house, which, as you can see, is falling completely to ruin." Francis understood that he was to repair the church he prayed in, so he proceeded to sell family goods to raise money for repairs. [Score two points for weirdness.]

Then there was the time he stripped himself naked in front of a bishop and renounced his father, claiming God was his father. Then he walked out of the cathedral to become a hermit—to "be alone in solitude and silence," a biographer noted, "to hear the secrets which God could reveal to him."[The points are adding up.]

One day he heard a sermon from the book of Matthew, "Take no gold or silver or copper in your wallet, no bag for your journey, nor two tunics or sandals or a staff." He took it literally and began an itinerant life.

Abandoning his own wealth, Francis determined that there must be no man anywhere poorer than he. No matter what rags Francis might be wearing, if he met a beggar dressed even worse, Francis would remove his own clothing and give it to the beggar. [His problem here is a modern one—the Matthew text is a description of what the disciples were to do on that occasion, not a prescription of what we are to do.]

In winter, he often threw himself in a ditch full of ice and stayed there until all sinful temptations departed. To avoid lust, he fixed his gaze on the sky or ground whenever he spoke with a woman.

 
One other oddity: Francis loathed laughing or idle words. He didn’t laugh, and he didn’t want to give others any reason to laugh. [At this point, I've lost count.]

Yet, this is the man whom Protestants and Catholics have admired. Go figure.

SQUEEZING

 The Jewish fellow had a burning question for which he needed to know the answer: "Can I go swimming on the Sabbath?" He was so obsessed with knowing the answer that he wrote to an authoritative Jewish website to learn the answer. The answer was amazing. Read on.

According to the Mishnah, (the authoritative collection of material embodying the oral tradition of Jewish law) the obedient Jew cannot go swimming on the Sabbath and it defines swimming as "lifting both feet from the ground and floating on or treading water." 

The Talmud (the body of Jewish civil and ceremonial law) says that the reason for that decree is because swimming could lead to building some sort of flotation device to help someone learn to swim which is forbidden on the Sabbath. 

But wait--the prohibition not only applies to swimming in a body of water similar to a lake or pond, it also includes a man-made pool of water, if, when a person swims in it, he's likely to cause some water to overflow the pool, which will then run into rivulets and pools, resembling a pond or lake. There have been many an argument over what constitutes a "rimmed" pool which would, therefore, keep water from overflowing. An unrimmed pool would not be able to do so.

In addition, there are other considerations: Since swimming implies the wearing of a swim suit, this apparel might lead to violating the prohibition  of squeezing  out water from it. But that's not the only thing to be concerned about--if it's extremely hot, a person would be allowed to immerse himself in a rimless pool (it must contain cool water) without swimming if there's no squeezing of the swim suit afterwards. 

But what if, for medical reasons, the questioner has to swim on the Sabbath? The answer was in three parts: "Consult your rabbi and if he approves, use a private pool and take the necessary precautions so prevent  squeezing." 

During Christ's earthly ministry, He confronted the same thing (Matthew tells us in 15:1-20).
The angry religious leaders said that Jesus and his disciples had violated the “traditions of the elders” as if those traditions were authoritative and could be sinned against. These traditions were still in oral form in Jesus’ day, but were written down a two centuries later in what. became the Mishnah.

 What was going on in Jesus' day and what's still going on today is that the traditions of men had been and continue to be elevated to the status of Scripture, so that a person could be guilty of violating them. Many groups today have their “biblical” views, and to violate them means facing anger, criticism or expulsion from the group. 

What we often don't see is that, Jesus, knowing of these traditions of the elders deliberately broke them and allowed or instructed His students to do so. This infuriated the religious leaders. 

Sound familiar?

It's a very serious matter to replace the true meaning of the Word of God with traditions. Traditions can be helpful, but they can crowd out the basic biblical standards. We don't have to look far to see that the attitude of these teachers appear in our churches. 

So many traditions have grown up over the centuries that many of them are regarded as sacred. They remain untouchable, unquestioned. We can become more concerned that people might violate our man-made rules for the running of the church, the institutions of baptism and communion, or the set of rules that our particular group follows in the name of being spiritual, than we are about righteousness. We can spend far more time getting physically ready for church than we do preparing the heart. If we aren't careful, these traditions quickly achieve biblical status, and we might even forget what the Word of God actually says about some of those things we do. 

Dr. Allen Ross writes a note of caution: "Before we come down too hard on the Pharisees for focusing on externals and outer show, we need only to remind ourselves that week in and week out we spend far more time getting the outer body ready for church than we do the heart."

That Jewish questioner, what about him? He's trying to bear an unbearable yoke (cf. Acts 15), now learning that he must not only be concerned with swimming of the Sabbath, but also with man-made pools, rimmed or unrimmed, sloshing water, not squeezing water out of a swim suit, what his rabbi decides, and potential medical reasons for swimming.

Yet, Christ's invitation echoes through the ages, "Come unto Me and I will give you rest." 

 

A POEM FOR PORTLAND

Portland, Oregon rioters followed the lead of a king (Jehoiakim), the lead of the the French Revolution, and the lead of university students in Nazi Germany.

On April 8, 1933, the Main Office for Press and Propaganda of the German Student Union proclaimed a nationwide "Action against the Un-German Spirit," which was to climax in a literary purge, or "cleansing" by fire. The burning of works by Jewish authors, and Jewish literature, took precedence over everything else.

In Germany, on May 10, 1933, a book-burning of more than 25,000 volumes was presided over by the most intellectual of the Nazi leaders, Dr. Joseph Goebbels. It was broadcast on the radio for all to hear. But it didn't stop with secular books; in November 1938, Torah scrolls were burned inside 237 burned synagogues in Germany and Austria. Torah scrolls are copies of God's Word and cost a large amount of money for a Jewish synagogue to have and hold.

A German author whose books were burned made a famous prophecy: "Where they burn books, they will also burn people."

AMERICAN REACTION

Back in 1938, Yale University's head librarian, Professor Andrew Keogh, yawned and said, "European book burnings are never so serious as the newspapers make them out to be." The book and Bible burnings were seen by Americans back then in newsreels in the movie theaters, newsreels in which the narrator dismissed  the burnings as "student pranks." But the world would soon learn that the Nazis weren't pranksters out for a little harmless fun.

THE MOTIVATION FOR THE FLAMES

Enter Portland, Oregon. At midnight recently in Portland, they burned a Bible. Listen to Rabbi Abraham Cooper:

"The burning of the Bible is different [than destroying any other book]. Bible burners want to eradicate the truths which have provided believers with pillars of hope and faith, and which have inspired even non-believers to pursue a just and compassionate world.

"This is why the Bible has always been attacked by the Hitlers, the Stalins, the Maos—and yes, the Xis and the Kims of the world.

"Totalitarian regimes have always understood that their control could never be total so long as God's word was in the way."

Israel's King Jehoiakim knew God's word was in the way, so he threw Jeremiah's scroll into the fire; the leaders of the French Revolution  knew it because their revolution, unlike the American one, was, according to Os Guiness, “expressly anti-biblical, anti-Christian, anti-religious, and anti-clerical.” The Bible must go and unaided human reason take its place. The result: the guillotine came down on an estimated 40,000 people during the French Revolution.

We see the motivating idea in places high (CNN) and low (rioters) as reflected by commentator

Chris Cuomo who told his viewers: "God did not do that [bring the numbers of cases of the virus down]. Faith did not do that. Destiny did not do that. A lot of pain and suffering did that...That's how it works. If you believe in one another and if you do the right thing for yourself and your community, things will get better in this country.  You do not need help from above. It's within us."

There we have it, the adaptation of the philosophy of the Greek Protagoras who's famous for his claim that "Of all things the measure is Man," an aphorism in direct opposition to Christianity.

In all of this, the following poem might be dedicated to the rioters in Portland:

"Last eve I paused beside a blacksmith's door

And heard the anvil ring the vesper chime;

Then, looking in, I saw upon the floor

Old hammers worn with the beating years of time.

"`How many anvils have you had,' said I,

`To wear and batter all these hammers so?'

`Just one,' said he; then said with twinkling eye,

`The anvil wears the hammers out you know.'

"And so, I thought, the anvil of God's word

For ages skeptic blows have beat upon,

Yet, though the noise of falling blows was heard,

The anvil is unharmed-the hammers gone."

Christ has the last word: “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.”.