Bible Beaters

Dear Readers: the following is a bit of a rant. I do not normally do this, but as I sat down to write this morning, this is what came pouring out. For those of you who are right there with me: Yay, you! And for those of you who are squirming in your seats a bit after you read this, I pray that this post will be a seed God allows to sprout up in your thought life, changing you from the inside out. Early on in my walk, I was one of "those kinds of Christians" that I am writing about-- and God showed me that I wasn't making a difference like that. I had to come out from under that kind of thinking to truly reach out with the love my Savior intended.

After I wrote that last post about Elevation, I started thinking about the news about Elevation, and about the devotion I wrote, and unfortunately about the criticism I received for using the Message Bible. I had more "helpful" emails come in yesterday-- one gentleman even kindly informed me that he had decided that the Message was "from the pit of hell." (To quote Clayton King, "I could not make this stuff up.") I was thinking about the other emails (the ones I should be thinking about and praising God for) I got from women who were thinking of ending their marriages-- one said she was up all night the night before she got the devotion planning how she would end her 34 year marriage. And I was thinking about how many of the people that wrote said it was that verse, in that version, that captured their attention and got them thinking, repenting and changing their perspective.

And I was thinking about how I have only had to deal with this for a few days and it is exhausting and draining, and how there are others in ministry who have to deal with this stuff ALL THE TIME. Like my pastor and the staff of Elevation. There are so many people who want to help them see the light of tradition and doing things the way they have always been done, instead of just letting God lead. Christian people who have conveniently forgotten what Jesus stood for when He was here-- radical change and shaking up the religious establishment.

Folks, I am not saying you have to agree with me. But I am saying, really think before you pass judgment on any of God's servants. Unless they are doing something that you can tell me chapter and verse why it is against God's word, I don't wanna hear it. In the research I did on Eugene Peterson, his heart is to lead others to Christ by creating a current, applicable version of God's word through paraphrasing (from the Greek, I will add). I heard Jennifer Rothschild speak this weekend, and she is blind, so she couldn't stand before us and read from the Bible. She had to "paraphrase" the stories she was sharing. Now, she quoted some verses from memory, but many of it she just told like you tell a story. And it was quite interesting. And I didn't feel like any of the power or impact of those passages of Scripture were lost because she didn't stand and read them from the King James Bible. In fact, I rather enjoyed hearing them told the way she told them, if you want me to be honest about it.

And so I ask those folks who wrote to me to tell me they don't agree with the Message, or to all those critics of Peterson, or my pastor, or anyone else who does things differently than the establishment. What else could you do with the time you spent writing that email? Who could you call and encourage? Who could you share Christ's love with instead? How could you invest in building relationships with people who-- through trust and a commitment to loving them-- will see your Jesus in you?

And I am going to be so bold as to say this (and I might lose some readers over it, but it just has to be said): it is judgmental, self-righteous, condescending Christians who turn off unsaved people and send them running the other direction. They see that long list of do's and dont's and they think: no way, I am not having any of it.

Again, I know this firsthand because this is the reason some people I love very dearly want nothing to do with God-- because they have been burned by "religious" people who passed judgment on them. It is really downright dangerous what your words and actions can keep another person from. Last week at Bible study, my friend Tamery did the opening and she quoted her pastor, who said that if we could really grasp what spending eternity apart from God was like, we would crawl across glass to lead our worst enemy to Christ.

As I was thinking about all of this, I had my Ipod on and what should come on random shuffle but this song.

I will post the lyrics here:

Open up the book you beat me with again
Read it off one sentence at a time
I'm tired of all the lines, convictions and your lies
What right do you have to point at me?

Chorus:
Well I'm sitting alone thinking about it all over coffee
And still crowding my space are the things
You still hold against me
You cannot save me
It's not the time to breakdown
It's not the time to breakdown
It's not the time to break up this love
Keep it together now
Well it's not the time to break

Read it all no need for separating it
You see what you want and try to justify
All your little lines, convictions and your lies
What right do you have to point at me?
chorus

Open up the book you beat me with again
Read it off one sentence at a time
Well it's not the time to breakdown

I don't want to be a Bible beater. I want to encourage others to stop being Bible beaters. I don't want to send people running the other direction because I am so smug in my Christianity that I turn people away. I will leave you with this joke I heard at Bible study:

Jesus returned to Heaven after the ascension and was stopped by an angel, who asked about His plans now that He was back. He said, "Well, I have left my earthly ministry in the hands of twelve men back on earth. They are responsible for carrying the gospel to the ends of the earth until I return."
The angel looked at Jesus and replied, "Do you have a plan B?"

Yeah, funny but not funny. Jesus is counting on us to impact people's lives for eternity. It is a sobering task, and one we should try to honor with our lives, with our words, and with our actions. Most of all, we should remember what Chris says in his song, We cannot save them. Only Jesus can do that.