An Exercise in Contradictions

Men love systems. We love logic and order. A system where everything fits nicely and it all works perfectly-we men love that sort of thing.
But in reality? Well, occasionally we build stuff and there are parts left over....Christmas toys, furniture that you have to assemble, etc. And then we think...hmmmm-whoops! I wonder where that was supposed to go.....?

Sometimes when we look at scripture, we try to discover systems in order for us to understand God. Sometimes we create systems (hence "Systematic Theology") from bible verses that we think make sense. Do you think we really can build systems to make sense of an almighty infinite God?

But we try.

And we try.

And we ignore things that don't fit our systems.

What do you do with the Old Testment commandment to stone those who commit adultery, but then Jesus comes and says "He who is without sin can throw the first stone." It doesn't fit the system.

What about God telling the Israelites not to marry foreigners who serve other Gods, but yet the book of Esther deals with a Jewish woman who marries a King who doesn't serve her God.

And thats not including the whole "unequally yoked" idea in the New Testament.

Scripture also says that Esther hid her Jewish identity and beliefs from her husband the King. We love the idea that God saved His people through Esther, but we don't like the fact that the King exiles his old queen because she wouldn't come in and dance in front of his friends at a drunken party. And then he has a beauty pageant to find a new queen (Esther). Aren't beauty pageants based on the wrong things?

So God takes a beauty pageant and a man's visual stimulation, a man who had asked his former wife to come dance at a party for his friends (you can guess what kind of dancing, I'm sure), and then divorces her just because. So this guy looks for a new queen and Esther, a woman of God, marries this guy?

How many girls can't wait to marry a guy like that?

Probably very few.

How many girls honestly believe that its God's will for them to go through that?

How many girls should hide their faith from their husbands who are unsaved?

The New Testament principles speak completely against what Esther did in this story to become queen.....but God uses Esther anyways. It doesn't fit the system, but then we begin to realize that God isn't limited by our systems. God functions outside of every system we come up with. Calendars, clocks, theology-doesn't matter.

Maybe it's time to start thinking that we don't have a clue what God's system is, only that we should be faithful with the parts that we clearly understand. There's some verses that we don't hear much at church, but are clear and simple to understand.

Luke 12 has a few that have challenged me this week. Here's one:

15 Then (Jesus) said, "Beware! Don't be greedy for what you don't have. Real life is not measured by how much we own."

I didn't need a system to figure that out. There's not figurative language involved. But does our life and our church reflect that kind of living?

Read Matthew 5 and 6-the sermon on the Mount. Many of the ideas there aren't hidden or veiled. Love your enemies. Go the extra mile with someone in need. Stop taking revenge.

Does our life and our church reflect that kind of living?

These are tough teachings that we like to ignore because they don't fit into our system of Sunday and Wednesday church services, small groups, Christian Radio and books. They contradict what we naturally want to do-which is normally all about us.

But I think God is really, really interested in getting us outside our systems of what we think He's about and what we think church is for. It's not about us or our systems or what we think.

It's about what He thinks. And for us, that sometimes doesn't seem to fit.

When we discover an apparent contradiction, maybe there's an opportunity to look at how God is moving and what He is saying before we try to fit Him into our systems.

He wants us to discover Him and fall in love with Him. He never asked us to figure Him out.