Well, it looks like I will not be giving an in-depth update
on what I am doing here. I do apologize
for that, but I feel my time is better spent posting about the spiritual
details. Fast food is good if you are in
a rush, but steak is better in every way, shape, and form, as long as you have
time to enjoy it and the tools to cut it.
As a Christian here on earth, what is our purpose? Are we just here to make it to heaven? Are we just here to ensure our
salvation? Or are we here to do more
than that? Are we here to glorify
God? Is “ensuring our salvation” a stepping stone to achieve glorifying God?
I WILL NOT say that you are wrong if you look at the bible
and ask, “is this a salvation question” to determine whether you do exactly
what the bible says or fudge just a bit.
I don’t have that authority, I don’t want that authority, and I will
never have that authority. That lies in
God’s hands.
But I do want you to think about it. I feel like I have made a breakthrough in beginning
to understand some of those that are more liberal in their interpretation of
the bible. I am here in the Czech
Republic at a retreat for missionaries in central Europe. It is a beautiful thing. We sing a lot, with songs in Croatian, Czech,
Dutch, Hungarian, Polish, Slovak, and English.
We study, we fellowship, and we encourage one another. And we talk.
A lot. The other night, a group of us
talked about Christianity, and the way culture affects it. American culture and experience has molded
American Christianity. We draw lines in
the sand, and treat them as scriptural lines.
Not everyone draws the same lines, but they are drawn. And they aren’t always a problem, as long as
we keep them in America. For example-
how many say that alcohol, in any quantity, is bad? How many churches actually use wine for
communion? In America, using grape juice
is normal. We have a fear of
becoming alcoholics (at least I hope that is the reason we are so against alcohol. I have never seen or heard of the scripture
that condemns alcohol. Drunkenness is
mentioned time and again, but drinking alcohol in moderation is certainly not condemned.), and
so we make sure we don’t touch alcohol.
It is hard to be an alcoholic if you don’t drink. Personally, I am one of the ones a bit wary
of alcohol, for many cultural reasons. And that is fine, until I go
to a foreign country and condemn them for drinking alcohol on occasion and
using real wine for communion. We cannot condemn others for not following the
line in the sand that we drew and that we hold ourselves to. On the other hand, when we know people have
lines drawn, we need to respect them, and not jump over them just because we
don’t think the lines need to be drawn.
That is not the way to treat anyone, Christian brother or not.
The appetizer is over, let’s bring on the entrée. Here is my problem-
How do we want to live our lives? Do we want to live them in a way that we are
just saved? Or do we want to glorify
God? I do not feel comfortable asking,
“What must I do to be saved?” Does that
glorify God? I don’t think it does… I don’t think that we can ask our creator and
councilor, who also happened to give His life to become our savior, “If I do
this, but not this, will you still save me?”
I am not perfect. God
doesn’t require perfection for salvation.
Otherwise, no one would be saved.
But he does tell us to be perfect (Matthew 5:48, “Be perfect, therefore,
as your heavenly Father is perfect.”). So
do we strive for perfection, or do we settle for stopping short, because no one
but Jesus has actually achieved perfection?
Personally, that mentality scares me.
I don’t want God to look at me and say, “You did okay…” I want Him to say, “Well done, good and
faithful servant.” (Writing that scares
me. I don’t know that it makes a
difference to God. I don’t know exactly
what God’s response to us will be. Maybe
it is the same for everyone that is saved, regardless of our actions or
mentality. I just don’t know. I do know that I would rather strive and
struggle to be the best I can be than to settle. Settling just doesn’t work for me.)
Anywho, the question came up about communion. If I had to, would I be okay with using an
Oreo instead of bread? The bread is a
symbol of Jesus’s body, but it is only a symbol. Could I use an Oreo, in the right mindset, to
also symbolize Christ’s body?
Let’s look at the bigger picture as I see it- interpretation
of the commands of the bible. When God
tells us how to do something, do we look at the reasoning behind it, and then
find the means to get it done within our human perspective? Or do we humble ourselves, realize that He knows
best, and do as He says? (Classic
example- baptism. We are told to immerse
[that’s what baptize means in Greek], but that is not always “convenient”, so
some settle for sprinkling. Is there a
problem with that? Should you have a
problem with that?)
Personally, I have a problem with that. Maybe I am stupid, but I don’t feel
comfortable with that. I don’t think
that we, as mortal, created human beings have the right to look at what our
creator and savior has told us and say, “You told me to do it this way, but I
can do the same thing this other way, and so I will. Thanks though!” I am conservative, and saying such things
does scare me. Some may say that is
because I am weaker in my faith, as in Romans 14, or maybe that I just don’t
understand scripture. Maybe you are
right. I would prefer to see it as me
being humble enough to see my place in the grand scheme of things. I would not feel right about going up to my
king, creator, and savior, and telling Him that I know a better way of
accomplishing what He wants accomplished.
I just don’t feel like that is a good idea.
Maybe God will not condemn someone for using an Oreo as a
symbol of Jesus’s body in a pinch. I
just don’t know. Some don’t think that
is a “salvation issue”. Okay. Fine.
But I don’t think that tweaking God’s commands in such a way glorifies
God. I do want to get to heaven, and I
do want to serve as a missionary to help spread God’s word to the lost. But I also want more than that- I want to glorify
God with my life. And so, personally, I
am going to be conservative in my interpretation of God’s commands, and I am
going to strive to follow them to the letter.
I may slip up, but I am going to try not to. I hope that glorifies God.
This is a lot of my personal opinion. I know people, quite a few of them actually, that have different opinions. I don’t
want you to just agree with me. I want
you to consider yourself more than anything.
I could be completely wrong and off base, and if so, feel free to
correct me.
With love, and God bless,
John Coffey
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