Social Bookmarks
on understanding
I was talking with a friend the other day. We were discussing John Piper, Joel Osteen, and the Prosperity gospel (actually it all started when I showed him the Pisseth video) and I was trying to articulate my view of acquiring “stuff.”
I was attempting to explain to him my viewpoint on the idea that Christianity has been infected with consumerism. I don’t think he quite understood. The viewpoint he holds is that it’s not so wrong for Christians to acquire the stuff they want as long as they are still tithing and such. One of his ideas on the topic was that we can continue to acquire stuff because we don’t know if what we’re acquiring is God’s blessing or not. Lets just say I’m not a big fan of that particular reasoning and move on. Another point he brought up was he says that somewhere in the Bible it says God wants to give us both what we need and what we want. I challenged him on that one because I don’t ever recall hearing that before, but he couldn’t remember where it was either.
But topic of the argument, nor the validity of our respective viewpoints in the topic of this post. It’s more of a reflective post.
Why?
Because I can’t understand why he doesn’t see what I see.
I have that problem. I get passionate about something, I devour that topic, I let it permeate to essentially every core of my life. And I get puzzled when others don’t do the same.
True I’ve gotten better of late, I can understand why people disagree with certain issues that I hold, like on hell, but I still hit that brick wall (at about 90 miles and hour) when someone doesn’t care about the poor, or doesn’t understand why the environment is important to me. Here’s the thing. I think I could talk to a muslim who cares for the poor easier than a Christian who drives a Hummer and “tithes” each week. (note: the friend doesn’t drive a hummer, and the place his money goes is pretty cool)
So here I sit, replaying that scene from the other night in my mind, wondering if my inability to understand why he didn’t side with me hindered his understanding of my side, and why, when I wholly held that viewpoint just a short year ago, I can’t understand it now.
How does one get through such and impasse?
Listening to: You’re not alone By: Saosin (I love ballads)
comments
One Response to “on understanding”
Leave a Reply
I was well on my way down that ‘prosperity trail’ in the mid 80s when it’s popularity was gaining momentum. Then I went on a missional trip to serve ‘the suffering church’ behind the Iron Curtain. I discovered three things on that trip:
1. The prosperity gospel would never work there.
2. I held the wrong definition for prosperity.
3. The prosperity gospel was a huge and deceptive distraction from the true gospel.
I guess it’s very difficult to change one’s perspective through abstract, philosophical debate. One needs to test their perceived realities by doing. If one is a follower of Jesus, then one needs to first hear what Jesus is teaching, and then do what Jesus is doing. I beilieve if one will be honest in pursuing these two things, the prosperity gospel loses all of it’s foundation and falls like a house of cards.
Perhaps you can get your friend to agree to form a discipleship group - just the two of you - and read the gospels together and discuss what Jesus is teaching and doing as you read them. Just a thought.