Today’s Scripture Reading (November 19, 2014): Galatians 3
A recent online article outlined ten things that you should
never say to your boss. The list was compiled from the things that ten bosses
admitted that they didn’t like to hear. H. Kim Bottomly, the president of
Wellesley College, a private women’s liberal-arts college just west of Boston
which boasts alumni such as Hillary Rodham Clinton and Madeleine Albright, said
that she didn’t want to know that something can’t be done. In her estimation,
that was just taking the easy way out. The reality is that most small business
owners know all too well that there are often ways around what seems to be
impossible, and success in business is often dependant on finding out how to do
what seems impossible. Sarah Fincke, the director of recruiting for SoulCycle would
seem to agree. Fincke also had an item on the list advising employees to erase
the words “I don’t know” from their vocabulary unless, of course, it is
followed up by the words “but I will find out.” Admitting ignorance with no desire
to learn is dangerous – and just another way of taking the easy way out. (Personally,
I would argue that the reverse is also very dangerous, believing or pretending
that you are an expert in something, because that also stops the learning
process.)
As the “Letter to the Galatians” continues, Paul continues to
press himself on the offense. And his question is this – exactly how did you
become a part of the Christian community in the first place. They seemed to
expect others to have to work their way into the community, but did they think
for a moment that they had deserved admission into community when they were
invited in – or maybe they were admitted into community simply because they had
believed in what they had seen and heard. In Paul’s mind, if the Galatians are
being honest with themselves, they would have to admit that they did not
deserve admission into the Christian community – and yet they became members
anyway just because they had believed.
This arrogance continues to show its face throughout the
Christian Church. We seem to want to raise the expectations of people outside
of our communities before we will all them to join with us. I was recently
asked by a man what it would take to join the church that I pastor. And I have
to admit that I am on a bit of a journey in this area myself. So I handed the
gentleman a simple statement of our beliefs and told him that if he wanted to
join, he could do so the next week. After all, Paul seemed to believe that all
it took was a desire to believe. The man, as of this writing, has not chosen to
join with us yet – maybe he was hoping for more hoops to jump.
The traditional method of joining for the church seems to
have been, behave, believe and then we might allow you to belong. Others have
argued that we have this in reverse – what is needed is an ability to belong,
before we come to belief, and then finally God will deal with the behavior. And
I have to admit that this latter method is closer to what I believe and want to
practice. But Paul might shorten the list down to just two steps, collapsing
the elements of believing and desiring to belong into one step – after all, why
would you want to belong if you had not at least started down the road to belief?
But the idea of behaving would most definitely come at a later time.
But the Galatians, like a major portion of the contemporary
church, wanted to see the behavior before they would allow people into the
community. They had believed a lie – and Paul was at a loss to explain how that
had ever been allowed to happen within the churches of Galatia.
Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading:
Galatians 4
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