It’s an interesting observation. I’ve heard my mother use it on a number of occasions over the years – “You don’t really know that, it’s just something you’ve read in a book somewhere!”
That reminds me of an eminent Old Testament scholar I know whose mother turned to him several years ago and said, “You aren’t a real doctor! After all, what have you ever taken out of or put into a person?” Hopefully, knowledge of divine truth!
The point is the same. There seems to be a prevalent notion in many Christian circles that gaining knowledge of the truth is a static enterprise. In other words, you gain a compendium of beliefs and a body of knowledge; and it’s fixed, you’ve got it, Amen! Where do they get that? How is it that growing in the grace of knowledge of the Lord is a dubious exercise? Paul said that we must “study to show ourselves approved unto God.” Luther said, “We must beat the Gospel into our minds.” And part of that beating process is gaining an ever-increasing understanding of what the Gospel is. If our call to follow Jesus is simply gaining a one-time data dump and nothing more, how do you explain the obvious growth in the beliefs and understandings of Jesus’ first disciples over time?
When my father got married after World War II, his new bride asked him, “What are we going to do?” He said, “Well, we have three choices. I can stay in the Navy. I can go back to Michigan and become a tool and die maker. Or, I could go to school.” My mother chose the third option. So they proceeded to move from Pensacola, Florida, to Ann Arbor, Michigan, where, thanks to the GI Bill, he was able to secure a B.A. and an M.B.A. in three years. From there he went into industry. But a curious thing happened. Though he was out of school, and though he had passed his CPA exams, he kept on studying. My mother asked him, “When are you going to stop studying?” You know what he said? “Never. I’m never going to stop reading and studying.” And he didn’t. Before 1960 it was mostly business, industry practices, and investments. After 1960, and his spiritual rebirth, it was the Scriptures, theology, and Christian faith. The fact is, a little over a month before he went home to the Lord he was teaching his Monday night Bible study from his handwritten notes.
The point of all of this is to say that this Sunday, July 1, Communion Sunday, we are in Luke 10:25-37 where Jesus tells the parable of the Good Samaritan. On Christmas Eve, December 24, 2002, I preached on this text for the first time at Hebron. At that time I pointed out some truths that had been hidden from me for nearly twenty years of ordained ministry. Now, I “knew” the story. I had taught the meaning of the story on numerous occasions. I could tell you about the context, the culture, the conventions, and the conviction that surrounded Jesus’ telling of this parable. But it wasn’t until I was studying this parable weeks earlier that I saw the incident at deeper level. Indeed, I saw the Gospel in a powerful, transforming way that I had never seen before. Then, eight years later our former seminary intern, Dave Dack, talked to me about a discovery he had made in same text a few winters earlier. As soon as he mentioned it, I smiled and said, “Preach it, brother!”
How can any of us ever think that the infinite truth of an infinite God can be mastered in this life? What’s more, how can any of us rest on some modicum of divine truth when Jesus promised that the Holy Spirit He would send to us would lead us into all truth? Here, nearly ten years after preaching a sermon entitled, “The Samaritan Christmas,” I’m again back in the Hebron pulpit preaching the same text with greater insight than I had before. The title of this message is “The Rest of the Story.”
I don’t know about you, but I would be bored out of my skull if preaching and teaching today consisted only of parroting back stuff I learned in Seminary or even last year. May we all be like the Bereans who studied the Scriptures daily. Indeed, that’s one of the greatest blessings of the Transformed Life.
In preparation for Sunday’s message you may wish to consider the following:
1. Romans 5:6-11.
2. The role of the “lawyer” in the Hebrew society of Jesus’ day.
3. What is the problem with his question in verse 25?
4. Why does Jesus answer as He does in verse 26?
5. What is Jesus’ implication in verse 28?
6. Luke tells us, “But desiring to justify himself, he asks, ‘Who’s my neighbor?’” Is this guy pulling a Bill Clinton here - “It all depends on what the definition of “is” is? Or is he appealing to some extant debate regarding the definition of the word “neighbor”?
7. What reasons are there for the priest and the Levite to pass by the victim? [Note the direction in which they are walking.]
8. What is the Gospel in this parable? Who is Jesus and who are you?
9. What does Jesus mean when He tells the lawyer to “go and do likewise”?
10. What Old Testament incident does Jesus draw on in answering the lawyer’s question?
11. What should the grace we receive in communion enable us to do regarding our neighbor?
See you Sunday!
