Getting Beyond Our Bumper Sticker Theology

CONSECRATE Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.  Jesus, I belong to you. I lift up my heart to you. I set my mind on you. I fix my eyes on you. I offer my body to you as a living sacrifice. Jesus, we belong to you.  Praying in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen.  HEAR Hebrews 3:13 (NIV) But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called “Today,” so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness. CONSIDER But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called “Today,” . . . It’s tempting and would be easy to rip this text out of its context and interpret it through the lens of our time, allowing our own cultural mix of stories, fables, heroes, and folklore (a.k.a. movies) to tell us what encouragement really means. I can already see the refrigerator magnet: “Encourage One Another Daily.” Or the bumper sticker: “Encourage One Another Today.” Upon seeing it we would hasten to pat someone on the back, tell them they could do it, or commend the waiter for doing a good job and feel like we had done it. And while there is always ample need for kind words and thoughtful gestures, let’s not confuse them for what the Bible is talking about in this verse. Did you see what I did with the refrigerator magnets? I left out what may be the most significant word in the verse. Did you see it? It’s the first word: but. Conjunction junction, what’s your function? There is a strategically placed word here. It tells us that this admonition to “encourage one another daily, as long as it is called ‘Today’” is in contrast to something that has gone before. It calls us to explore the context. As my New Testament ninja Bible teacher Dr. Ben Witherington III fondly says, “A text without a context is merely a pretext for your own text.” If you have read my previous writings, you know this is a no-fluff-zone when it comes to the biblical text. We are learning to read well together. The context here is fascinating, and we will take a day or two to explore it in some depth as it will reveal significant layers of nuanced meaning for us. Let’s look back to verse 12: “See to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God.” We must encourage one another daily as long as it is called “today” not because we all need more attaboys and pats on the back. It’s way more serious than that. This cuts to the very core of the human condition. The nature of fallen, broken human beings can be diagnosed as follows: “a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God.” Though we have been saved from the penalty of sin by the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ, sin still crouches at the door. And we aren’t talking about mere bad behavior here and the temptation to have a second piece of Aunt Myrtle’s coconut cream pie. Behavior is a symptom. Sin is the disease. We need a far more robust understanding of what sin is and how sin works if we are to truly understand what grace is and how salvation works. Our typical view of sin and salvation is very transactional, and though there is definitely a forensic dimension to sin, it is far more complex and sophisticated than that. Verse 12 gives us perhaps the most succinct definition of what sin most deeply is: an “unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God.” This is why encouragement is so essential. Hear the text now with the context: “See to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called ‘Today.’” Finally, you have undoubtedly noticed what else got cut out of our refrigerator magnet and bumper sticker versions—the whole second half of verse 13: “so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.” The human heart is so easily deceived, and sin (a.k.a. an “unbelieving heart”) is unbelievably deceitful. Behavior management is not the cure for sin’s deceitfulness. That is like taking cough syrup for lung cancer. The ongoing Holy Spirit chemotherapy for the deceitful sin cancer of an unbelieving heart is thick encouragement. PRAY God our Father, forgive us for our flat and thin ways of engaging the revelation of your Word. Jesus, as the Word made flesh, would you be our teacher, causing our hearts to burn as you unfold the Scriptures, the very heart and now wisdom of eternal life? Just as your Spirit inspired the Word, may the Spirit now interpret it to our inmost beings that it might work itself into every conceivable expression of our lives, for our good, for others’ gain, for your glory. In Jesus’s name, amen.