Matthew 5:16-17 – Outshining the Allure of a New Order
16 Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.
17 “Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill.
In Pinedale Christian Church's inaugural Ironworks Conference purposed to refine Christian communications Matthew Sink sought to prove a point with the help of secular advertisers. He said researchers took a group of novices in that endeavor, asked them to design ad campaigns, and had those campaigns judged by impartial experts. The results, predictably, were unconvincing. The researchers then had those same novices tutored in the basic techniques of the field, and the expert did not see much improvement in their efforts.
The profound improvement came, Sink said, when researchers exposed these neophytes to the six basic storylines into which effective advertising tends to be classified. Those efforts which were rooted in a proven pattern, the expert said, actually showed the most creativity.
This exposes much of our flesh's insistence on novelty. Even though Ecclesiastes says there is nothing new under the sun and Proverbs urges succeeding generations to ask where the good way is and walk in it, we continually want to reinvent, rebrand, and re-found.
A little success granted us by God's grace can actually accelerate this tendency. Follow me, we readily herald when our efforts began to flourish. I've got a new technique! Frustration is a thing of the past, we promise consciously or unconsciously, as we lure others who are looking to avoid the heart, humbling, intimate rather than impressive work of internal transformation.
Of course, Jesus knew what our reaction would be when our light, granted by His grace and mercy begins to shine before men and people began to see our resulting good works. He subverts this urge to found a following by reminding us that both the light He kindles and the resulting good works we group a little less blindly in our to glorify our Father in Heaven.
Our excitement that we are seeing and behaving differently is understandable, commendable, fuel for further sanctification, but it isn't really novel. These changes point man to our Father in Heaven, Whose plan and work this has been from before the foundation of the world.
Knowing we might not give up our insistence on the New Us leaving a New Movement quite so easily, Jesus doubles down in Matthew 5:17. He knows the Word has pricked us before. This conviction has been a work of His grace. He knows the word has weighed us down before.
This, far from the full weight of the righteousness that Word demands, has also been a gift to show us our strength is not sufficient. A certain readiness for new slogans, new terminology, might be understandable, but His way is to leave that Word in place and fulfill it for us.
One of the ways Christ fulfills righteousness for us is to renew our relationship with His Word. He tames our itch for change for the sake of change by showing us the real purpose of the tried and true, the old, established storyline. Charles Spurgeon marvels of Christ in Morning and Evening, "Although able to reveal fresh truth, He preferred to expound the old. He knew by His omniscience what was the most instructive way of teaching, and by turning at once to Moses and the prophets, He showed us that the surest road to wisdom is not speculation, reasoning, or reading human books, but meditation upon the Word of God."
He fulfills His ancient, impenetrable Word so effectively in every detail that what He has completed actually begins to change His own. Realizing we are taking the first, tottering steps in a preset storyline that is guaranteed to make us the showpiece of His grace before the universe, we actually begin to go about our daily efforts with flair.
Knowing they aren't meant to satisfy regal righteousness which is out of our reach, a renewed effort in our daily doings becomes a delightful, perpetual puzzle of how best to express gratitude with all the quirky individualism He grants us. We are participating in the old, and ever-effective story.
17 “Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill.
In Pinedale Christian Church's inaugural Ironworks Conference purposed to refine Christian communications Matthew Sink sought to prove a point with the help of secular advertisers. He said researchers took a group of novices in that endeavor, asked them to design ad campaigns, and had those campaigns judged by impartial experts. The results, predictably, were unconvincing. The researchers then had those same novices tutored in the basic techniques of the field, and the expert did not see much improvement in their efforts.
The profound improvement came, Sink said, when researchers exposed these neophytes to the six basic storylines into which effective advertising tends to be classified. Those efforts which were rooted in a proven pattern, the expert said, actually showed the most creativity.
This exposes much of our flesh's insistence on novelty. Even though Ecclesiastes says there is nothing new under the sun and Proverbs urges succeeding generations to ask where the good way is and walk in it, we continually want to reinvent, rebrand, and re-found.
A little success granted us by God's grace can actually accelerate this tendency. Follow me, we readily herald when our efforts began to flourish. I've got a new technique! Frustration is a thing of the past, we promise consciously or unconsciously, as we lure others who are looking to avoid the heart, humbling, intimate rather than impressive work of internal transformation.
Of course, Jesus knew what our reaction would be when our light, granted by His grace and mercy begins to shine before men and people began to see our resulting good works. He subverts this urge to found a following by reminding us that both the light He kindles and the resulting good works we group a little less blindly in our to glorify our Father in Heaven.
Our excitement that we are seeing and behaving differently is understandable, commendable, fuel for further sanctification, but it isn't really novel. These changes point man to our Father in Heaven, Whose plan and work this has been from before the foundation of the world.
Knowing we might not give up our insistence on the New Us leaving a New Movement quite so easily, Jesus doubles down in Matthew 5:17. He knows the Word has pricked us before. This conviction has been a work of His grace. He knows the word has weighed us down before.
This, far from the full weight of the righteousness that Word demands, has also been a gift to show us our strength is not sufficient. A certain readiness for new slogans, new terminology, might be understandable, but His way is to leave that Word in place and fulfill it for us.
One of the ways Christ fulfills righteousness for us is to renew our relationship with His Word. He tames our itch for change for the sake of change by showing us the real purpose of the tried and true, the old, established storyline. Charles Spurgeon marvels of Christ in Morning and Evening, "Although able to reveal fresh truth, He preferred to expound the old. He knew by His omniscience what was the most instructive way of teaching, and by turning at once to Moses and the prophets, He showed us that the surest road to wisdom is not speculation, reasoning, or reading human books, but meditation upon the Word of God."
He fulfills His ancient, impenetrable Word so effectively in every detail that what He has completed actually begins to change His own. Realizing we are taking the first, tottering steps in a preset storyline that is guaranteed to make us the showpiece of His grace before the universe, we actually begin to go about our daily efforts with flair.
Knowing they aren't meant to satisfy regal righteousness which is out of our reach, a renewed effort in our daily doings becomes a delightful, perpetual puzzle of how best to express gratitude with all the quirky individualism He grants us. We are participating in the old, and ever-effective story.
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