Sorting the Instructions 1

If you have listened to me very long, you have, by now, heard me suggest many times that the Bible is not a book of rules, but revelation of a Ruler. One of the most powerful ways to prevent unity from emerging in the relationships of believers is to be more interested in rules than in the Ruler.

In Walmart recently I encountered a friendly woman who surprised me by being a servant of a local “Kingdom Hall.” The discussion began with a health concern that she had experienced, and how she was having trouble trusting physicians with it. I responded that I have more trust in some friends who like to see people healed in the name Jesus than I have in physicians myself. From that point on, every thing that I said was responded to with a prerecorded response from her headquarters in New York.

It was painful to stay and difficult to escape. After excusing myself graciously and giving her the last word in the current argument, I blessed her and turned and walked away. She was still engaged. Her theological instruction, like all “Jehovah’s Witnesses”, was not to redeem the lost, but to win arguments. People who hate controversy and/or fear not being able to answer questions properly are particularly susceptible to their trained bullies.

Our King is raising up servants in His Kingdom from among His family members. He is training them in the skills of self-sacrifice, worship, and warfare as He leads them to redeem and restore the lost and the stolen.

Josef Tson is a hero from behind the now fallen Iron Curtain. He was the leader of a congregation in Romania. Once, after being able to escape Romania, he was asking some western believers for help with a mission of returning to Romania to distribute some books he had gotten translated for leaders there.

When questioned about the likelihood of success he expected if he returned, he responded, “Success? Success? That’s a typically Western way of thinking. In Romania, when one becomes a Christian, one doesn’t think of success. You think of losing your job, losing your income, of beatings, slander, and possibly martyrdom. I’m called to preach the gospel in Romania. So I’ll go.”

His mission is to introduce wolves to the flavor of sheep’s blood, so that they can take it as a first step toward tasting the Lamb of God, and seeing that He is very good (Psalm 34:8, Matthew 26:26-28).