Drama and Disputes
From 1 Timothy 1 – 1 Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the commandment of God our Savior and the Lord Jesus Christ, our hope,
2 Timothy, a true son in the faith: grace, mercy, and peace from God our Father and Jesus Christ our Lord.
3 As I urged you when I went into Macedonia – remain in Ephesus that you may charge some that they teach no other doctrine, 4 nor give heed to fables and endless genealogies, which cause disputes…
Years ago, I was blessed to help out in a role at my local church. The more the Lord blessed my contribution, the more passionate about the work I became, and that's good. As happens in His humbling sovereignty, He sent someone on to help on the same team, toward the same end who had not only a different technique in mind but a personality completely different from my own. Passion stewed along with pride into a nearly unrecognizable self-righteous zeal, all within the confines of my own heart.
Thoughts of confrontation may have had some biblical origins, but my own internal narrative embellished and intensified from there. I care by the people being ministered to. He doesn't. He has ALWAYS been… I have NEVER been… Donning a cape and rising, chest inflated, to the cue of my own dramatic theme song, at least in my own mind, I went forth to do battle royal for the Lord.
What transpired outside of my own cranium was both underwhelming and instructive. My words were like the apostle Paul's only in that they were less confrontational and imposing in person. Perhaps my cause seemed a little less desperate merely by speaking the issue out loud. Perhaps my mealymouthed translation of those thoughts had more to do with a form of pride as bad as what was in my heart. My pride is injured, I might have admitted, but I don't want to harm it further by letting other people know I'm hurt.
To that mixed message with weeks of tension behind it, my misguided teammate responded with… OK, Brother. Thank you for letting me know. I will incorporate what you said. Thank you for all you do, and for your passion for the ministry. Um... OK. Thanks. Good talk. The arsenal in which I had invested so much was unreleased, and unnecessary.
The real apostle Paul understood this human tendency to over-invest our narratives with self-centered drama. Perhaps that's why continues to assemble such a careful, general plan of action is 1 Timothy opens to his young protégé on the spot in Ephesus. Any pastor, any spiritual leader, Paul knows, has as his or her first priority a vigilance against other doctrines that can rob those we care about of sweet, total, child-like dependence on Christ in the here and now (verse 3).
Miss any of the little foxes that gnaw at add vine and destroy or preempt sweet fruit, and there will be consequences. Unplug from Christ, even for a minute or conversation, and we will plug into something else.
Paul sorts those something else's into fables and endless genealogies. Our fables, our self-generated fictions, make sense of the twists and turns of the world around us with some basis other than Christ. We may know they are fiction, or wild, wobbly hypothesis when we construct them ad hoc in our thoughts. Even so, as they survive each day's encounters with reality, they begin to resemble it, like the set of a favorite show with which we become so familiar we willingly forget it is plywood. Our genealogies enhance our biased illusions by constructing a distorted back story behind what we see. Thus, we go into today's encounters with our nevers and our always's firmly implanted.
No wonder Paul says knowingly that our narratives cause disputes. The set of assumptions I use to tame and organize reality, and make myself the epic hero, will NEVER be the same as yours. The collision is as untenable as a gaggle of actors and characters all insisting for top billing in the same movie. Collisions occur. Feelings are embittered. Assumptions are unwillingly re-examined. We are quick to proclaim that any pain we feel in the dissonance is somebody else's fault.
We will allow ourselves to look at the wrong in this before we move on too glibly. Still, master storyteller and cultural uplifter Walt Disney helps us absorb the collective, instructive pain. As we will begin casting for stories just as soon as our eyes are lifted from the Bible, Disney as quoted in Animated Man reminds us to do so with grace.
He tells us along with his creative team, "There are no villains in this story, only a group of real people bumping into each other as real people do." As we and our stories bump into each other as real people do, we can take our hurt feelings and needs to redraft to Christ, the One Whose story will be accomplished from beginning to end.
2 Timothy, a true son in the faith: grace, mercy, and peace from God our Father and Jesus Christ our Lord.
3 As I urged you when I went into Macedonia – remain in Ephesus that you may charge some that they teach no other doctrine, 4 nor give heed to fables and endless genealogies, which cause disputes…
Years ago, I was blessed to help out in a role at my local church. The more the Lord blessed my contribution, the more passionate about the work I became, and that's good. As happens in His humbling sovereignty, He sent someone on to help on the same team, toward the same end who had not only a different technique in mind but a personality completely different from my own. Passion stewed along with pride into a nearly unrecognizable self-righteous zeal, all within the confines of my own heart.
Thoughts of confrontation may have had some biblical origins, but my own internal narrative embellished and intensified from there. I care by the people being ministered to. He doesn't. He has ALWAYS been… I have NEVER been… Donning a cape and rising, chest inflated, to the cue of my own dramatic theme song, at least in my own mind, I went forth to do battle royal for the Lord.
What transpired outside of my own cranium was both underwhelming and instructive. My words were like the apostle Paul's only in that they were less confrontational and imposing in person. Perhaps my cause seemed a little less desperate merely by speaking the issue out loud. Perhaps my mealymouthed translation of those thoughts had more to do with a form of pride as bad as what was in my heart. My pride is injured, I might have admitted, but I don't want to harm it further by letting other people know I'm hurt.
To that mixed message with weeks of tension behind it, my misguided teammate responded with… OK, Brother. Thank you for letting me know. I will incorporate what you said. Thank you for all you do, and for your passion for the ministry. Um... OK. Thanks. Good talk. The arsenal in which I had invested so much was unreleased, and unnecessary.
The real apostle Paul understood this human tendency to over-invest our narratives with self-centered drama. Perhaps that's why continues to assemble such a careful, general plan of action is 1 Timothy opens to his young protégé on the spot in Ephesus. Any pastor, any spiritual leader, Paul knows, has as his or her first priority a vigilance against other doctrines that can rob those we care about of sweet, total, child-like dependence on Christ in the here and now (verse 3).
Miss any of the little foxes that gnaw at add vine and destroy or preempt sweet fruit, and there will be consequences. Unplug from Christ, even for a minute or conversation, and we will plug into something else.
Paul sorts those something else's into fables and endless genealogies. Our fables, our self-generated fictions, make sense of the twists and turns of the world around us with some basis other than Christ. We may know they are fiction, or wild, wobbly hypothesis when we construct them ad hoc in our thoughts. Even so, as they survive each day's encounters with reality, they begin to resemble it, like the set of a favorite show with which we become so familiar we willingly forget it is plywood. Our genealogies enhance our biased illusions by constructing a distorted back story behind what we see. Thus, we go into today's encounters with our nevers and our always's firmly implanted.
No wonder Paul says knowingly that our narratives cause disputes. The set of assumptions I use to tame and organize reality, and make myself the epic hero, will NEVER be the same as yours. The collision is as untenable as a gaggle of actors and characters all insisting for top billing in the same movie. Collisions occur. Feelings are embittered. Assumptions are unwillingly re-examined. We are quick to proclaim that any pain we feel in the dissonance is somebody else's fault.
We will allow ourselves to look at the wrong in this before we move on too glibly. Still, master storyteller and cultural uplifter Walt Disney helps us absorb the collective, instructive pain. As we will begin casting for stories just as soon as our eyes are lifted from the Bible, Disney as quoted in Animated Man reminds us to do so with grace.
He tells us along with his creative team, "There are no villains in this story, only a group of real people bumping into each other as real people do." As we and our stories bump into each other as real people do, we can take our hurt feelings and needs to redraft to Christ, the One Whose story will be accomplished from beginning to end.
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