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You're So Vain; You Probably Think The Bible's About You

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I hope we get the point. THIS is what modern Christianity has devolved into. People who fancy themselves Christians pack into stadiums every Sunday to hear how great they are. How much God wants to bless their socks off. How they are all that and a bag of chips. No confrontation with the real Gospel. No discussion of sin and the need for a savior. No picking up the cross and following Him. No leaving it all behind to follow Him. Heck, no following Him! In this theology God is following us around asking what else He can do for us!

While this problem stems from the compromises pastors are willing to make to build a purpose driven church, the hermeneutical problem lies in how we approach Scripture. The seeker friendly and new generation pastors approach the Bible to try and make it relevant to the listener. In other words, how can I make the story of King Saul and the Amalekites relevant to Bob the electrician or Mary the homemaker? This is going to be unsettling for many but the Bible is not about you. It is not about me. It is about Jesus. We are not David staring down the Goliaths of our lives with five smooth stones of faith. The storm on the Sea of Galilee was an actual storm; not a word picture of the latest challenge we face requiring us to step out of the boat. We are not Joseph waiting to go from the prison to the palace. We are not Ruth waiting for our Boaz. We are not Lazarus waiting to be called forth. These types of usages are known as allegories.

Well what's is wrong with allegorizing the text? In a vacuum? Nothing is wrong with it. You can be motivated, inspired, or even moved to tears. There are two primary problems however for us as church going believers. The first deals with the primacy of Jesus Christ. When we make the story of David and Goliath to be about us, we miss what God actually wants us to see and hear. We miss the point. David is actually a type of Christ. He is a foreshadowing of our Savior to come. He was a shepherd. He was anointed to be king. Even when suiting up to face the giant, he could not use the weapons of Saul, this world, because he "had not tested them." Even in victory we should see the cross:

So David triumphed over the Philistine with a sling and a stone; without a sword in his hand he struck down the Philistine and killed him. - 1Samuel 17: 50 (NIV)

And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.- Colossians 2: 13-15 (ESV)

Without a sword he triumphed over Goliath. Without a sword He triumphed over sin and the devil. To make this story to be about us is to miss the entire point that God is trying to make. Can you use allegory successfully in preaching? Absolutely as long as you do not miss the point. As long as the sermon is about Him. Always about Him.

The second problem however is that as Matt Chandler once preached - what if you miss? The true story about David is one of dependence upon God. He has faith because of what God had already delivered him from in the past. He views Goliath as an "uncircumcised Philistine" to remind himself that the giant is not under covenant with God. We can know these truths yet still be led to think that we need to choose the five stones. We need to approach the giant when the mighty men of Israel were cowering. Like we need to "step out of the boat" - we need to employ the slingshot of faith. The question again from Pastor Chandler is sobering. What if we miss? Because when you allegorize this text and we become David and our problem becomes Goliath; exactly where is God in that equation? If we are viewing the trouble in our marriage as our Goliath and we try and try but it does not seem to be getting better then eventually we will doubt. We may question our own faith, our own slingshot. The truth is that this view shackles us. When we run out of stones and the giant is still standing - where do we go from there?

Here is another hard nugget of theology for today. Sometimes the giant wins. Sometimes he is not slain with a pebble. The Apostle Paul faced trial after trial after trial. Were his stones not smooth enough? Of course not. The reality is that God is sovereign and the bless me theology of everything always being puppies and rainbows is simply unbiblical. Sometimes there is suffering. Intense suffering. Life long suffering. Maybe living in this country clouds our discernment of these matters. Think about the Christians living in persecution around the world. Martyred for refusing to renounce their faith in Jesus Christ. Do we honestly think they somehow had deficient faith? That if they had just stepped out of the boat they could have had their best life now? If only they had picked their five smooth stones they could have slain that giant that was blocking their blessings? No beloved. Here are the words of God through the Apostle Peter:

Therefore, beloved, since you are waiting for these, be diligent to be found by him without spot or blemish, and at peace. And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures.You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, take care that you are not carried away with the error of lawless people and lose your own stability. But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen. - 2Peter 3: 14-18 (ESV)

This is the closing of his letter. In it however are invaluable teachings for us to remember today. The preceding context shows that what we are waiting for as believers here is the second coming of Christ. We ought to be diligent to be what? Found in a church? Found in a ministry? Found in a purpose? No. Found in Him. He is His Word. We ought to be found in His Word. That is how we strive towards being unblemished and unspotted by this world. Peter then reflects to the letters Paul had written which eventually would become the canon of Scripture we live by today. Peter reinforces that the wisdom contained in these letters is from God Himself. We ought not treat the Word so cavalierly to appropriate what was written to point us to Christ and think it points to us.

Peter does not mince words here. He admits that some things are hard to understand. There is a reason why God assigns teaching and preaching within the body. Not everything is as simple as picking five smooth stones or stepping out of a boat. Those are simple messages compared to the cross. Remember the cross is utter foolishness to those who are perishing. Why? Because they do not want to look at their own sin. They do not want to realize how desperately they need a savior. Don't miss this point beloved. When the story of David and Goliath becomes the story of Joe and his troubled marriage we are letting ourselves off the hook. It is a much harder message to correctly use the story of David and Goliath to preach Christ. Why? Because preaching Christ always ends at the cross and the cross requires a sacrifice because of our state as sinners before a holy God. Whoa preacher! Don't go there! Let me chuck stones at the Goliaths in my life but do not make me look into the mirror that the Word of God is supposed to be. I do not want to see my reflection as a sinner. Realize today that you can take that first stone and slay the giant in your life. You can heal that marriage. Yet without the truth of what these Scriptures mean, you never get pointed to the cross.

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Credentialed Minister of the Gospel for the Assemblies of God. Owner and founder of 828 ministries. Vice President for Goodwill Industries. Always remember that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him and are called according to (more...)
 
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