Recently the building at my workplace had Leon Keer paint one of his famous floor paintings in the lobby. This artwork is simply amazing! I noticed when walking through the lobby that the place I stand makes a huge difference in what I see. The painting looked horrible from the side. How can this be art? But when I stood in the “stand here” spot, my mind was blown! I think it is the same with the Bible. When we do not have the correct perspective, the world around us looks odd. Perspective is why ten people can look at the same text or the same object or the same theological concept, and produce ten different conclusions.
Mission is not the Correct Perspective
For so many years I viewed the Bible by standing on the starting point of mission. Many Bible passages were thus skewed incorrectly. For example, when I read Romans and came across Romans 11:29, I would come to false conclusions: “for God’s gifts and his call are irrevocable.” From the viewpoint of God’s mission, I incorrectly thought this meant I must remain in the ministry I had been committed to.
The reality is that I should stand on love, and let love define “mission”. Then I would see that Romans 11:29 is about God’s promise to not forsake us. The verse has nothing to do with permanently remaining in whatever context of mission we happen to be in. Surely our mission and vocation, and even our belief system, can change many times in a lifetime.
Love is the Bible’s “Stand Here” spot
Based on the classic passage of 1 Corinthians 13:1-13 and many others, I suggest that love is where we need to stand in order to see the Bible correctly. Standing in other places may give us skewed and even harmful conclusions.
I would also further like to suggest that love is the one, universal vantage point that is healthy for humanity.
What is love? Love is the very nature, the very being of God, for God is love. Here is the complete list as I read the famous passage. I really enjoyed reading these verses in numerous Bible translations. Love is…
- patient
- kind
- not jealous
- not self-aggrandizing/bragging
- not proud
- not rude
- not selfish
- not easily angered
- not harboring the wrongs against it
- not happy about other’s failures
- always happy with the truth/honest
- never gives up on people
- never stops trusting
- never loses hope
- never quits
- never ends
When we stand in the right spot, we see things clearly.
Thanks for starting this new site, Brian. I have to say I missed the old one! As you reminded me, You Be Friends is indeed cute.
Yes, my mantra was mission, which was my internal driving force for over a quarter of a century since 1980.
I still firmly believe that I am living a life of mission. But by God’s mercy I may no longer be driven by any sectarian agendas.
In place of the word “mission,” I prefer three other words today: grace, rest and freedom.
Because of grace, I have nothing to prove.
Because of rest, I am never tired.
Because of freedom, I can fly like an eagle.
All of this is only because of God’s mercy, grace and love, which is greater than the entire universe.
This is amazing art. I also agree so very deeply with your statement that love is the Bible’s “stand here” spot. Yes, that’s the spot we need to take to understand the Bible as it was intended to be understood, since “God is love” is even an explicit statement in the Bible, and to love God and our neighbours are its highest commands. If we see the Bible from the point of mission, then we get a distorted picture. Consequently, if you compare the picture of the Bible from the viewpoint of love and what UBF is doing and teaching, you see that they differ a lot.
I can take another lesson from these paintings, though. In the case of God, nobody can really “look behind the curtain”, it suffices to understand what God wants us to understand. In judging things, organizations and people in this world, it is often not only important to understand how things are intended to look, but to take different perspectives to understand what they really are. For instance, even if you visit North Korea and take part in a guided tour accompanied by an official attendant, you will not understand what North Korea really is. You need to investigate more and not only look from the perspective the leaders want you to take and see only the things your supervisors want you to see.
“In judging things, organizations and people in this world, it is often not only important to understand how things are intended to look, but to take different perspectives to understand what they really are.”
This is such an important point to emphasize, Chris. Every generation has to do this, in fact. Yes it may be valuable to consider the perspectives of those who went before us, but we should add our perspective.
Like new site, always great to start anew. God is Love. This is the major attribute of God. The body of Christ is made up of many parts. 1 Corinthians 12. Not everyone has the gift of teaching and every part even the weakest link is important to the body. If I stub my toe it will affect my whole body. UBF does not act in love as a body but despises those that don’t teach and those who don’t follow their rules. True love dwells in freedom and rejoices with all members of the body. 1 Corinthians 13 sums it up.
Brian, I love those pictures. When you stand in the wrong spot, it looks like a strange, incoherent mess. But when you stand in the right spot, everything becomes clear and understandable.
My experience with UBF was the exact opposite. When I stood inside the UBF social sphere, everything it did seemed to make sense. I thought that it looked like picture #2.
However, it gradually dawned on me that the UBF insiders’ perspective wasn’t correct. In order to maintain the insider stance, I had to ignore too many facts, suppress too many painful experiences, and write off too many people. For my own health, sanity and integrity, I had to move outside the UBF bubble to a place where I could be honest.
When I stood on the outside and looked at UBF from that vantage point, it looked like picture #1, a tangled mess of weirdness, full of ideas and behaviors that were so bizarre that they defied rational description.
I do not claim to see anything objectively. As time marches on, my vantage point will evolve and change. But from where I stand now — a place where I am merely trying to be honest about what I have experienced — UBF looks a lot like picture #1.
Is it loving to tell people that everything is fine, that they are living in picture #2, when there is overwhelming evidence that the reality is closer to picture #1?
No, it is not.
Perhaps it is pride, where one is blindly insistent that their perception of life and reality is superior to that of others.
“In order to maintain the insider stance, I had to ignore too many facts, suppress too many painful experiences, and write off too many people. For my own health, sanity and integrity, I had to move outside the UBF bubble to a place where I could be honest.”
Joe, this is a nice, succinct summary of my experience as well in the last few years. The good thing is that all those facts swept under the proverbial rug have a way of coming back to haunt them.
we see the value of perception but also recognize that good & bad realities call us to accountability for promoting good while inhibiting bad (of course in our own lives, but so much more communally in systems having greater impact on more individuals)
I think this quote captures love. I’ve shared it with some older leaders but they don’t seem to like it, and I can’t quite articulate why.
“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” Maya Angelou.
Why I believe they didn’t like the quote. 1. Because feelings do not matter. If you think that feelings matter, you are good minded and humanistic. 2. Because being blunt and ignoring the feelings of others is often seen as a virtue. They call it “being clear.” 3. Because the training they received often made them feel like crap. Their ideological commitments do nor allow them to say that those kind of discipleship practices are wrong.
This is interesting: “Because the training they received often made them feel like crap. Their ideological commitments do not allow them to say that those kind of discipleship practices are wrong.”
It reminds me of a sentiment that I’ve often sensed (which will likely be denied because it is often implicit): “Because I denied myself, suffered and sacrificed much, now it’s your turn and very good for you to deny yourself, suffer and sacrifice.”
It sounds so “biblical” and “pious” and “holy” and “well intentioned.”