I like
the TV show “American Pickers”, so when I realized that a trip to
the Indianapolis
500 was going to take my brother and me right past their shop in
Le Claire,
Iowa, I had to stop. It
was fun looking
around and seeing some things that I had seen on the show. I even bought a few
souvenirs.
As
I was
leaving, I asked the girl behind the counter, “What do you do when
they start
shooting around here?” She
gave me the
strangest look as if she had no idea what I was talking about, so
I rephrased
my question. “When they are shooting the TV show, what do you do
with the
store? Do you close it? Do you use part of it? What happens?” She laughed and said, “I
grew up in
Chicago, so when you asked about shooting, that meant something
completely
different to me! I was
thinking, ‘There
is no shooting around here! This
is
Iowa!’” (In case you are
curious… They
film early in the morning before the store is open).
It
is
so easy to misunderstand one another.
The
more I talk to people, the more convinced I am that
miscommunication is the
church’s biggest problem. Many
of the
things that we debate and argue about have no meaning to the
average
person. Therefore, they
pass it off as
being either too confusing or, worse, completely irrelevant.
This
is
not a new problem. The
church in Corinth
was confused and off the rails in several areas. Inspired by the Holy Spirit,
the apostle Paul
tried to sort out some of their issues, but his biggest remedy was
to urge them
to get back to the clear, basic message.
“I
want
to remind you of the gospel I preached to you… By this gospel you
are saved… What I
received, I passed on to you as of
first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the
Scriptures,
that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according
to the
Scriptures” (1 Corinthians 15:1-4).
Whatever else we need to sort
out, our primary
message must always be about the death, burial and resurrection of
Christ.
That
is
the only part that has any real power.
“Thanks
be to God! He gives us the
victory
through our Lord Jesus Christ!” (1 Corinthians 15:57)
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