More On Thinking Differently

My pastor and I view things differently. That is a good thing. Come to think of it almost everybody seems to view things differently than I do. I am not sure how good a thing that is. I still stand by my ability to hear from the Holy Spirit while admitting that anyone of us can lapse into deception at anytime.


This topic, difference of viewpoints, comes up because it occurred to me recently that is the greatest benefit I personally derive from attending church. Pastor Rob sees things differently that I do. Undoubtedly he is right as often as I am, but he is the one who does most of the talking in church. Frequently, he will say something in a way that I had not previously thought about. Hearing his perspective helps me refine my understanding of the topic under discussion. Well, not discussion in the case of his sermons, but you get the point.

In my own teaching, I have often gained insight from the Holy Spirit in the process of the teaching itself. I know a preacher a generation ahead of me whom I heard claim that he could get every bit as inspired in his study on Tuesday morning as he could in the pulpit on Sunday morning. Without being unkind here, I just never heard him sound all that inspired on Sunday morning. That brought the question to my mind of just how inspired he was on Tuesday morning.


Pastor Rob does not have a problem with lack of inspiration on Sunday morning. I have no idea where he gets his energy. Even accounting for the 20+ year difference in our ages (he is younger) he just seems as though he must be running on energizer batteries. I know I never had that much energy. In fact it wore me out typing that paragraph.


So what is the point anyway? We are all different. Obviously there is right and there is wrong. There is also a lot in between the two we just do not know. I am not talking about shades of gray here. I am talking about things we just do not know. I mean nobody knows. I am not sure we can know it all, especially where God is concerned. There are a lot of things we know. In fact the Bible tells us all that can be know about God. That is what it means that the Bible is the "word" of God. We have written about that previously in these pages. If you have forgotten, look up the word "logos" in the labels. I am not going to do all the work for you.


The ironic thing about ignorance is that we do not know what we do not know. Spiritual deception has the same irony. We do not know where we are deceived. In fact, the more ignorant we are, the less we know and the more deceived we are the more we think we are not. Selah. (Hebrew for "think about that".) God graciously gave us the concept of fellowship with one another because there is always someone who knows more, someone who has more experience, and someone who has better spiritual insight than we do. When we get the idea of Biblical fellowship down, we have access to those people. Maybe they also need some of that knowledge, experience or insight we have. We will never know that if we do not have fellowship with them. I feel a future post on fellowship coming on.


I could almost make a case for giving you my resume here, but I always hesitate to do that. I am not sure it matters anyway. Were I to do that, some would be tempted to misunderstand and think I was doing it simply to glorify myself and/or my accomplishments. There would also be those who would rightly conclude that all that study and experience and all those diplomas and certifications amount to a pile of, well, the apostle Paul called it "rubbish" in a more polite translation of Philippians 3:8. I am just a guy, a guy with a calling to be sure, but just a guy. I have written about that before too. (I tried to place that link here, but it did not want to work. It is the post from 9/20/09.)

Thank you for reading this far. My point is that education, diplomas, degrees, certifications, experience, titles, accolades, etc., like the mountains, melt like wax at the coming of the Lord. (Psalm 97:5) I might have started something at the end of the previous post when I did not comment on a verse of scripture. I probably should not comment further on that. God bless.