“You are in error
because you do not know the
scriptures or the power of God” (Matthew 22:29).
These
words are somewhat surprising because Jesus said them to the
religious leaders
of his day. This should be
a warning to
all of us. It is easy to
be mislead and
not understand what God is doing around us.
Fortunately, Jesus’ diagnosis of the problem also leads us
to at least a
couple of the solutions.
First,
he points out that they did not know the scriptures. This is not abnormal. In fact, when we become
involved with a
religious system, or when we find ourselves surrounded by other
religious
people, it is easy to simply follow along and do whatever is being
done. Many times, I have
heard people say, “I do
not know why we do that. It
is just what
my church does”. Traditions
and forms of
worship can be good and beneficial, but they come with the danger
of allowing
us to just coast along.
One
of
the dangers of not knowing the word is that, left to our own
devices, most of
us will create God in our own image.
In
other words, unless I am told differently, I will assume that God
thinks what I
think, approves of what I approve of and would do things the way I
would like
them done. Reading the
word counteracts
that tendency by forcing us to see life from God’s point of view. Hopefully, then, we are
changed to look more
like him.
However, reading is
not
enough. Jesus says the
other issue they
had was that they did not know the power of God. They knew what God’s word
said, but they did
not know God himself.
It
is the
difference between reading a Revenue Canada booklet verses a love
letter. Both contain
facts and truth. However,
one is read for information’s sake
and the other is read to get to know someone.
The people of Jesus’ day knew the rules, but they did not
understand the
God behind those rules. That
lack of
understanding caused them to miss what God was doing around them. In fact, it made them miss
the Son of God
himself.
It
is
easy to get off-course. However,
we will
always do better when we make it our goal to know both the word of
God and the
God of the word.
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