One of my favorite chapters in Minority Report warns how forgetting history disempowers us. Today we fail to recognize false teaching because we are unaware of the heresies that the church condemned in the past. The Shack would not have been tolerated by Athanasius or the rest of the council of Nicaea.
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Do you remember David Platt speaking about his mission trip to China a couple of years ago at student life? These Chinese Christian would stealthily travel for miles to a remote location, sitting on small uncomfortable chairs in a room lit by one bulb chairs to hear the word of God taught for hours a day, weeks at a time. There would always be someone on guard, as they were risking their lives to hear the Word of God, evidently to these Chinese Christian the rewards of studying the Bible outweighed the risk.
Let’s say a few migrate to the United States. Every time they now gather an atmosphere of joy and thanksgiving abounds. They are deeply thankful to God for the freedoms they now enjoy. But a shift slowly takes place. The second generation vaguely remembers the past, it has become a shadow, and as the shadow grows, the light of yesterday shines less brightly. With the third generation the shadow of the past is all that remains, and their joy is less for it.
You cannot survive of the faith of your fathers, it must be your own. Their history must become your reality. Do you see yourself as the captive Jew in this text? The Hebrew who has sinned greatly against God, who has been driven out from the His presence, outside the place of His blessing? Do you see how sin has devastated you, placed you in bondage, abused you, and left you in tattered slave garments? Or have you always assumed His saving love and mercy?
A beautiful headdress only comes to those who have covered their heads with the ashes of repentance. A bright, healthy face shining with joy belongs to those who have mourned and wept over sin. Those who are clothed with praise are those who first wore the clothes of a desperate beggar.
Is the history of the saints your history? Is the faith once delivered to the saints your faith? If this text does not come as the most joyful of news, if you do not leap at the concepts of liberation and freedom – then perhaps liberation and freedom are not yours.
No Other Boast 