Narrow-Minded

It has been a while since I last posted and I have to say, while I did enjoy the blogging, taking a break from it to reflect has been awesome, not to mention God has showed me a lot more about myself than I really wanted to see, but more on that in another post...what I want to share with you I heard in a Timothy Keller teaching this afternoon.

It strikes home for me for multiple reasons, one of which is an idea I have been tossing around for a while now. These days our society is the way it is because of how it defines things and today I heard an example of how poorly people define a word that most often is used to describe Christians like you and me.

Ever been called "narrow-minded"? (side note, not sure if it needs a dash or not...quick Google search turned up that it does and that it can also be presented as two separate words) Well today in a teaching you should definitely listen to by Tim Keller called "God with us" he mentioned a brief little illustration that I am going to attempt to type up for you..

A lot of people have always been irritated by Christianity and its exclusivity, in its demand that you worship Christ and that you see Him as the only way to God and that you give Him all of your allegiance. See look, every other religion says that our founder is a great teacher and morality and goodness is enough. Our founder is a good teacher and if you live a good life you'll get to God. Morality and goodness is enough, morality and goodness is enough. Christianity comes along and say "No, your morality will never be good enough." The unique Son of God had to come and die for you and you have to put all of your hope and rest and trust in Him. Is that exclusivity, no! It is a different diagnosis of your problem.

For example, suppose you were sick and you have gone to see several other doctors and every one of them had said "It is not serious, plenty of rest and get some fluids and you'll be fine." Now what if I am a doctor, and I come and say to you "The other doctors are wrong. You are terminal unless you take this particular medicine." How would you respond to me? Would you say, "I don't want to deal with you because you're narrow minded. It is very narrow minded for you to believe these other doctors are wrong and your right. I don't want you to have anything to do with me because you are arrogant and narrow minded." You wouldn't say that, you know what you would say? You would say "You're either right or you're wrong, but you're not narrow minded, I need to find out if you're right!" I mean, what is narrow minded if you say that the other doctors are wrong and you will not be saved unless you take this medicine. I may be mistaken or I may be saving your life, but I am not narrow minded. I may be crazy, I may be a liar, or I may be right. It has nothing to do with narrowness.

Teaching morality and goodness is enough, Christianity says, "No, your situation is too dire. Haven't you been living long enough to see that your efforts to be moral and good, to live up to standards hasn't been good enough." Aren't you ready to believe what Christianity has said all along and that is that the medicine you need is a much more radical thing. You don't just need teaching, you don't just need a teacher. You need the Son of God to come and die for and to come into your life with His power and therefore you have to give your complete and total allegiance to Him.

This whole thing reminded me oh so much of Gal 3:19-29...

That is all I have for now...sorry for the drought of posts, however, it was something I had to do.



Down but never out,

- Chris

Gal 3:26-27