No. Christians, of course disagree on this. And when we disagree we can usually expect someone to trot out the whole “meat offered to idols” and weaker brother texts discussion in I Corinthians and Romans respectively. Neither of these texts, however, were given to us to squelch discussion nor to leave us blind to moral absolutes. There are things that the Bible forbids. There are things the Bible doesn’t forbid. And there are things that fall into neither category. The key is wisdom to discern what goes in which category. If you say, “Adultery is a sin” and I say, “Whoa there. I think in certain circumstances adultery can actually be a good thing” I cannot accuse you of being a legalist. Neither can we agree to disagree by considering adultery a meat offered to idols issue, wrong for you, but fine for me. In like manner, if I say, “It’s a sin to read any Bible translation other than the King James version” and you say, “There are other acceptable translations” I cannot accuse you of being an antinomian. Neither can we agree to disagree by considering the ESV to be meat offered to idols. What the Bible calls sin is sin, whatever others might say. What it allows it allows, whatever others might say.
So where do boycotts fit in? Rightly they belong right in the middle of the meat offered to idol category. There are two objections that might come up for eating meat offered to idols. The first is that it might be bad for you, spiritually speaking. It might have demon cooties, so to speak. Paul rejects this out of hand. The mature, he argues, know that “an idol is nothing in the world” (I Corinthians 8:4). Meat is meat and foolish incantations spoken over it won’t change that.
The second objection might be this- am I not supporting the work of idolaters by buying meat from them? And here is where we get to the issue of boycotts. Paul, however, still has no objection to buying the meat offered for sale by idolaters. Why? Because we are buying meat, not idolatry. We are not guilty for what they do with the money we give them. When we trade our money for meat, the meat is ours and the money is not. In like manner, if the Home Store supports gay causes, or Red Crawfish restaurant supports Planned Parenthood, I am not guilty of supporting either if I buy some plywood, or a steamed lobster. I am buying wood and seafood.
May you boycott such companies? Of course you may. Feel free. The trouble is, however, that boycotts are most effective when they are widely practiced. Which will likely give you the temptation to move from “may” to “must.” You will be tempted to accuse your brother of sin for not joining you in your boycott, which is just like accusing your brother of sin if he buys meat that had been offered to idols, which Paul says you must not do. Buy from whomever you please. Sell to whomever you please. Or boycott whomever you please. But always remember- “Who are you to judge another’s servant? To his own master he stands or falls. Indeed, he will be made to stand, for God is able to make him stand” Romans 14:4.
One should not, after centuries of such folly, be surprised when Roman Catholicism exposes its shameful pride. As our senses have grown dull, they’ve become more brazen with each passing year. They, after all, are the one true church. They are the source of an infallible tradition. They hold the checkbook to the treasury of merit. Heck, their patron saint, Mary, is supposedly the Queen of the Universe.
Tradition, that mysterious unnamed repository of revelation, according to Rome, is equal in authority to the Word of God. But it gets still worse. The Roman church, according to the Roman church, stands over God’s Word like a colossus. They don’t just claim to have a perfect understanding of the Bible. They don’t just claim to be equal in authority to the Bible. They claim that they gave us the Bible. Rome saves us. Rome vets God’s Word.
Here is how the argument goes. When controversy arose early in the life of the church over whether this book or that belonged in the canon, the church convened a council to settle the matter. They settled the matter. Ipso pronto, hey presto, and QED, the church “gave us” the Bible and is therefore its master. Yeah, no.
First friends, the good Roman Catholics back in the time of this council, were better than their children. They did “finalize” the canon, but even they recognized the Bible was their authority, not the other way around. The language they used to affirm the canon was “Recipimus,” Latin meaning, “We receive.” “We receive these books to be the authoritative Word of God.” They affirmed not that they made the canon, but that they recognized it. They did not give it its authority, but recognized the authority it already had. Rome no more gave us the Bible than I crowned the Lord Jesus when I “made” Him Lord. He was Lord long before I was born. I just, by His grace and power, recognized it.
Second, when you challenge Rome, asking where they got the authority to give the Bible its authority, they will inevitably turn to Jesus, Peter and Caesarea Philippi. There Peter affirmed that Jesus was the Christ. There Jesus said that Peter was the Rock. And there Jesus said He would build His church upon the rock. There are nuanced arguments about what Jesus must have meant, Rome affirming this was Jesus anointing Peter as the first Pope, most Protestants affirming the rock is the declaration of Peter, that Jesus is the Christ, not Peter himself. Trouble is, even if we stipulate Rome’s position, we still have an inescapable problem. If is that place where Rome gets its authority, then Rome’s authority rests on the authority of the Bible. Uh-oh. The Bible’s authority rests on Rome whose authority rests on the Bible. Both feet planted firmly in mid-air.
The Bible is the alone Word of God. And those who think they gave Him His voice, those are not the people whose voices we should be listening to.
Don’t believe the hype.
Some things we never quite leave behind this side of the veil. Try as we might to mature and to grow beyond this peculiar brand of foolishness, I’m afraid that at heart we are still junior high girls. Our problem isn’t, I trust, that we talk on the telephone too long, or that we go through life still having a crush on David Cassidy or some Back Street Boy. No, our problem is we think ourselves masters of motives. You remember either saying, or hearing someone say, “I was at the mall, and Susie was walking the other way. So then I smiled and waved and said, ‘Hey Susie,’ and she wouldn’t even look at me. She just walked on by. She is just so stuck-up.” We, I hope, wouldn’t say this anymore, but we still practice the same kind of foolishness.
We conclude, for instance, that such and such a family never comes to pot-luck suppers because they think they’re better than us. We conclude that this other family bought a new car because the husband works too hard or charges too much for the work he does. We think the pastor preached the sermon he preached because he has assumed the worst about us, when he doesn’t even really know our situation.
The root of this isn’t simply immaturity, but pride. The pride has at least two conduits through which it flows. First, we think ourselves far too clever. What we actually know is that family A doesn’t come to pot-luck suppers, family B has a new car and pastor C preached a sermon. There are equally plausible explanations for each of these events. Perhaps family A has one child with horrible food allergies, another child who will fall into a tailspin if he doesn’t get a nap, and a third child that doesn’t need an excuse to fall into a tailspin. Maybe family A, rather than thinking they are better than others, is actually ashamed of their family’s behavior in this kind of setting. Maybe they don’t come because they don’t think they measure up. Perhaps family B was given the new car by friends or family. Perhaps it’s a company car. Perhaps some other business cheated them, and with the settlement money they bought a car. Perhaps, and don’t let this shock you, God has prospered family B, and they bought a new car. As for the pastor, maybe he was preaching the next text, and in God’s providence it hit a sin you think others might perceive in you.
There is a second way this folly flows from pride. Not only are these sinless explanations plausible, but it is likewise probable that these plausible answers have nothing to do with you. That is, we fall for junior high girl syndrome only when we begin to think the world revolves around us. We’re so vain, I bet we think this post is about us, don’t we, don’t we?
God, though He might very well be surprised by the existence of junior high schools, is not surprised by the existence of junior high girls. He has given us the antidote. The antidote is love. Love, God tells us, suffers long and is kind. It does not envy, nor does it parade itself. It is not puffed up, and does not behave rudely. Now these are all great things about love. But they are only tangentially related to our concern. But then comes these three- love does not seek its own, is not provoked, and thinks no evil. This first, does not seek its own, is rather more sophisticated than not wrestling for the television remote. It means spending less time thinking on how our loved ones have hurt us, and more time thinking through how we might help our loved one. “Is not provoked” doesn’t mean that we take our emotions and clamp them down to avoid a reaction. We do not, because so far we haven’t said anything about the record of wrongs we are keeping, pat ourselves on the back. We instead keep no record at all. We avoid being provoked simply by following the next injunction, thinking no evil. That is, if we practice a judgment of charity, which is rather easy to do once we have died to self, then it takes no effort to keep cool.
It’s true enough that we are to be wise as serpents. There are bad guys out there who want our money, and will cheat to get it, who want to borrow our reputation, and will manipulate to get it. But it may just be that the path to getting beyond junior high girls is to become elementary school girls. What we need is an innocence that simply believes that others love us, and want what’s best for us. What we need is an innocent trust that God will protect us and take care of us. May He give us the grace to grow younger as we grow closer.
We have a battle to win, a great enemy to destroy. We are called to an epic struggle that spans the epochs, from the garden of Eden to the Garden City of the New Jerusalem. We have a kingdom to build. When Jesus told His students, however, to seek first the kingdom of God He wasn’t dealing with the problem of complacency. He was not seeking rouse a bunch of couch potatoes into action. Instead Jesus was calling on those who were caught up in worry and fear, to set those aside. Instead Jesus is seeking to calm anxious hearts and minds, to remind those who are His that they are the children of their Father in heaven. It is our Father’s good pleasure to give us the kingdom.
Jesus makes much the same point in the gospel of Mark. We are all too familiar with the story. Jesus is in Judea, and the multitudes gathered around Him as He taught them. Many among the crowd brought their little children to Jesus, but the disciples rebuked them. Jesus seeing this, we are told, was greatly displeased. Then He uttered these potent words, “Let the little children come to Me, and do not forbid them; for of such is the kingdom of God” (Luke 10:14). We’ve all seen pictures of this glorious event. We see the children gazing up at the Lord with trust in their eyes. We see the joy and delight in the shining face of Jesus. We walk away, our hearts warmed by the tender love of Jesus toward the little children, and once again, completely miss the point. As touching as this scene is, as moved as we might be by the love of Jesus for the children that were there that day, and toward our own children, what we miss is the reason for all this. We miss the wisdom of Jesus who says, “Assuredly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will by no means enter it” (verse 15).
Jesus’ words present both a stern warning and a delightful invitation. The warning is clear enough. If we will not come as children, we will not come at all. There will be those in the end with their dignity intact, their maturity assured, and their eternity spent on weeping and teeth gnashing. Jesus does not say that if we do not come as children we will be least in the kingdom. He does not say that if we do not come as children we will miss out on joy. He does not say that if we do not come as children then we will lose some degree of fellowship with our Father. He says we will not come at all. We will, by no means, enter into the kingdom.
But there is invitation here as well. We enter into the kingdom as helpless as babies. We enter into the kingdom as needy as babies. We enter into the kingdom as ignorant as babies. We enter into the kingdom as worthless as babies. We enter into the kingdom with nothing in our hands, not even a pacifier. We have no contribution to make, and no agenda to follow. We come trusting like a baby, resting like a baby, and laughing like a baby. We enter into the kingdom with eyes wide with wonder.
We were taught to pray by Jesus, to our heavenly Father, that His kingdom would come as His will is done on earth as it is in heaven. We will enter into heaven as children. We bring heaven down to earth as we live our lives as children. We bring heaven down by living now as we will then. In the upside-down economy of the kingdom of God, the call to Christian maturity is the call to immaturity. As we age, as we acquire wisdom, we learn more and more that we know less and less. When we are born, we begin the process of aging, growing closer to death. When we are born again, we begin the process of getting younger, growing closer to life.
A second conversation with my most special guest, Lisa Sproul- loving wife, homeschooling mom, wise counselor and encouraging blogger at The Purpose Driven Wife. Check it out. And remember, you can now subscribe at iTunes and wherever your favorite podcasts are given away.
Great news. You can now subscribe to the Jesus Changes Everything Podcast at iTunes and all the usual places. If you enjoy the podcast, please help others find it by telling your friends, and leaving reviews. Let’s make this happen.
The Spirit of the Fruit study continued last night. You can listen in here.
