Recipes
It’s a fundamental assumption that if one follows a recipe he can expect to get identical results.
Why is it then, that we handlers of the Word of God, expect to read and explain a book- follow a recipe- written by and about men who angered, convicted and stretched their hearers beyond relational endurance that we’re surprised when they resent, reject and resist us?
Surprised may be too mild of a word. Those of us who’ve been in the kingdom for any length of time can look wistfully over our shoulders and count the many men and women, who having embarked on faith’s adventure, only resign and lay it down in the confusion and disappointment of rejection.
Those who handed us the recipe for life, those whose writings we’ve studied for decades, those whom we’re nearly as familiar with as our flesh and blood family were often counted as failures by their contemporaries. It’s us today, who recognise their integrity and revelation, who have made them into our hero’s.
The world has changed. One day we won’t, any longer, be able to hold a hope of being highly regarded by general society. Ultimately, what impacts society interfaces with the church so, ultimately you can expect Christian culture to pressure it’s leaders to dampen their own spiritual ardor. It seems I remember reading some little something about that somewhere...anyway,
What to do with our recipe then?
I suppose we could make it a little more palatable by adding extra ingredients to please the crowd’s tastes, but that can’t end well in the long run.
No, I think we - especially we leaders- are going to have to redouble our own commitment to The Truth, ask God to strengthen our Spirt and begin now to harden ourselves to the relational and emotional string pulling that is certain to come.
I rejoice in this, the success of ministry is not measured by anyones receptivity to ‘my’ words- it’s measured by whether I spoke the right words, in the right spirit and for the right reasons.
After all, I’m just following the recipe.