And he said to them, “Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house, who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.” Mat 13:52
I have to make a confession. As a teacher, whenever I learn something new, I want to share it. When things are revealed to me, my first urge is “gotta tell somebody”.
And I have the bible on my side, at least I thought so:
Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage–with great patience and careful instruction. 2Ti 4:2
What I read into this: be ready to shake their universe, their believe system, and lead them deeper. Lead them into truth. At any cost. Don’t care about timing, about their readiness to receive. Actually, I could not imagine anybody not being ready to be corrected and brought to greater understanding. Was I really that different, as I was looking for, even striving to have somebody in my life teaching me? Telling me the truth? Keeping me from not reaching my optimum? Somebody that would prevent that I made mistakes, spend time unwisely following non-biblical principles and ways of doing things?
Yes and no. Yes, most people are not into correction and rebuke, learning and changing as much. No, even I wasn’t as much as I thought – but we all have our blind spots.
I had to learn something vital. It is not about true and false, about good and evil.
I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live. Deu 30:19
It is about life. By the way, death is only the absence of life – it does not exist.
What does that mean for our discussion?
Let me put it like that: not everything that is true brings forth life.
Good things, true teachings can be deadly.
Let me give you an example.
What if I came along telling you that most of Revelations were in the past and that until about 1830, nobody interpreted any scripture as pointing to a rapture? I take this example because there is plenty of material on the web teaching exactly this – so you might have stumbled over it already. Now, this may be true or not – I am not going to discuss this here. But teaching it can have several effects.
- For the teachable at heart with a sound foundation in Christ, it might come as a relieve and a hope. No longer will the end be soon, the church fail in its attempt to save the world. It will be like a supernatural espresso shot to tackle the problems of this world and let go of any escapist thinking.
- For the wavering, brought up in rapture and tribulation theology, it will result in insecurity. What else have I been lied about? What else is not true? I always thought that God restored his truth about revelations through Darby, Scofield, and Larkin? If this is wrong, what else that has been restored over the last decades is as well?
- For the one that never heard of a rapture, a tribulation, a millennium reign of Christ, it does not pose any problem. Why should it? There still is a bodily return of Christ that could happen any time (soon or in 10’000 years), and I have a limited life span anyway – so let’s make the best of it and leave an inheritance to the next generation, preparing them for their assignment as much as possible.
You see, there is a place and a time to teach new revelation. If the timing or the audience is wrong, it does not bring life – no matter how true it is.
At times, God even keeps people hidden away for two reasons: they have to mature, and the timing has to be right.
Example again? Paul after his conversion on the road to Damascus wanted to tell the world. But he had to flee the first few cities with almost no effect, until he was sent to the desert and finally, the church had a period of peace. An estimated 13 years later, Barnabas got Paul from Tarsus to help him with the church of Antioch – the time of Paul had come.
But what does all this have to do with writing?
Well, the word scribe in our lead verse means writer – a rare breed in Jesus’ time, not so much today.
For such a scribe to bring out treasures, he has to be a disciple of the kingdom. Perfect? Only in the sense of the bible that uses the word to express matured.
Such a scribe will only bring out from his treasure, not share his full treasure. And he will bring new and old.
The new will be taught under the guidance of the Holy Spirit to bring about a new, sanctified thinking. The old to lay a foundation and to provide a secure haven, an anchor point, from which it is possible to explore the unknown.
And the part about the master of a household? This represents the assignment, the sphere of influence of the scribe. In case of Paul – the whole world. Not me.
I confess further that I wanted my blog to spread like wildfire. I at times tried hard to make it popular, not compromising content. But I realised the danger of this. True, my blog is public, and therefore I am cautious what I write about. Yet it is hidden in millions of others. I trust that God will make it known to the ones in need, the ones he wants to hear. I publicise my blog entries to the small number of followers I have in Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and via email. A hand full. But other than that I leave it to God. “If you build it, he will come.”
To make one thing clear: all this is not going to have me compromise the message God put within me.
I just do not want to be responsible for confusing people. Therefore, before you subscribe to my blog, be sure.