Whose Story Is It?

It seems to me that the Hebrew Scriptures (The Old Testament) were written specifically for the Jewish people, who were trying to obey God. Likewise, The New Testament was written specifically for the Church, the people who understand Jesus to be the perfect human reflection of this God. If this is true, then our scriptures were not written for us to tell people outside the faith how they should live their lives. The scriptures were written for those of us attempting to be the church, so that we may live out these words.

For this reason, I don’t care whether they take the Ten Commandments out of the American courthouses. The question is: Have I obeyed the Commandments today?

I don’t care whether they allow people to pray before high school football games. The question is: Have I remembered to pray today?

I don’t care whether we are pledging allegiance to one nation “under God.” The question is: Have I pledged my allegiance to God, period?

I could go on, and you may disagree with me. I love to dialogue with people about things such as these. Even more, I love the thought of us learning to disagree well. For me, that means that we keep on loving each other in a way that lifts up the person over the person’s opinion, so that our opinions may be shared even more freely.

But the bottom line for me is that I am attempting to follow Christ, and be his disciple, and join together with other disciples in the community we call the church. And that means that I must learn to read the Scriptures in a way that shapes my life, and allows me to be the kind of member of this community that Jesus intended. This does not mean that I am not concerned with “reaching others” outside of the faith. I simply think that I must embody – or live out – my faith in Christ so that others may see. We live in a world that says “don’t tell me; show me” and this is what I aim to do.

After all, is this not the pattern given to us? The Good News is that God did not remain distant from his people, issuing decrees on how we should live. He came to us as a man so that we might see what “God is love” really looks like.

I doubt that people outside the faith really care how much we think they should listen to God’s Word. The question is: Are we listening?

With love,

a young shepherd.