Coming home this morning from dropping off one of my kids, I heard a lady on the radio describing a betrayal in her 34 year marriage. She revealed that her husband had been leading a double life (ie sexual infidelity) and she had "all biblical grounds" to leave him. She, however, was choosing not to.
It made me think about how many, many times I have heard the logic of "biblical grounds", and then I wondered if Jesus himself would use that defense. Was Jesus "biblical"?
When the Pharisees came to him and asked him about the "biblical" grounds for divorce that Moses had allowed, Jesus replies that is was because of hardness of heart that Moses permitted divorce, but it was not supposed to be that way from the beginning. When Jesus is challenged about his "biblical" working/healing on the Sabbath, he asks about what is "biblical" (or lawful) on the Sabbath - doing good or evil, saving a life or killing it? To which the "biblical" folks were silent. When a smug group catches a woman in the "unbiblical" act of adultery and brings that woman to Jesus, he doesn't deny the sin, but gives them freedom to "biblically" kill her as long as the one who throws a stone at her finds no sin in himself.
Jesus, of course, lived with and under the authority of the Scriptures. He was a good Jewish boy who had studied the Torah, prayed the Psalms and knew the stories of God's deliverance. He saw in the Scriptures the calling - the vocation - on his life. He was to be the long promised Messiah. In that sense, Jesus was totally "biblical".
However, as I am reading through the book of John, something deeper and beyond "biblical" seems to always surface in Jesus' life. He seems to come back to phrases like, "I only do what I see the Father doing", "My food is to do the will of Him who sent me", "I always do the things that are pleasing to the Father", and the writer of John describes Jesus as "the one who is closest to the Father's heart". It seems when Jesus needs to justify his actions or his words, he doesn't grasp at the word "biblical" (like the religious of his day), but clings to the Father.
To Jesus, this "doing only what I see the Father doing", isn't a cop-out to avoid conflict or a weak, sissy response. But it also isn't a rigid this-is-the-way-things-have-always-been-done reaction either. Instead, for one occasion it looks incredibly gentle (as he invites little children to come to him) and on another, violent (when he topples tables and chases people out of the temple with a whip). To him, the Father's heart is much deeper than the status quo and transcends all categories and rules. And it is funny, isn't it? When Jesus "only does what he sees the Father doing", he gets accused by people (of his day and ours!) of being "not-biblical"!!
And this got me thinking. I grew up as a Christian in an solid, evangelical, Bible church. I heard the word "biblical" more times than I can even imagine. There was always a "biblical" answer for everything as if there were a frozen interpretation to every position. But I heard very little talk of "only doing what we see the Father doing". To be sure, the Scriptures reveal to us the Father's heart, but I wonder how many times we just pick our favorite parts and dig our heels in in those places? I wondered, this morning, how many times I have used the word "biblical" to protect my ego and avoided really pursuing and asking God what He thinks about the issue at hand? (And how He wants me to bring His kingdom into those places.)
Of course, this doesn't only happen in a Bible church. It happens all over Christendom, doesn't it? We love to talk - both the right and the left - about what is "biblical" or what the bible really means when it says something. But again, I hear very little conversation about searching for the Father's heart, and even less action in really grappling with what it means to "do only what we see the Father doing" in the situation at hand.
If I call myself a follower of Jesus (and I do), should not one of the defining marks in my life be trying "to do what I see the Father doing"? My self identity then, is not in being as "biblical" as possible, but in searching the Scriptures to discover the Father's heart...and then keeping my eyes on Him all through the day to see how He wants me to move in the place I already am.
God, forgive me for when I have claimed "biblical" but it has just really been to avoid Your heart. There are two things I know: I really want to say with Jesus that I only do what I see You doing, and I really know I am so self-deceived and don't know where to start. Would You let me see, through Your Holy Spirit, what you are doing today...and enable me to live out what I see right where I am standing?
