James Coffin, senior pastor of the Markham Woods Church of Seventh-day Adventists in Longwood, Florida, writes over at Spectrum, Divining the Voice in My Head.
I often hear the expression (used rather glibly, I must say): “God told me.” The words are typically the preamble to a description of some strongly held conviction. But the expression leaves me uncomfortable…
Anyway, as I read the scriptures, I wonder if maybe the people in Bible times weren’t given to the use and misuse of the “God told me” expression just as we are now. Maybe even more so. “God told” people a lot of things back then, it seems. And judging just from the context and the ethics of the advice given, I think it possible that there may have been times when God gets the credit for something that came from other sources…
I find it fascinating that we attribute actions to God that, if they were engaged in by any human, would call down the strongest of denunciations. Yet we commend God for them. If, for example, any humans had caused another to suffer as Hagar was suffering there in the desert, we would find their role despicable. But we never even blink when suggesting that God told Abraham to take steps that were going to bring such pain to another human. Why…?
Could it be that it was because Abraham [in justifying sending away Hagar and Ishmael] too willingly attributed his own thoughts to God? Could it be that if Abraham had removed the “God told me” phrase from his vocabulary, he would have been forced to ponder more deeply and more critically the thoughts that were running through his mind? Could it be that he would have behaved in a more moral, more ethical, more loving manner if he knew that he personally had to accept responsibility for his actions and couldn’t hang the blame on God?
And could it be that we today need to face up to that same reality?
No comments:
Post a Comment