Speaker: Dr Edwina Murphy
Scripture: Malachi 2:1-11
Edwina has a love hate relationship with iPhone
map apps. Great for taking you where you want to go, and you follow the voice.
However, you will encounter trouble if it asks you to turn right on a road
without traffic light at peak hours. Or you arrive at a virtual location but
the location is not there. Directions are important, as to where to go and how
to get there. That’s what this passage is doing.
1Peter 2:5. Whatever we are doing, God
calls us, in our own situation, to be faithful witnesses.
Malachi 2 starts with a warning: God warns
us to protect us. God’s judgments are in line with what we’ve done. It’s like
the warning lights we got on our cars. God gives us warnings because he wants
to give us life. The priests have dishonoured God, and God will dishonour them.
When mothers scold children, eg. “I will leave you alone in the… if you don’t…”
If the mother carries it out, it can be child abuse. The mother is more likely
just threatening them. But if she keeps doing that the children will stop
taking it seriously. God’s warning is not like this. God’s warning is very
serious.
The priests are teaching what’s right but
doing what’s wrong. The real danger for Morling graduates is probably not
teaching the Scriptures wrong, ie. heresy. The danger is to be technically correct,
but not be helpful at all: being theologically correct but with the wrong
effect. If we are speaking about God’s amazing grace but leaving people with a
generalised feeling of guilt and oppression, or a message on joy but leaving people
depressed, then we’re getting it wrong. If our preaching and our lives do not
lead to building people up in the Fruits of the Spirit, then there’s something
wrong. We may have a conviction of sin, but then we confess the sin, and feel
the freedom associated with that. Let us not just be people who speak about
grace, but be people who are gracious. Sometimes we may take the good news of
the gospel but give bad news to people.
How can we know, when we listen to
teaching, that it’s leading us right or wrong? We should hone our instincts by
being familiar with the scriptures first. Understand God’s word and let the
Spirit guide us. Let us be people who live those things out.
Personal thoughts and
reflections:
The message of
“living what you preach” is a very common topic which I have heard many times. However,
in this chapel, I truly sensed a warning for myself when I heard the part on
“being theologically correct but with the wrong effect” and this prompted me to
think about real life situations.
I suppose when people
have a sense of elitism about their faith, it can sometimes be a pretty dangerous
thing. Let’s imagine I am feeling pretty down and hopeless, perhaps even angry
at God because of some really bad events in my life. Then a person comes along
and starts talking nonstop about himself/herself, about how God has made
him/her so joyful and filled with the power of the Holy Spirit, therefore all
Christians should be joyful and powerful, or else there’s something seriously
wrong with that Christian… As a listener, I’d imagine that instead of feeling
“joyful and full of power”, I’d feel even more depressed and powerless. Or, if
I am not a Christian, instead of receiving the gospel as “good news”, I’d be
thinking, “So this person is telling me that all Christians are full of joy and
power? Then I can’t be one because I can’t imagine myself meeting that
standard. It’s a religion for the elites and I’m not good enough.” Or “So here
is this salesperson telling me how this “product” works so well on him/her.
Well, I am not him/her! This person does not even seem to understand my
situation and keeps talking about irrelevant stuff. How can he/she assume that
this product will also work on me?”
It’s easy to make
other people stumble, and most of the time we don’t mean it. In fact, if I had caused
someone to stumble, that person wouldn’t exactly come to me and say, “you
caused me to stumble”. It’s more likely that the person will just distance himself/herself
from me and not say anything (unless he/she is a very close friend). Gotta pray
that I don’t become a stumbling block for others, but be more empathetic and
compassionate in my approach to people.
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