Salty Teaching

Driving J to school this morning was a little bit like an episode of Jeopardy. He is always full of questions, but this morning was a little bit excessive:

• Mom! Are you going to a funeral today? (Yes, I’m wearing black. I wear black a lot – Did he just notice? Maybe it’s not the black; maybe it’s the celery green shirt?)
• Mom! (All questions start with Mom!) Have you ever broken a car? Have you ever shut the car door and the hinges break and the door falls off? (Apparently, I don’t know my own strength.)
• Mom! (See?) Do you get to pick the church you go to, or do they (whoever they are) tell you which church you have to go to?

Questions. He comes up with LOTS. Are we open to questions?

I stopped by Beth Quick’s blog yesterday. She was reviewing the book How (Not) to Speak of God by Peter Rollins. Be aware as you read this post (my post, I mean), I’ve never heard of this book, and have not read it.

She explains Rollins’ description of conceptual idols. That thought caught my attention. If an idol is anything we place above God in importance, then a conceptual idol is an IDEA we have of what God is like – the image of God that we have in our minds. It becomes an idol when we hold so tightly to what we THINK God is like that we are not open to revelation of what God is really like. We cling to OUR image of God, rather than to God himself. We normally think of an idol as a physical representation of a god; a conceptual idol is an intellectual representation of a god.

Do you do that? I do that! When I read the last chapter of Yancey’s book yesterday, I underlined parts, put stars in the margins and even wrote “Yes!” in a couple of places. Do I do that because what he is saying is a new, startling idea? Sometimes. Sometimes, though, I’m doing that because he is saying something that I agree with. That’s not learning – that’s affirmation of what I think I already know.

What are the dangers of conceptual idols?

Anytime we place anything – including an idea – above God in importance, that idol becomes an obstacle. Not only is it above God in importance (in our minds), but it also stands between us and God. Beth quotes Rollins: “They (the Pharisees) held so closely to their interpretation of the Messiah that when the Messiah finally appeared in a form that was different to what they expected, they rejected the Messiah in order to retain the integrity of their interpretation.” What was in their minds and their tradition was more important to them than the God standing in front of them.

None of us can grasp God completely. When we try – when we concentrate him down into a little box that we can hold and understand, we make him too small. We reduce him to less than he is. Sometimes that is necessary so that we can gain some kind of understanding of him, but we need to always keep in mind that what we know of him is less than what he is. Our conceptual idol – our idea of God – will always be wrong, because it can never be BIG enough.

When we are convinced that what we believe it right and true – and that what other people think is not – then we close ourselves off from a valuable means of grace – Christian conversation. One of the ways in which God reveals himself to us is in that push and pull of trying to understand God within the Body of Christ. That’s way too valuable to ignore just because what the other person is saying is different from what you (or I) think.

We have minds created and designed by God so that we can seek him – look for him. We have the need to try to understand him – a God-given yearning to connect with him. All of that is good, and right. We should never assume that we are finished with that process. Rollins says in his book, “Instead of religious discourse being a type of drink designed to satisfy our thirst for answers, Jesus made his teaching salty, evoking thirst.”

Drink of the salty water and never be satisfied with your conception of God – for He is more.