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Articles
I Worry About Us Sometimes
I once thought I knew everything. I would try to answer questions about the flight patterns of left-winged angels, where the devil came from, and lots of things even more profound than that. There just weren’t any issues I didn’t know about, no problems so tangled but that my way would not solve them. Then one day I decided it was time for some introspection (that’s a big word for looking inside yourself).
I just sat down and had a long talk with myself. Sad to say, that was not long enough ago. I was amazed what I found. Not only did I figure out that I didn’t know everything, I figured out that I didn’t know much of anything. Besides that, I found out that my motives were not always as pure as I had led myself to believe they were, that I was sometimes selfish and arrogant and sometimes—perish the thought—just plain dumb.
Maybe I’m the first one to do that. Or maybe I’m just the first one foolish enough to admit to it. Whatever the case, I’m glad I did it. Let me explain why.
I worry about us sometimes. There’s a kind of arrogance that comes with the restoration motif, a kind of air of superiority that accompanies the knowledge that you can turn to the Bible and show what you’re doing has the imprimatur of God. We need to be careful that we don’t become a know-it-all, merely equipped with the scripture for every need, the passage for every problem. Being able to use passages properly is as important as having the right passage. Didn’t Paul say, “… a workman that needth not to be ashamed, handling aright the word of truth”? It’s not enough to know what’s right, you have to handle what’s right wisely.
I worry about us sometimes. I worry that we have become so preoccupied with making predictions about what’s going to happen that we become distracted about what is taking place right now. I think it’s fine to warn about apostasy—and it’s foolish to not try and prepare for it as best we can, but let’s face it—we don’t really know when and how it will come and why and what it will be. We may think we do, but we don’t. And our preoccupation with what we think it will be can get us blind-sided if we’re not careful. We best pay attention to today and let the Christians of tomorrow take care of their business in its own time (Matthew 6:34).
I worry about us sometimes. We are an issue-oriented people. Now, that’s not all that bad, because issues are certainly important. But we can become so issue-oriented that fighting for them becomes an end in itself. Christianity is not a phrenic exercise, it’s not just being right, it’s doing right. Give the devil his due; he is indeed clever. He can cause us to so concentrate on lining one another up and making sure everyone is saying things the same way that we don’t ever get around to applying the principles on which we are all lined up. I sure don’t want to minimize the importance of sound doctrine; without it we’re lost. But just being right on doctrine is not enough. We have to apply the doctrine to our everyday lives, we have to have the right attitude about how we can use it, we have to learn to tolerate the immature, to wait on those who have not come to understand it all yet. Issues are important; but they aren’t the end of matters. Many of our real issues are practical.
I worry about us sometimes. We have done a good job of restoring the New Testament church. We have called for a return to the ancient way of conversion, to the ancient order of worship, to the ancient methods of organization. I’m proud of us for that. But we’ve done a really poor job of restoring the New Testament attitudes in our treatment of one another. Sadly, we sometimes treat “outsiders” better than some of our own. We cut, slander, defame—all in the name of the restoration. We actively seek ways to lessen one another’s influence among brethren. And what worries me is that we do it with a certain impunity—even with a kind of bizarre sense of satisfaction, it seems. Listen folks, I don’t care how right you are, if your attitude is not one of love and respect, if it’s not one of compassion and mercy, if it’s not one of sensitivity and genuine concern, you’ve not restored New Testament Christianity, no matter how right you are on the issues.
I’m not trying to cause any trouble. I just want us to see that a hundred years from now nobody’s going to remember who we are. Oh, you may have your name on some street, on the musty hall of some building, even be in somebody’s history of what happened during this time. But it won’t mean anything much to anybody. We best take a look at ourselves and get our attitudes right or we may be surprised at the judgment.
Dee Bowman, “Front Lines: I Worry About Us Sometimes,” Christianity Magazine, 2.
