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When
you’re in London, Düsseldorf, Germany, is 357 miles to the east.
Edinburgh, Scotland, is 403 miles to the north. If you’re flying to
Düsseldorf, you’d not expect your airplane to land in Edinburgh.
But that’s just what happened Monday.
When
they landed, confusion ensued. Flight attendants asked for a show of
hands of passengers who thought they were traveling to Düsseldorf. When
every hand went up, they realized that every passenger was now in the
wrong place.
We can be both sincere and wrong
There are many ways to be sincerely wrong today.
Same-sex
marriage supporters are convinced that biblical, moral, or religious
liberty objections are irrelevant or wrong. The same is true with
abortion advocates. Their claims seem simple and persuasive: “Everyone
should be able to love who they love,” “A woman is the best person to
decide what to do with her own body,” and so on.
But
as British Airways proved, it’s possible to be both sincere and wrong.
Another topic making today’s news illustrates the same point.
But all is not well on the wealth frontier.
Another story on our theme is being reported by the New York Times: “Human Contact Is Now a Luxury Good.”
The wealthy are discovering that human engagement is vital to their
well-being. They are spending on experiences such as luxury travel and
dining rather than technology and other goods.
Clearly, possessions cannot produce happiness, even when we sincerely think they will.
Three dead ends to avoid
No one thinks in a vacuum.
You
and I inherited our Western culture from the Greeks and Romans.
Centuries before Christ, their worldview divided the soul from the body,
determining that the former is positive while the latter is evil. This
belief led centuries of Christians to venerate monastic withdrawal from
the world as the highest form of spirituality.
A
third view is rising quickly in our culture: there is no soul or
supernatural reality, so we are free to focus on the material. According
to a new survey, 23.1 percent of the American population has “no religion,” slightly more than Catholics (23 percent) and evangelicals (22.5 percent).
Withdrawing
from the culture, separating faith from life, or ignoring the
supernatural—none of these is the way God intends us to relate to our
world.
“The righteous will flourish like a green leaf”
I
am studying Proverbs these days and found chapter 11 especially
relevant to today’s conversation. Solomon, one of the wealthiest men of
all time, warned us: “Riches do not profit in the day of wrath, but
righteousness delivers from death” (v. 4). He added: “Whoever trusts in
his riches will fall, but the righteous will flourish like a green leaf”
(v. 28).
If we are not to trust in material wealth, how are we to relate to the material world?
- We are to be righteous so that God can bless the fallen culture
through us: “By the blessing of the upright a city is exalted, but by
the mouth of the wicked it is overthrown” (v. 11).
- We are to offer biblical wisdom to others: “Where there is no guidance, a people falls” (v. 14).
- We are to be generous with all: “One gives freely, yet grows all
the richer; another withholds what he should give, and only suffers
want” (v. 24).
In short, we are to use the material for the spiritual, the temporal for the eternal.
Those
we know who do not know Jesus may well be sincere in their unbiblical
beliefs, from denying God’s existence to rejecting Jesus’ divinity to
questioning the truth or relevance of Scripture. The fact that they are
sincerely wrong means they don’t know how wrong they are.
And it means they need our witness and ministry much more than they think they do.
Torn up Bibles and lost souls
Ben Malcolmson played on the 2006 University of Southern California football team that won the Rose Bowl. He told Fox News yesterday, “From the moment I made the team, I knew God had a purpose for me there. I started pressing into that mission from day one.”
But he didn’t know how hard it would be to help his teammates meet his Lord.
He
started a Bible study, but no one came. He began a prayer group, but no
one joined him. He then placed Bibles at each of his teammates’ lockers
on Christmas Eve, days before the team was to play in the Rose Bowl.
When he returned to the locker room two days later, he found the Bibles
torn up and shredded.
“It was the culmination of a season full of discouragement,” he said.
Nearly
four years later, working as an assistant to Coach Pete Carroll of the
Seattle Seahawks, an old friend connected with Malcolmson. He told him
that one of the Bibles he gave his fellow players had been picked up and
read by a teammate who accepted Christ three days before passing away.
Malcolmson concluded, “Even when I couldn’t see [God’s] hand in the moment, he truly was at work all along.”
How will you follow his example today?
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