Simple & Complex

There’s a guy that I have sometimes played golf with who I don’t think actively goes to church — he’s on the golf course most Sundays I suspect. He knows I am a preacher and he’ll often recite popular Bible verses that he memorized as a child to me. I’m not always sure why. Sometimes I think it is to argue with me, other times to ingratiate himself with me. They’re all verses I’ve heard before — the kind that get quoted often.

Romans 12:2 — Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is — his good, pleasing and perfect will.

Jeremiah 29:11 — For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope.

Romans 10:9 — If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

And many others that you’ve probably heard before.

Over the course of our conversations, it has become clear to both of us that we kind of think pretty differently about some things. He may describe himself differently, but from my vantage point, he is a sort of prime example of a “cultural Christian.” That is, he puts himself in that tribe — the Christian tribe, but doesn’t actively go to church. He has his own struggles with things that I think could be described as sins, as we all do. And he has rather strong opinions about political and theological matters, again as most all of us do. And to him, those opinions are based, at least in part, on his Christian faith. He is unassailable on these convictions and states his opinions emphatically and sometimes tries to back them up with common Bible verses that he halfway remembers. He’s a competitive guy — often want to play golf for something. And he’s told me several times that he won $10 for a Bible memorization contest when he was a kid. So therefore, “he knows his Bible.”

Yet, he has also asked me what I would consider rather basic questions about the Bible and Christian faith.

Paul — he used to be Saul right? Yes, I assured him. And he got that right, of course, but needed reassurance.

He asked me — so does the New Testament replace the Old Testament. And so I tried to explain — no. Rather the Old Testament is foundational. Christians believe, as Jesus indicates in our Scripture this morning, that the New Testament fulfills the Old Testament.

For most of Christian history, lay people didn’t really read the Bible for themselves. In part because the printing press doesn’t come along until the 16th century, but even after the advent of the printing press, the general approach in the church was for the trained clergy to be the ones to interpret the Scripture and that letting lay people read the Scriptures for themselves without proper guidance was a dangerous thing.

It really wasn’t until the great revivalist periods in Western Christian history that in widespread way lay people begin to read the Scriptures for themselves. And the Methodist movement was a big part of that. And Wesley worked very hard to provide a method to all of this — organizing believers in bands, classes, and societies, which all observed certain rules. For Wesley, things like Scripture reading, were best done under the guidance of a community of believers.

Now, I do support, generally, putting the Bible in the hands of ordinary believers. The Bible contains the simplest and profoundest of truths that don’t require an advanced degree to understand. Yet, it is also a very complicated and complex collection of books. 66 different books — although that number varies based on whether you’re Protestant, Catholic or Orthodox. It was comprised by almost as many authors. Individual books have often been stitched together over time, heavily redacted or edited. It was comprised in a period of well over a thousand years. It contains many different types of genres. The books were written, in most cases, individually for their own purposes to specific audiences without the authors ever being aware that they would be collected as they are now in a single volume and revered as a holy book by a religion distinct from the Jewish faith. And in the Christian tradition, the Bible was not fully finished until almost 3 and a half centuries after Jesus lived. Centuries that contained the transformation of Rome from a hostile threat to the Christian faith, to the Holy Roman Empire, now its biggest state supporter. All during that period, the Bible was not copied perfectly through a copy machine, of course, but by hand. And there are thousands of textual variations that come to us through the manuscript tradition. And we can see clearly how notes made in the margins of one copy make their way into the text in the next copy. And many other things like this happen in the manuscript tradition. This is part of why there is ongoing scholarship in Biblical Studies. Not only are new manuscripts being found, but the manuscript tradition is long, complex and there are many codices, fragments, and secondary source materials for translators and Bible scholars to examine. And there is no known primary source material — that is original copies of any portion of Scripture. The King James Version of the Bible was based on 3 manuscripts. The New Revised Standard Version, that I most often use in worship, our pew Bibles at Epworth are New Revised Standard is based on over 3,000 manuscripts.

I say all of this to say that the area of Biblical Studies in one in which expertise, formal education and training, is generally a useful and helpful thing. But like many areas of knowledge, a little bit of knowledge can quickly become a dangerous thing. Because you’ve memorized a few Bible verses or have developed a strong conviction about a theological or spiritual matter doesn’t make you an expert. In fact, it may just make you more dangerous than someone who simply knows what they don’t know. And for the most part, that is the level to which we pastors have been trained. I, like most pastors in denominations with rigorous ordination standards, know enough only to rely on experts with far more credentials and experience and to generally discern the difference between agenda driven faux-expertise and genuine scholarship. People and pastors without even this level of training usually know far more about the Bible — for they have not been burdened with realizing just how much they do not know. I don’t do original research in the field of Biblical Studies, I just rely on the work produced by those who do. Sorry to disappoint you.

And friends, we live in an era where in virtually every domain, people who have received formal training and spent the better part of their lives in a particular field are being sidelined by people with strong convictions who have done a little bit of internet research on their own and come to their own conclusions in domains they have no expertise in. It is true that some subject matter domains lend themselves putting more faith in experts than others. I’ve long said, I’d far rather listen to the sermons of an untrained preacher than be operated on by an untrained surgeon. Nevertheless, in almost whatever domain we’re talking about, many people armed with just a little bit of knowledge feel free to disregard the overwhelming consensus of experts. What often happens is that in any field, including Biblical Studies, those who are truly domain experts have significant disagreements among themselves. Often there are a few outliers among these experts who at times hold iconoclastic views on this or on that. And at times the iconoclasts end up being right. But often they are not. Rather than the debate remaining in academic circles between those who have earned their chops as experts, those armed with just a little bit of knowledge cherry pick from the experts that conform to their way of seeing the evidence. We tend to believe things — facts, evidence and the like more when it confirms what we already believe. It is called the confirmation bias. And this is why a little bit of knowledge in the wrong hands is so dangerous. It just makes genuine ignorance all the more certain.

Here’s a test you can use when you see a non-expert making a claim that goes against the prevailing wisdom coming from experts in any particular field — ask yourself — does the claim that they are making generally confirm what you know or sense about this person’s preexisting worldview. If so, beware — the confirmation bias is likely at work.

I say all of this not just because we are being barraged with claims related to the Coronavirus and the prevention of its spread. I say all of this to point out that even after being with him for a few years, the disciples still did not understand the bigger picture of what God was up to through the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms. They had to have Jesus open their minds to undsrstand the Scriptures. They needed to rely on an expert for guidance. Even though they most assuredly had some knowledge themselves of the Scriptures. It was just enough to be dangerous, but not enough to know what they didn’t know. And still even further from the kind of expertise that Jesus dropped on them that day that he ascended. But thankfully they not only received a phenomenal Bible study that day, they “had their minds opened” to see the Bible as Jesus saw it. And that prepared them for what was to come. They knew then that they still needed guidance. And guidance would come.

The popular assumption about the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms, all of the Jewish scriptures was that God was holy. We are not. God demands sacrifice and punishment for our sins. But one who was truly an expert, the one with the best credentials, the son of God, and unfettered access to the primary source — God the Father, had a more complete understanding of the meaning and purpose of the Jewish writings than those armed with only a little bit of knowledge. Even if you go down just a bit from Jesus to look at the next level of experts in society at the time of Jesus — they come far closer to the truth of things here. Recall in Acts chapter 5, that among the Pharisees, it was the respected teacher of the law, regarded as an expert by all — Gamaliel who holds back the populist rage of those armed with a little bit of knowledge. After the disciples told the council precisely what Jesus instructed them to do in our Scripture this morning — be a witness that what God was up to through all of this was to invite people to repent and forgive sins, Gamaliel is far more cautious. He says, “So in the present case, I tell you, keep away from these men and let them alone; because if this plan is of human origin, it will fail; but if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them — in that case you may even be found fighting against God.” Still another expert — Saul, whose impeccable credentials we learn in Philippians 3. He writes, “If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.” And even though the mob that stoned Stephen laid their coats at his feet, he was eventually able to see the truth of the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms. They were aimed at repentance and the forgiveness of sins.

Friends, this is the simple truth of the Good News of Jesus Christ. It is the simple truth of the Bible.

No matter what you hear from people armed with Bible verses, convictions derived from a little bit of knowledge -

No matter how many people try to use it to say

These people are out, these are in.

You have to pray in this way.

Give this proportion of money.

Not say these words.

Attend this building on Sunday morning.

Serve in this way.

Show your cleanliness and righteousness before God by these works of the law

This good deed.

This many volunteer positions.

This marital status.

This type of relationship with your parents or your children.

Whatever ancient law, quoted chapter and verse

Or new law derived from the best of intention

If people say that to make it seem as though they and their tribe know some things about the Bible. Beware. Look for that confirmation bias. And hold on tightly to what the greatest of all experts told his disciples, just before he sent them out into the world to spread the message he wanted everyone to hear about the law of Moses, the prophets, and the Psalms. The Bible of his day.

All of this is aimed at one thing. Repentance and the forgiveness of sins.

Anything else, just gets in way.

And after teaching this to his disciples in a way that their minds were opened so that they now saw this great truth of what God has been up to in the world, Jesus leaves. He ascends into heaven.

And he leaves it to his disciples. And to us. To spread the Good News. This isn’t about rules and regulations. It is about repentance and forgiveness, the restoration of relationships.

It was simple enough that Jesus could explain it in a single session Bible Study. But complex enough that after travelling with him for years and being exposed to his teaching throughout, that they had not yet “got it.”

And he promises to send us power from on high to spread this Good News. Friends, I invite you to come back next week and hear more about that power from on high. Pentecost.

No, we are not experts seated at the right hand of God. But help is coming. Help that will empower us to spread the Good News about repentance and forgiveness.

May you know enough to know that you don’t know most things. But have the conviction and confidence that you do know one simple thing deep down — All of this — the whole thing. The Christian faith, the buildings, the people, the Bible — boils down to one the simple message for the world. Repentance and the forgiveness of sins.

So stay right here in Huntsville, until you’ve been clothed from on high.

I hope you’ll join me next week as we receive that power. Not to be experts ourselves, but to be empowered and guided by one.

No longer will we be guided by our own self-assurance, but by the very Spirit of the one who has a vision for the reconciliation of the world.

Amen.