Dumb Things I Have Believed

Not long after I was saved, I attended a Lutheran Bible school. With typical new-believer zeal, I soon became convinced that I should pursue vocational ministry. With typical young-man impudence, I had my own ideas on how that should be done. I knew that, in order to be recognized and accepted, I would have to go to college and seminary (I called it “cemetery”); but that was just a formality, necessary to appease the establishment. All a man really needed, I thought, was his Bible and the Holy Spirit. If a man just knew his Bible inside and out, and was filled with the Holy Spirit, what more could he need?

Seminary was a place where men filled their heads with the philosophies of men. I definitely didn’t want that. Of course, it was alright if I chose some books to read on my own. That was different. What I certainly did not need, however, was Bible commentaries or systematic theologies. I didn’t need men to tell me what the Bible meant! That was the Holy Spirit’s job.

At some point in my journey, I heard of a guy named Charles Spurgeon. Spurgeon never went to college or seminary. I didn’t know anything about Spurgeon, except that he was a famous preacher, admired by many. What did he have that I didn’t have? [Let us now pause for a moment of hearty laughter.]

Well, Spurgeon had many things that I didn’t have, including unique gifting and a massive intellect. More importantly, he had the humility to know that he needed more than his Bible and the Holy Spirit. At a time when books were not the cheap commodity they are today, Spurgeon’s personal library contained some 12,000 books, including commentaries. He even wrote a book on commentaries! Spurgeon possessed no degrees, but he was far from uneducated. He clearly saw the need to learn from other men. As he put it,

I am amazed that those who think so much of what the Holy Spirit can teach them often think so little of what the Holy Spirit has taught others.*

The Lord was gracious to lead me away from that kind of thinking. One of the ways he did that was to put me in contact with other men who had the same attitude as I, and let me see the depth of their ministries. There was no depth. Their theology was immature and shallow. They tended to ride hobby-horses, and be easily taken in by the odd doctrines of other uneducated men. They often fashioned their own strange beliefs from small portions of Scripture isolated from the whole of God’s Word. They were completely ignorant of basic hermeneutics.

In contrast to those men, the teachers that I admired and hoped to emulate were well educated formally or at least, like Spurgeon, were voracious readers and diligent students.

I was not pleased to find myself in the first group. I saw the fruit of both philosophies, and knew which kind I wanted to produce.

This is really a matter of humility, isn’t it? “Just me and God” says “No man is my superior. I am equal to all those who have gone before me.” In fact, it says more than that. It says that I am their superior. They learned from others, but I can do it on my own. What audacity. How foolish. We all need teachers; it is few of us who will ever become their equals, and fewer still who will exceed their knowledge, skill, and wisdom.

The Lord never did lead me into any vocational ministry, and graciously prevented me from getting there my own way. Nevertheless, I am grateful for this lesson. I am so glad that I learned to learn from others.

Last week I posted a somewhat humorous anecdote involving ethnically-mixed marriages. Today I want to open that topic for your comments.

I was raised to believe that all human beings are equal. I want to be clear that I am not just kidding myself about that. I was never allowed to believe that the color of my skin made me better than anyone. Segregation and discrimination were evil. It was said that the liberalism that prevails in black churches was due to the fact that conservative seminaries had barred the enrollment of black students. That should be a cause for shame in the church, they said. So I was never a racist in the usual sense of the word.

At the same time, I was taught that ethnically-mixed marriages were, at least, not ideal, and probably not God’s preferred option. There were a couple of reasons for this, and I believed them.

• God created diverse people groups. He obviously wanted his world filled with all of these different peoples. “Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in his sight.” He doesn’t want all of these diverse colors melted into one “gray” race — does he?
• Wisdom dictates that we marry those with whom we share as much in common as possible. Marriage is difficult enough without adding differences to the mix that are inevitably more than skin deep.

While there is a grain of truth in both of those arguments, ultimately, they both fail as barriers to inter-ethnic marriages. Addressing each argument specifically, can you tell me why?

In part one of this article, I presented two reasons why inter-ethnic marriages are a bad idea. Today I’m going to explain why those reasons don’t hold water.

To review, my reasons were:

• God created diverse people groups. He obviously wanted his world filled with all of these different peoples. “Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in his sight.” He doesn’t want all of these diverse colors melted into one “gray” race — does he?
• Wisdom dictates that we marry those with whom we share as much as possible in common. Marriage is difficult enough without adding differences to the mix that are inevitably more than skin deep.

As I stated previously, there is a grain of truth in both of those arguments.

• God did create diverse people groups. Originally, of course, there was one man and one woman; not much diversity there. However, unless you are a deist, you must believe that the presence of diverse peoples now is indicative of creative intent. That goes double for Calvinists.
• Wisdom does dictate that we marry those with whom we share as much as possible in common. Your spouse is most likely different from you in many ways. Some of those differences are complementary — I hope — but some are not. While you may, and should, appreciate many of those differences, it is your commonality that ties you together.

The first reason fails on two counts. First, while God did indeed create diversity, he never decreed it, nor gave any commands that we maintain it. He created male and female for each other, and explicitly condemned homosexuality. He created man and animal and explicitly condemned bestiality. But when he diversified the human race, he spoke not one word about maintaining that diversity. Second, if God wants to maintain his ethnic rainbow, can he not do so without our efforts? And can anyone really think that the various colors of the world are ever going to disappear? That would require a globally coordinated effort enforceable by law! The peoples of the world would have to come together as they did at Babel, and we know how that ended, don’t we?

The second reason may not be quite as stupid as the first, but it is more seriously wrong. I affirmed above that “Wisdom does dictate that we marry those with whom we share as much as possible in common.” A possible corollary to that might say that wisdom dictates that we marry those with whom we have as few differences as possible, and that thought was implicit in the reasoning I was taught and believed for years. But is that a necessary corollary?

Irreconcilable differences do exist (James 4:4; 2 Corinthians 6:14–16), but if a couple is united in their love for Christ, if they have a common “zeal for God” that is “in accordance with knowledge” (Romans 10), they need never worry about irreconcilable differences. Love does indeed “conquer all” — not romantic love, but genuine love that is rooted in a mutual love for Christ. This is a gospel issue. Is your gospel so small that it can’t encompass all (non-theological) differences and even turn them into assets for your benefit and for the glory of God? Did your gospel save you from hell, but not much else? We who have been “transformed by the renewing of [our minds]” (Romans 12:2) ought to think differently.

As I review, there is something dissatisfying about that final paragraph, something missing. With that said, I am going to publish anyway, trusting that I haven’t completely failed to communicate the point.