Signs and Dramatizations

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I recently saw a social media post from a friend of a friend that was blasting the show ‘The Chosen’ because, as he said, “We aren’t supposed to watch dramatizations of the gospel. We’re supposed to teach the gospel.”

Something about this struck me as wrong, but it took me awhile to put it together clearly.

First, I need to acknowledge the point.

There was a reason God told the children of Israel never to make graven images. When we create Thing1 to represent Thing2, we put ourselves in danger of treating Thing1 as we would treat Thing2.

With God, this is dangerous. Worshiping graven images is idolatry. Full stop.

Similarly, if we were to take a dramatization of the gospel as we would the gospel, we put ourselves in a similar danger. (I see people idolatrizing scripture way too often. Even that is wrong. Scripture is not God. It is not the Living Word–that’s Christ.)

That said, he was still wrong.

Over and over, God has given us signs and festivals and rituals and parables to point to and remember important things. We are not to take ‘The Lord’s Supper’ as if we were actually sitting physically with Christ. Instead, we take it in remembrance of Him.

The same is true of every other sign or festival or parable we’ve been given. The symbol of a thing is not the thing itself, but it still has value and utility.

Likewise, a dramatization of the gospel, done respectfully, is a symbol that points back to the gospel itself. The creator takes upon himself a measure of responsibility–don’t steer your audience down the wrong path–but a dramatization, in and of itself, is just another example of man imitating God for other peoples’ benefit.

In the final analysis, we’re free to do what we choose, and having our entertainment pointing back to Christ is only an evil thing in the mind of a man trapped under a law of his own making.

Ravi

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I caught myself about to do something cowardly today. I was going through my audible library hunting for my next listen and I found myself contemplating returning a book from Ravi Zacharias. The conflict was fully internal. I have zero fear of what other people think of the books I read. My cowardice was purely a reluctance to face my own inner conflict–a conflict over how to view Ravi and the sordid details of his life that have come to light.

More precisely, the conflict inside me is because I hold the people around me in contempt when they judge other people–especially people like Ravi–for their sins. (Yes, you read that correctly. I almost returned a book because I didn’t want to have to think about my own contempt for the people around me who judge the author of that book for his sins. And no, the irony is not lost on me.)

At this point, there’s a dead even chance that if you’re reading this you’re already contemptuous of ME because I would judge YOU for judging Ravi for his sins. Appreciate the irony of THAT for a moment with me…

Justified

Over the past few days, I’ve seen friends and acquaintances mocking Ravi on social media. I’ve seen them say how they wish he was alive to face punishment for what he’s done.

On its face, that attitude almost seems understandable. It’s natural, isn’t it, to call down justice upon people who put on a face of goodness but hide evil from the world?

Of course it’s natural and people feel justified in that attitude. …But it’s not Christian.

Depraved

The first thing any Christian knows is his own depravity.

In actually starting to draw near to a holy God, we all start to see the parts of ourselves that are truly disgusting. So why do we have such double standards for other people who commit similar or worse offenses?

In Ravi’s case, anyone who has ever read his writings or listened to his talks can immediately see a man who makes no claims about his own goodness, tries to do right as best he is able, praying for strength not to fall into temptations, and takes exquisite care not to cast judgment on those around him.

It was that juxtaposition–of a man who refuses to cast judgments with the crowd of people who instantly leap to judgment about him–that almost made me turn away.

Frankly, I’m sad to learn about the things Ravi has done that were wrong.

I’m heart-broken and devastated to see how little grace people give to a man who spent his life trying to give grace to a world around him that was hurting so badly.

It’s about you.

If you’ve made it this far, then take a good hard look at yourself.

If you can see yourself as a good person, then you are most certainly not a Christian.

If you can judge another Christian for his own obvious sins and the outworking of his own depravity, then you put yourself in the position of the debtor who is released from prison and obligation by his master and turns to demand full payment of a much lesser debt from his neighbor.

That is an evil that God has specifically called out as liable for judgment by Himself.

Remember, none but God is good. Not one.

If you instantly fall to judging people for sins they commit that aren’t even against you, how wretched must you be when you stand before the Master?

Remember, we all answer to God in the end, Ravi no less than you or me. Is God so incapable of holding Ravi accountable that we must do it for Him?

fact, truth and Truth

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There are different sorts of truth in life, from simple scientifically verifiable fact to a sort of truth so strong it serves as one of the underlying pillars to hold up reality.

“fact”

Simple, verifiable facts are the staple of life. We live based on knowing that gravity pulls us down and caffeine keeps us awake. The law of non-contradiction, that two contradictory things cannot be true at the same time, is this kind of fact. Experience teaches us these facts as we age, and they shape how we live.

Doubt them at your peril. The results of denying them are usually swift and often painful.

“truth”

The deeper truths of life, like “hurt people hurt people,” are concepts that sum up our experience and teach us important lessons. Wisdom is often characterized as an understanding of these truths.

Truth of this sort may have a valid point to make, as “hurt people hurt people” does, but they’re not usually true clear through. (For example, I’ve found that hurt people who learn to deal with their hurt are the best suited to teach the rest of us how not to hurt others in the first place. Hurt people do not always hurt other people.)

This sort of truth is often the deepest sort people encounter in life. Half-valid characterizations of reality that, while they may provide something of a roadmap for life, don’t really approach the meaning of life or the purpose behind everything.

“Truth”

The highest kind of truth that I’ve encountered, other than the person of Christ Himself, is the kind that can’t be reduced to pithy sayings or quotable quotes, but which is so critical and central to human experience that people spend their entire lives striving to communicate just one such truth to those around them.

The best example is the structure of a house. Though it is covered by walls, it may still be felt in places, where the walls are more solid, and less easily bowed or shifted. In places, it is left bare, like the rafters and columns in a cathedral, cut and polished to perfection. So it is with this world–there is an underlying framework to reality that supports its structure and defines its shape.

Great works of literature and poetry have been written about this sort of truth and may or may not manage to communicate it. Christ taught some of it in parables, knowing that the only way to really illuminate this sort of truth is by the Spirit. Even if it could be broken down into a few words and spoken plainly, the meaning and reality behind it would be entirely closed to someone whose eyes were not opened to it by God Himself.

This is the sort of truth around which reality orients itself. Like the structure inside the walls of a house, it undergirds reality itself and holds it up. This sort of truth never contradicts itself or fails to bear out.

When I see it, I am reminded of Hebrews 1:3, which says, “The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word…”

Looked at from the proper vantage, all of reality is a spectrum of truth that coalesces into the person of Christ, who is also the definition of reality and of being.