Take this glorious example of ridiculous:
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| Taken from the Mindful Christianity Today facebook page - I don't know where they got it from. |
Verse #1 - Jesus doesn't care how many Bible verses you have memorized.
Well, firstly, Jesus was an actual real, live, historical figure living in a real, actual, historical period of time, so he had a life, and his life was...Jewish. Because he was Jewish. He also wasn't white, but maybe that first arm is supposed to be you passing gruel to someone and not him, so I guess if you're white this picture would work. Or if you had any gruel handy. But if Jesus was Jewish, then the real, live, historical Jesus would have had opinions from the perspective of...a Jewish man. So yeah, actually we have a lot of information available to us about historical Jewish men in the middle east, and based on that information, Jesus would have certainly cared if you memorized scripture. Absolutely he would have. He did it himself! He did it so well he taught in the temple! He did it so well he taught senior scholars in the temple while he was a child! He had such a firm grasp of scripture that he developed a following and became a serious threat and was killed for it! And what's more, the scriptures he had access to were the Old Testament teachings, not the New Testament teachings, so in fact he would have expected a decent understanding of the things LEADING UP TO the gospel accounts. He would, in short, have expected historical faith knowledge. But don't take my word for this - ask literally any credible Jewish scholar anywhere about the importance of Old Testament knowledge to their faith. Any. One.
But maybe what the meme is trying to say is not so much 'Jesus' but 'The Holy Spirit'. That's a pretty major error if that's the case, seeing as Jesus is not the Holy Spirit because they are two ENTIRELY DIFFERENT TRIUNE ASPECTS OF GOD. It would be like saying 'Listen, Debbie, I know you wrote this essay but I'm going to say Susan did because you're both human females so, like, you're pretty much interchangeable'. This would be incorrect. And I want to say that whoever wrote the above piece of drivel doesn't actually believe that Jesus and the Holy Spirit are the same person but sure, let's, for just a moment, pretend that that's the problem.
So here is where I feel like a little Bible lesson would not be remiss. See, Jesus DIED. Like, he ACTUALLY FOR REALSIES DIED. So now Jesus is dead, okay? He's put into a tomb and he's still dead, bear with me. Now, he COMES BACK TO LIFE. Oh my gosh really, I know, it's shocking. I'm not being sarcastic - this is shocking news. It's so shocking that it literally actually changed the course of human history. Now, what happens NEXT? I mean, does he live a nice long life and then die again? Does he start a religion called Christianity? Does he overthrow the government like everyone seemed to hope he would? Surprisingly, he spends time with various people, talks to them, hangs out, and then...he goes to Heaven! So sometime approximately two thousand years ago Jesus goes up to Heaven, and...he hasn't come back yet. Really! He's still there! Well, now that is crazy because these days you have lots and lots of things attributed TO Jesus that Jesus is not here to do. Like, for example, caring about whether you, Susan, are memorizing your Old Testament! But Jesus is not physically here, on Earth, because you remember he went to heaven and that is where he still is.
The person who IS here is the Holy Spirit. Who is actually, tangibly HERE here. No, you can't see him, he isn't in a human body like Jesus was, but he's here all the same. So we know the Holy Spirit is here because 1) Jesus told us he would be here and 2) We can see the results of his arrival. Like...like air. You can't see air, but you're breathing, and you're alive, and fire works, and something is moving those leaves, and so forth. You can't SEE air, but you can see the results of air existing. So you can see that Jesus and the Holy Spirit, while both being God (God is an eternal, unchangeable spirit who is triune in nature. Triune meaning 'three-in-one' One God. Three persons. Three aspects. Three separate aspects. One God. You'll easily able to tell why I am not a theologian.) are not The Same Thing. Not. Not the same thing at ALLLLLLL. Very different in multiple ways. In form, in purpose, in location for that matter. Remember, Holy Spirit - here, with us. Jesus - Still in Heaven, hasn't returned yet.
So what if what the meme is trying to say is that the Holy Spirit doesn't care how many Bible verses you have memorized. Well, if anything, this is possibly more ridiculous than Jesus not caring. What we need to ask ourselves is WHY. Why would Jesus send us the Holy Spirit? Why bother? I mean, if the whole purpose of the Bible is entirely fulfilled by God the father creating us and God the son redeeming us then what's this invisible Spirit guy doing in the mix? Well, he's there for multiple reasons but one of them is GUIDANCE. So I'm terrible at examples but try and follow my poor storytelling. You want to go somewhere, so you get in a car. There's a road and it has lots of signs and everything guiding you to the place you want to go. But signs and a road and a car are not enough to get from place A to place B. What if part of the road gets washed out? What if you make a turn off the road because you think you know a better way but it turns out you navigate like I do and you do not, in fact, know a better way? What if the windshield wipers suddenly turn on and you can't get it to stop and you don't know what's wrong with the car? Wouldn't it be handy if there was someone in the passenger seat who knew this road really, really well? Who was part of the BUILDING of this road? Who personally lived both at point A and also at point B and could navigate for you? Well lucky for you, there is! This is the Holy Spirit's JOB. He specifically wants to help guide you along that road and all it's myriad twists, turns, wrong ways, detours and crazy oncoming traffic. What does this have to do with this meme, woman!!!?? I'll tell you - the Holy Spirit wants to guide you. His purpose in existing is primarily to be the guiding helper. He will guide you despite whatever stupid stuff you may do, and thank God for that, frankly, but all the same he wants you to travel down this path. He WANTS you to move towards Point B. He exists in you to help you get closer to the end point! This is what he does! Do you think, knowing this, that he would not want you to deeply know your guidebook? That he would say "hey, we're on this highway, but don't look at the road signs. Or learn how to drive the car. Or read the owner's manual." Does this sound in any way logical? It does not.
So okay, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit (and God the father as well but I'm hoping I don't need to explain that) all do, actually want you to know your Bible. All three of them are deeply invested in you knowing your Bible, in fact.
Verse #2 - He cares how you treat people.
Right. Well, yeeeees, he does care how you treat people. Yes. But that is not really in any way affiliated with how much of the Bible you know. I mean, those two things, if they are in any way attached to each other, actually feed positively from the Bible reading side. So if you read your Bible and know your Bible and study your Bible you will treat people BETTER because of that, not worse. No one is asking you to choose. No one is saying you can EITHER know your Bible OR you can treat people well. But you only get to pick one of those things. That's...I don't even know where that would come from. Absolutely none of the Bible is about choosing between living in this actual world that God has created, and being a Good Christian. I cannot even think where this dichotomy would come from, and I'm wracking my brains.
Perhaps what the implication here is is less that you're choosing, but that the sort of person who would memorize Bible verses is not the sort of person who would care how you treat people. That's quite possible, actually, since the world seems to have this fascinatingly strange perception of Christians as weirdos just waiting to leap out of dark corners and throw Gideon testaments at innocent people just trying to have a nice time. I don't even own a Gideon testament! Or a long denim skirt! Obviously someone should be taking away my Christian card.
The irony is that IF that is what this meme is trying to get at, that you can give away bowls of gruel to hairy armed poor hungry people OR you can be all worried about stupid stuff like learning the basis of faith and salvation, then this meme curls in on itself and becomes what it condemns. It takes its truth, and it hold it above all else, and says 'prostrate yourself in front of this, and not that. That is wrong, but this...this over here, this social justice, this feeding of people, this is right!' It ignores the two thousand years where for large swathes of time the Western world owed it's learning and medical care and allievment of poverty to the Christians. It ignores the Mission Aviation Fellowship pilots flying food to drought-ridden areas of Angola, right now! It ignores the Wycliffe Bible translators who gave me brand new lovely snowsuits for my two oldest children when we were too poor to manage much on our own. It ignores the elderly in my own church, who from there own meagre income buy food for the children at the small local elementary school here in town, so that no child has to go through the day without breakfast and lunch. These people, they did not ignore their responsibility to their own faith, to read the road signs, to learn about the car, in favour of the easier visible things. They didn't give the box of cereal and then go home and say 'well thank goodness that's done and I don't have to even LISTEN in church next week.' The study was the fuel that led them forward.
And the Bible, strangely enough, has quite a bit to say about that, too.
