Thanks Paul! Jesus definitely flipped quite a few cultural scripts, and it gives me comfort to know that he paved a way of doing that with truth and love. Falling short of those things more than I like, I'm grateful that he gave freedom to be moved by the Spirit.
There is safety in following the Spirit, and I think it's why Jesus left the formation of the fledgling church to a bunch of people who'd just recently abandonded him and displayed patterns of getting things wrong to that point. "Right" still matters to a degree, but the Christian life is about so much more than that.
This is pure delight - hearing your story in your uniquely honest and insightful way with the very best mix of humour, poignancy, inspiration and realism. I love how God is using you. This work is so important and I am grateful you have answered this call.
Thank you for being courageous enough to subvert the dominant paradigm. May it help bring freedom to many of our men and (therefore our women) to be and do how God has made them.
Thanks Janet! There are a lot of paradigms that need challenging, and hopefully this can be part of a whole bunch of subversion that leads to more freedom :).
Growing up I was incredibly legalistic, bordering on insufferable at times about what was right and correct in church. As an example as freshman in high school I had a dispute with two leaders in our youth group listening to non-CCM music, and being upset that they were considered leaders. Looking back on it, they were very gracious to me, they were kind, listened and never made fun of what had to seem like an immature view on life.
I set that up to say that through high school and in college I read all the "right" books and interpreted scripture in one exact way: the "correct" way. I was told through leaders, books, and the examples modeled before me how I needed to read the Bible and understand it. I did all of that too, I thought about the Bible and how each intrepretation was arrived at logically. As you say Matt if you didn't arrive at "xyz" like I did then clearly you were in the wrong.
I thought that way all the way through probably to the end of college, even as what I held in my heart conflicted with what I was told was the only way to interpret the Bible. It took into my late 20s for my views on Biblical interpretation to start changing. Part of that Matt comes from conversations with what Christa and you were doing and for that I am grateful. It has been a journey the last 10 years for me to go from a person who knew that every word in the Bible only had one interpretation that mattered to understanding that context, language, and many other factors affect how the Bible is interpreted. I am not perfect, nor have I managed to shake off every shackle of my previous thought life, but I do believe I am headed in a better direction that I have been in the past.
To end my ramblings here I wanted to point out the probable reason for my legalistic nature as a child, teen, and young adult. When I was in fourth grade my parents got divorced and in the following few months had a new home, school, and church. Nearly everything that had been stable for me fell away and into pieces. I tried to make friends but nothing seemed to take until my 6th grade year when I met the Middle School Director at my church. She and her husband saw me, saw value in me and loved me as I was. They helped give me purpose and helped show me what love was. She was the most influential pastor I had in my life up to that point, even though the church wouldn't call her a pastor because she was a women. The time and love she and her husband gave me cemented her in my heart, but because I was a kid it also cemented that church into my heart. So for a long time whatever that church believed or said, I believed or said. I owned it as I got older, as I explained before, but it took a long time to realize that she was the thing that loved me not the church I was going to.
Anyway, I want to say thanks Matt for writing and helping me reflect on my own journey. Look forward to reading more.
Thanks for sharing all that, Jeremy. I fondly remember many of the influential people from our home church. They were pivotal to my growth, despite the surrounding culture that also harboured unhealthy narratives. And I owe much of who I am now to the relationships I had then.
But, some of those people showed me freeing ways to live accompanied by legalism and dogmatism. People are often a mix of health and dysfunction, which is a normal part of becoming children of the Spirit—untwisting that fleshliness and being remade into the image of Christ. But, there are patterns that emerge when authority and power are present in our church structures, “offices,” and leadership. There tends not to be mutual, sibling relationships (brother-sister in Christ), but hierarchy and stratification (and a whole heap of unnecessary pain).
Jesus used the metaphor of family to describe his followers so often, and I think we forsake a central gospel tenet when we bifurcate into clergy/laity, leaders/followers, etc. I’m sure I’ll write more on that stuff later. But it’s never too late to adopt new narratives.
Same. Again, though, I think it comes from a desire to be "right," in this case. If God designed men and women a certain way, then it follows (to some) that marriage must look a certain way. When it doesn't, the threat goes all the way back to God. God is perfect > God's word is perfect > God's word says xyz about marriage > You don't believe xyz? > You don't believe God's word > You don't believe God > Your marriage will fail, or the world ends, or something.
And when the issue is about protecting and defending God, there are no boundaries that can't be crossed and no context that would explain a different interpretation. I think this is a very common way of thinking, unfortunately.
Thanks for this! Flipping the (cultural) script is precisely what Jesus did, so you’re in good company. I look forward to hearing more from you, Matt!
Cheers!
Thanks Paul! Jesus definitely flipped quite a few cultural scripts, and it gives me comfort to know that he paved a way of doing that with truth and love. Falling short of those things more than I like, I'm grateful that he gave freedom to be moved by the Spirit.
There is safety in following the Spirit, and I think it's why Jesus left the formation of the fledgling church to a bunch of people who'd just recently abandonded him and displayed patterns of getting things wrong to that point. "Right" still matters to a degree, but the Christian life is about so much more than that.
"Doing that with truth and love" indeed! Anything less will not do. Anything more will only cheapen one or the other.
This is pure delight - hearing your story in your uniquely honest and insightful way with the very best mix of humour, poignancy, inspiration and realism. I love how God is using you. This work is so important and I am grateful you have answered this call.
Thanks, Karen, for the wonderfully kind comment.
Thanks Matt.
Thank you for being courageous enough to subvert the dominant paradigm. May it help bring freedom to many of our men and (therefore our women) to be and do how God has made them.
Thanks Janet! There are a lot of paradigms that need challenging, and hopefully this can be part of a whole bunch of subversion that leads to more freedom :).
Growing up I was incredibly legalistic, bordering on insufferable at times about what was right and correct in church. As an example as freshman in high school I had a dispute with two leaders in our youth group listening to non-CCM music, and being upset that they were considered leaders. Looking back on it, they were very gracious to me, they were kind, listened and never made fun of what had to seem like an immature view on life.
I set that up to say that through high school and in college I read all the "right" books and interpreted scripture in one exact way: the "correct" way. I was told through leaders, books, and the examples modeled before me how I needed to read the Bible and understand it. I did all of that too, I thought about the Bible and how each intrepretation was arrived at logically. As you say Matt if you didn't arrive at "xyz" like I did then clearly you were in the wrong.
I thought that way all the way through probably to the end of college, even as what I held in my heart conflicted with what I was told was the only way to interpret the Bible. It took into my late 20s for my views on Biblical interpretation to start changing. Part of that Matt comes from conversations with what Christa and you were doing and for that I am grateful. It has been a journey the last 10 years for me to go from a person who knew that every word in the Bible only had one interpretation that mattered to understanding that context, language, and many other factors affect how the Bible is interpreted. I am not perfect, nor have I managed to shake off every shackle of my previous thought life, but I do believe I am headed in a better direction that I have been in the past.
To end my ramblings here I wanted to point out the probable reason for my legalistic nature as a child, teen, and young adult. When I was in fourth grade my parents got divorced and in the following few months had a new home, school, and church. Nearly everything that had been stable for me fell away and into pieces. I tried to make friends but nothing seemed to take until my 6th grade year when I met the Middle School Director at my church. She and her husband saw me, saw value in me and loved me as I was. They helped give me purpose and helped show me what love was. She was the most influential pastor I had in my life up to that point, even though the church wouldn't call her a pastor because she was a women. The time and love she and her husband gave me cemented her in my heart, but because I was a kid it also cemented that church into my heart. So for a long time whatever that church believed or said, I believed or said. I owned it as I got older, as I explained before, but it took a long time to realize that she was the thing that loved me not the church I was going to.
Anyway, I want to say thanks Matt for writing and helping me reflect on my own journey. Look forward to reading more.
Thanks for sharing all that, Jeremy. I fondly remember many of the influential people from our home church. They were pivotal to my growth, despite the surrounding culture that also harboured unhealthy narratives. And I owe much of who I am now to the relationships I had then.
But, some of those people showed me freeing ways to live accompanied by legalism and dogmatism. People are often a mix of health and dysfunction, which is a normal part of becoming children of the Spirit—untwisting that fleshliness and being remade into the image of Christ. But, there are patterns that emerge when authority and power are present in our church structures, “offices,” and leadership. There tends not to be mutual, sibling relationships (brother-sister in Christ), but hierarchy and stratification (and a whole heap of unnecessary pain).
Jesus used the metaphor of family to describe his followers so often, and I think we forsake a central gospel tenet when we bifurcate into clergy/laity, leaders/followers, etc. I’m sure I’ll write more on that stuff later. But it’s never too late to adopt new narratives.
Always amazes me when people surmise what is happening or will happen in someone else’s marriage.
Same. Again, though, I think it comes from a desire to be "right," in this case. If God designed men and women a certain way, then it follows (to some) that marriage must look a certain way. When it doesn't, the threat goes all the way back to God. God is perfect > God's word is perfect > God's word says xyz about marriage > You don't believe xyz? > You don't believe God's word > You don't believe God > Your marriage will fail, or the world ends, or something.
And when the issue is about protecting and defending God, there are no boundaries that can't be crossed and no context that would explain a different interpretation. I think this is a very common way of thinking, unfortunately.