Pop quizzes and school go hand in hand, right? So here we go…
True or false:
- God needs/wants you to lean a little bit on His people in order to get them to do what He wants them to do.
- He approves of a little coercion from those who are spiritually mature (you know who you are) to pressure those who are spiritual babes into doing what’s good for them.
- Jesus died on the cross to provide the foundation for an institution and hierarchy that would manage his followers by appealing to the ideals of authority, obedience and duty.
I believe there is a not-so-fine line between the notion of iron sharpening iron (equal interacting with equal) and the wielding of presumed spiritual authority over the Christian brethren. I am convinced, in fact, that the latter is often absolutely at odds with the gospel itself.
At its core the gospel is about love. Not sappy, romantic, Disney movie love – but a wholly selfless love that would freely choose death on a cross for the good of the beloved. God’s love is the initiator that allows us to love Him back. Divine love is the only sustainable motivator precisely because it is divine. How can it be that the Church has stalled in its proclamation of divine love as the motivational goal? I believe it is because the Church has almost forgotten that the O.T. Law is only a tutor – a guide that ought to eventually become irrelevant for the individual in pursuit of God as he grows from duty-motivation to love-motivation. The law was never meant to be the sustainable motivator in the life of the follower of Christ, just a sign showing the beloved the way to the Lover.
Is it not, then, practically obscene for the man touched by divine love to linger over the lesser motivators? Does it not make sense that the leader motivated by love will have as a goal the graduation of those he leads from the UNsustainable law to the ETERNALLY sustainable divine love?
So where are the graduates?
It seems many have remained in school, studying about how they “ought to” and “should” do this or that. They hear the word “love” – and they DO … but not because of the endless curriculum of tests, checklists, and study material. They love because God first loved them. And they keep listening to the perpetual legal advice because it’s the only way they get to see and worship with their friends.
