Got a question? Email me. I don’t have all the answers; God does. (If you want someone who thinks they’re infallible, I can point you to those blogs.) So as usual, all errors are mine.
Question. If the More Christ mantra is “I am wrong, Jesus is right,” then don’t you notice a discrepancy there when you say authoritative things about theology? —Richard V.
Reply. Of course. Who am I to be saying definitively what God is like and what God does? Who is anyone?
That’s a question we Christians ought to be asking all the time. Problem is, we don’t. We get it into our heads that our pastors, our mentors, our professors, the guy on the radio, the guy with the megachurch, the fella in the magazine, the best-selling author, the guy who founded the denomination, the Church Fathers, or worst of all we ourselves, are infallible. We’re not. Nobody is but Jesus.
I know; people don’t say any of these other folks are infallible. (Well, except the Pope under specific circumstances.) But they don’t have to say it; it’s how they behave. If everything you hear is weighed against what your pastor says—“I know what you say communion is like, but I believe Pastor when he says it’s like this…”—then in this situation, Pastor is infallible. Doesn’t matter if I’ve got more degrees than he does, or know Greek and he doesn’t, or I’m quoting bible out the wazoo and he’s just repeating something he read in Relevant Magazine; Pastor said so, so I must be wrong, and must be interpreting bible wrong.
It’s a common human behavior. Whether your infallible authority is C.S. Lewis, Billy Graham, R.C. Sproul, Rick Warren, Ravi Zacharias, Joyce Meyer, St. Augustine, James Dobson, James MacArthur, Beth Moore, John Calvin, T.D. Jakes, N.T. Wright, C.I. Scofield, John Piper, Ellen White, Thomas Merton, Jack Hayford, Josh McDowell, or all sorts of folks I know and don’t know, everybody tends to have one: Someone whom they trust to tell them exactly who God is. Someone whose life story or theology is impressive, and so they become people’s go-to person whenever they’re trying to figure out God.
Problem is, all these folks can ever do is tell you who God is to them. They understand God in a way that is practical for their religious practices, their ministry, their denomination, or (if they’ve got a lot of books that they really don’t care to go back and correct whenever God reveals something new to them, so as a result they dodge new revelation) their legacy. Some of them would be pleased to have people so confident in them. But most would be greatly bothered by it (and I would fall into the “bothered” category) because we religious Christians know how infallible we aren’t.
Only Jesus knows what the Father is like because only Jesus came down from heaven. Everybody else is either quoting him, or making educated guesses, or making ignorant guesses because we’re preaching what we wish was true instead of what is true.
So on this blog, I try to make it obvious that I am quoting the scriptures and making educated guesses. When I write something I’m pretty sure I’ve arrived at a correct conclusion about God. But the problem is that I, like everyone else on this planet, am at my core selfish. As much as I fight it, sometimes it bubbles out… and as a result I might teach what looks clever, or is widely believed, or is otherwise inaccurate. Not because I’m trying to lead anyone astray, but because once again “I am wrong, Jesus is right.”
Why don’t I say instead, “I’m sometimes wrong, but Jesus is always right”? I used to. It’s a mistake. “Sometimes wrong” allows us to presume, in the case of certain favorite beliefs, “In this instance, I’m right.” The things we blindly assume are right are by definition blind spots. And Christians should have no blind spots, but look at everything carefully. No exceptions. We can’t afford to let our guard down about anything that has to do with God. Because any place we’re not looking is the perfect place for the devil to embed a hook or stick a roadblock.
I likewise point out “I am wrong, Jesus is right” because ultimately I don’t want anyone to follow me. (I want people to read More Christ, of course, but that’s something else altogether.) I want people to follow Jesus. I point at him. I talk about him. Don’t trust me, trust him. Me, I’m just some schmuck with a blog.
Does saying this so often undercut my own authority? Fine, then I will undercut my own authority. If the only reason people read what I write is because of my “authority,” and not because Jesus is in it, it’s best they not read. If, however, they’re trying to follow Jesus same as I am, welcome. Join in. I should warn you, though: I’m wrong. But Jesus is right.