Clean Your Plate!

The Bible provides spiritual milk and meat for the soul.  Those who teach God's Word have a duty of care to supply food for the soul, not empty chaff blown about by hot wind.  It would be a tragedy to have the tender fillet steak of God's Word available and set only bones before hungry souls.  Spurgeon wrote in Lectures to My Students, "Better far give the people masses of unprepared truth in the rough, like pieces of meat from a butcher's block, chopped off anyhow, bone and all, and even dropped down in the sawdust, then ostentatiously and delicately hand them out upon a china dish a delicious slice of nothing at all, decorated with the parsley of poetry, and flavoured with the sauce of affectation." (Spurgeon, C. H. Lectures to My Students: Complete & Unabridged. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Pub. House, 1954. Print. page 75)  The hypocritical Pharisees were ones who ignored the bread, meat, and Living Water offered by the wisdom of Christ and fought over the bones of the Law.  The Law is a meaty thing and bones have their place in hearty cooking, but to push aside meat to pick at the bones for the purpose of debate is to miss the whole purpose for why the Law was given.

Food is delicious and practical.  Without food and drink we would not be long for this world, and Jesus said His food was to do the will of the Father.  Jesus always did the will of the Father, and He offers eternal life to all who repent and follow Him in faith.  Christianity is not something to know - though it comes by knowledge - but it is a life to be lived in the real world.  Following Christ is practical, not technical.  Advancement in this world is often tied to education, knowledge, and performance, and it is a terrible error to think we advance spiritually in the same way.  Because education, knowledge, and works are part of the Christian walk it is easy to emphasise them and put the horse on the rider!  Many keen riders have been crushed by the heavy horse of legalism, and the pain of those powerful hooves are never forgotten!  Food is fine to look at, but it is not of any practical use until it is chewed in the mouth and digested in the belly.  Biblical truth is like a beautiful song to be danced to, not an assortment of instruments which can be separated into individual parts to be criticised and tweaked according to modern musical theory.  Theology is a science, but Christianity cannot be observed in a test tube.

I encourage all seekers of truth to consider that a Christian is not judged by God concerning his ignorance but if he has been obedient to what he knows.  A parent does not scold his child for leaving bones on his plate, but will see to it all meat is eaten before dessert is permitted.  God's truth must be adopted into our lives before we receive the reward.  To load your plate with food is like filling your head with knowledge:  it does us no practical good until the meat is voluntarily received and becomes part of us, fueling our thoughts and deeds.  We can know many technical aspects of doctrine and theology, but what matters most is our continual choice to practice loving, trusting, and obeying God.  We are called to love one another as Christ loves us.  We need to seek God about how He would have us demonstrate His love and actually do something about it which requires faith.  Knowledge is not the end, but a means to obtain wisdom.  If knowledge is our only end, we might not ever know God and be doomed to destruction.  This goes for the theologian, scholar, man on the street, you and me!