Being a Youth Pastor to several hundred teens proved an enjoyable challenge. I was a serious Bible teacher with a belief that God and His Word could change lives. The three or four hundred kids sitting in front of me liked our Bible studies and many were serious about their faith but they had a tendency to avoid serious Scripture. So I decided to directly challenge the problem ... I wanted a lesson with an impact. An illustration they could actually see.
In our Church library we had a stack of old hymnals and old Bibles. Actually no one knew what to do with them. I took one of the old beat up Bibles and decided to teach from it at our next Bible study. I had a reason to use an old Bible.
At our next Bible study I opened this old Bible to Luke chapter six and read a little of the Beatitudes; most of us like the Beatitudes, they're comfortable ... then I started reading several of the verses that followed the Beatitudes, These are very uncomfortable verses ... illogical verses. I took one verse that was a most uncomfortable verse and carefully tore the verse from the old Bible, crumpled it up and threw it to the floor.
You could hear a collective gasp from the kids. Their teacher actually desecrating God's Holy Bible?
I kept going, finding another illogical verse: (and there are many.) Give to everyone that asks me for something? I did the same with that verse as I did with the other. In fact that night I tore several verses from that old Bible and threw them to the floor.
What's the difference, I asked my audience ... If I don't intend to do what the verse says or at least struggle with it, isn't it the same thing? These are commands, are they not?
Our Lord seems to want Christians to be a radically different people. If we obey ALL of His Word indeed we will be different people.
I could see that lesson made an impact. A lesson many of us need to learn and put into practice.
All of us Christians have a growing tendency to pick and choose. We have our favorite comforting Scriptures; we also have the Scripture we prefer to pass over.
In Tijuana Mexico they have a saying. "What I don't see doesn't exist." Look away and it's not there.
A comfortable mind set indeed ... however, anything but a Christian perspective. We're called to face the truth and do it!
In the little book of James, we're called to "do" the Word, not just hear it.
