These twelve Jesus sent out, charging them, “Go nowhere among the Gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” RSV
"The time has come, I believe, for people concerned with Christian colleges and universities to face courageously the growing problem of religious apathy and even unbelief among students within our own schools.
At times spiritual leaders on campus have been dismayed and perplexed at meager student support for officially sponsored evangelistic efforts. Yet they see nothing particularly serious amiss. The students, they reason, are merely asleep and need nothing more than a faithful dash of “cold water” to wake them up. But too often the “cold water”—instead of waking them up and sending them out with torches flaming—succeeds only in further dampening what fire may actually burn.
The philosophy which says, “Get them into the home witnessing for Christ and you’ll get Christ into their hearts,” does not accord with the gospel. How can a student witness for Christ unless Christ is already in his heart? Before Christ said, “Go ye into all the world,” He first said, “Come unto Me.”
The core of the problem is this: Too many of our college youth, “the cream of the crop,” are untouched by what was once an electrifying Advent message. And this they will freely admit if they are asked privately.
How many students, for example, are breaking school rules of off-campus conduct as a form of private rebellion against the entire system?
And how many students who keep the rules, are doing so for the wrong reasons? How many are faithfully going through all the motions, carefully observing all the proper lines, consistently punching all the right cards, not because they are in harmony with the purposes behind these rules, but because they are anxious to get into medical or law school with a “clean record”—but not necessarily with “clean hands and a pure heart”?
A wrong impression is sometimes given to visitors, especially denominational leaders, who go away with a feeling of confidence because they have seen row after row of intelligent, good-looking, healthy students sitting in worship services. Worship attendance is a poor criterion by which to judge spiritual depth. Worship services are required exercises; and nobody, whether he cares to worship God or not, dares to skip very many.
If worship attendance were made voluntary, how many students worshiping “in spirit and in truth” would continue on? How many would not? How many shocked parents and administrators would view the results?
How many students are so caught up in their belief that Jesus Christ is really “on His way” that they can hardly wait for the day after graduation when they can at last proclaim the joyous good news of salvation? The actual number might be alarmingly close to the actual number who are doing so right now—either off campus or on.
How many graduates are, instead, simply leaving the church, slipping unnoticed and unmourned out the back door without even so much as asking the clerk to cross their names from the roll? And how many others remain primarily for social reasons? (“I don’t believe it anymore, but I meet my friends there.” Or, “It would hurt my parents too much if I left.”)
I do not know the full extent of this problem. But I know that it exists. I know many of these students, and I know what they believe and how they feel. They are God’s children, and they can neither be “left alone” nor “purged.” We must reach out to them individually in Christian love and understanding.
On the other hand, these students are themselves not irresponsible for their own apathetic nonconviction and spiritual inactivity. It is today as it was in the days when the prophet Ezekiel said,
“The word of the Lord came to me again: ‘What do you mean by repeating this proverb concerning the land of Israel, “The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge”? As I live, says the Lord God, this proverb shall no more be used by you in Israel. Behold, all souls are mine; the soul of the father as well as the soul of the son is mine: the soul that sins shall die.’” 1
According to Ezekiel, the son cannot excuse himself by alibiing, “I can’t help what I’m doing; my father ran off with his secretary when I was six years old.”
It is today as it was when Jesus Himself said,
“To what then shall I compare the men of this generation, and what are they like? They are like children sitting in the marketplace and calling to one another, ‘We piped to you, and you did not dance; we wailed, and you did not weep.’”2
This is not time for assessment of blame—who did or did not pipe, who did or did not dance—but only for recognition of the problem and action toward its solution.
If this, then, is the problem, how is it solved? New rules? New regulations? A long checklist of dos and don’ts? This was the solution of the ancient Pharisees who conscientiously and sincerely tried to regulate their faith by a code of external conduct of which the Talmud today stands as a monument. If it worked for them, will it not work for us?
But Jesus said, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law, justice and mercy and faith.”3
Then is the problem solved by ignoring rules of conduct? By letting everyone do “his own thing” under the full blessing of the church? By concentrating on a perverted notion of permissive “love”?
The answer here is also No; for the same Jesus said, “These [justice and mercy and faith] you ought to have done, without neglecting the others [the tithing of mint and dill and cumin].”4
And although the message is that justice and mercy and faith are as important as a camel while tithing mint and dill and cumin are by comparison only as important as a gnat, Jesus’ comparison does not intend to minimize the lesser matters, the gnats, of the law, but rather to magnify the “weightier,” the camels. Jesus never advocated laxity.
The solution, then, can be found neither in the extreme of reliance on the law nor in the extreme of defiance of the law. The solution is in fact not found in the law at all, but in the Lord of the law.
Jesus told the Jews, “You search the Scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness to Me; yet you refuse to come to Me that you may have life.”5
This is the only solution: In Jesus Christ alone is life, for both the Christian individual and the Christian church. And the solution on campus can be applicable only in a radical and no-mental-reservation return to Jesus Christ in whatever form that may take.
It doesn’t matter by whom (student, professor, administrator, or parent), wherever the life of Jesus Christ is lived, at that place will appear the practical solution to all spiritual problems, Jesus Christ.
And the solution offered by Him is the same today as it was in ancient times when He said, “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, ‘God, I think Thee that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week, I give tithes of all that I get.’ But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other ; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.”6
The lost sheep must be retrieved; and they can be retrieved by the True Shepherd."
1Ezekiel 18:1-4, RSV
2Luke 7:31, 32, RSV
3Matthew 23:23, first part, RSV.
4Matthew 23:23, last part, RSV.
5John 5:39, 40, RSV.
6Luke 18:10-14, RSV.
"The time has come, I believe, for people concerned with Christian colleges and universities to face courageously the growing problem of religious apathy and even unbelief among students within our own schools.
At times spiritual leaders on campus have been dismayed and perplexed at meager student support for officially sponsored evangelistic efforts. Yet they see nothing particularly serious amiss. The students, they reason, are merely asleep and need nothing more than a faithful dash of “cold water” to wake them up. But too often the “cold water”—instead of waking them up and sending them out with torches flaming—succeeds only in further dampening what fire may actually burn.
The philosophy which says, “Get them into the home witnessing for Christ and you’ll get Christ into their hearts,” does not accord with the gospel. How can a student witness for Christ unless Christ is already in his heart? Before Christ said, “Go ye into all the world,” He first said, “Come unto Me.”
The core of the problem is this: Too many of our college youth, “the cream of the crop,” are untouched by what was once an electrifying Advent message. And this they will freely admit if they are asked privately.
How many students, for example, are breaking school rules of off-campus conduct as a form of private rebellion against the entire system?
And how many students who keep the rules, are doing so for the wrong reasons? How many are faithfully going through all the motions, carefully observing all the proper lines, consistently punching all the right cards, not because they are in harmony with the purposes behind these rules, but because they are anxious to get into medical or law school with a “clean record”—but not necessarily with “clean hands and a pure heart”?
A wrong impression is sometimes given to visitors, especially denominational leaders, who go away with a feeling of confidence because they have seen row after row of intelligent, good-looking, healthy students sitting in worship services. Worship attendance is a poor criterion by which to judge spiritual depth. Worship services are required exercises; and nobody, whether he cares to worship God or not, dares to skip very many.
If worship attendance were made voluntary, how many students worshiping “in spirit and in truth” would continue on? How many would not? How many shocked parents and administrators would view the results?
How many students are so caught up in their belief that Jesus Christ is really “on His way” that they can hardly wait for the day after graduation when they can at last proclaim the joyous good news of salvation? The actual number might be alarmingly close to the actual number who are doing so right now—either off campus or on.
How many graduates are, instead, simply leaving the church, slipping unnoticed and unmourned out the back door without even so much as asking the clerk to cross their names from the roll? And how many others remain primarily for social reasons? (“I don’t believe it anymore, but I meet my friends there.” Or, “It would hurt my parents too much if I left.”)
I do not know the full extent of this problem. But I know that it exists. I know many of these students, and I know what they believe and how they feel. They are God’s children, and they can neither be “left alone” nor “purged.” We must reach out to them individually in Christian love and understanding.
On the other hand, these students are themselves not irresponsible for their own apathetic nonconviction and spiritual inactivity. It is today as it was in the days when the prophet Ezekiel said,
“The word of the Lord came to me again: ‘What do you mean by repeating this proverb concerning the land of Israel, “The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge”? As I live, says the Lord God, this proverb shall no more be used by you in Israel. Behold, all souls are mine; the soul of the father as well as the soul of the son is mine: the soul that sins shall die.’” 1
According to Ezekiel, the son cannot excuse himself by alibiing, “I can’t help what I’m doing; my father ran off with his secretary when I was six years old.”
It is today as it was when Jesus Himself said,
“To what then shall I compare the men of this generation, and what are they like? They are like children sitting in the marketplace and calling to one another, ‘We piped to you, and you did not dance; we wailed, and you did not weep.’”2
This is not time for assessment of blame—who did or did not pipe, who did or did not dance—but only for recognition of the problem and action toward its solution.
If this, then, is the problem, how is it solved? New rules? New regulations? A long checklist of dos and don’ts? This was the solution of the ancient Pharisees who conscientiously and sincerely tried to regulate their faith by a code of external conduct of which the Talmud today stands as a monument. If it worked for them, will it not work for us?
But Jesus said, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law, justice and mercy and faith.”3
Then is the problem solved by ignoring rules of conduct? By letting everyone do “his own thing” under the full blessing of the church? By concentrating on a perverted notion of permissive “love”?
The answer here is also No; for the same Jesus said, “These [justice and mercy and faith] you ought to have done, without neglecting the others [the tithing of mint and dill and cumin].”4
And although the message is that justice and mercy and faith are as important as a camel while tithing mint and dill and cumin are by comparison only as important as a gnat, Jesus’ comparison does not intend to minimize the lesser matters, the gnats, of the law, but rather to magnify the “weightier,” the camels. Jesus never advocated laxity.
The solution, then, can be found neither in the extreme of reliance on the law nor in the extreme of defiance of the law. The solution is in fact not found in the law at all, but in the Lord of the law.
Jesus told the Jews, “You search the Scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness to Me; yet you refuse to come to Me that you may have life.”5
This is the only solution: In Jesus Christ alone is life, for both the Christian individual and the Christian church. And the solution on campus can be applicable only in a radical and no-mental-reservation return to Jesus Christ in whatever form that may take.
It doesn’t matter by whom (student, professor, administrator, or parent), wherever the life of Jesus Christ is lived, at that place will appear the practical solution to all spiritual problems, Jesus Christ.
And the solution offered by Him is the same today as it was in ancient times when He said, “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, ‘God, I think Thee that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week, I give tithes of all that I get.’ But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other ; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.”6
The lost sheep must be retrieved; and they can be retrieved by the True Shepherd."
1Ezekiel 18:1-4, RSV
2Luke 7:31, 32, RSV
3Matthew 23:23, first part, RSV.
4Matthew 23:23, last part, RSV.
5John 5:39, 40, RSV.
6Luke 18:10-14, RSV.
I did not write this. Credit goes to Max Phillips who write this essay in his book Inscriptions. What's crazy is that Mr. Phillips does not go to Southern, nor is he even close to our age. This was published in 1970--almost 40 years ago! How come if feels like he just wrote it the other day? Has anything changed??
2 comments:
Well, that's a twist ending. The fact that you didn't write it, I mean. I feel very thoughtful... like a good, long, hmmm.......... is in order.
I like this blog...I wish there were more...can there be more please?
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