Recently, I was meditating on John 14:6, one of the most famous verses in the Bible, in which Jesus declared himself to be the way, the truth, and the life.
I was musing on this one day as I was looking out the window of an airplane and began to think about both the benefits and blessings of seeing Jesus in all three of these relationships to the believer. I also began to see the danger of just seeing Jesus in one of His offices at the neglect of the other two. This is what I have come to call Myopic Lordship.
Myopic Lordship is when we, as sincere Bible believing Christians, become “tunnel-visioned” when overly influenced by our culture, denomination, personality, or even creature comforts to see Jesus in one of these three aspects of His character, at the expense of the other two. I would like to suggest that to live life to the max or experience “mega life”, we need to follow Jesus as all three – the Way, the Truth, and the Life.
The Way
People, who follow Jesus as the Way and de-emphasize the Truth and the Life, tend to be doers. They are the activists within the body of Christ. They have a tendency to down play theology and experience, so that they can become involved in
obeying the works of Jesus and follow the ways of Jesus. Their favorite Christian saying is “What Would Jesus Do”. They also are concerned about the way Jesus would do things. What Gayle Erwin has referred to in his book as the “Jesus Style”, there is a way, a style in which Jesus works. These are people who have a tendency to get bored with theology and don’t have a lot of time for charismatic meetings that go around in circles and then neglect to “do the stuff”. These people, to the extreme, would end up being theological liberals; doing the works, the social activism, the healing, the feeding, and so forth, and not necessarily being concerned on how Biblical it is or how much life they are experiencing spiritually in their relationship with the Lord, or even whether or not Jesus is truly God.
I recently, was provoked to jealousy and bewilderment, at watching the local news program here in Honolulu one night, to find that the local Unitarian church was spearheading the fundraiser drive for the Kosovar refugees in Albania. A woman minister, who most likely didn’t even believe in a personal God, was talking about how we need to show Christian love and compassion to our neighbors across the sea who were suffering. Here was a lady following the works of Jesus, perhaps doing it even in the way Jesus would do it, but theologically is not grounded in the truth of the Word of God, nor does she experience the real life of God’s spirit. This short-term memory helped spur me, a couple of weeks ago, when the earthquake hit Taiwan. I immediately went on the radio to raise money for World Vision’s relief efforts in Taiwan, and tried to do my best as an evangelical Bible believing Christian, and not to let the liberals beat us to the punch! I’m not even sure if my motive was totally pure, but I did it anyhow!
The Truth
Truth people tend to be the thinkers of the body of Christ. They have a student orientation when it comes to Christianity. They are very big on theology, right doctrine, and teaching and preaching the Word. They are strong into the words and warnings of Jesus, and are happily obsessed with knowing the truth. Their favorite verses are “The church is the pillar and ground of the truth”, I Timothy 5 and “I have no greater joy than to hear my children walk in the truth” 3 John 4. Their libraries are filled with Greek word studies, teaching tapes, and Bible commentaries. Their belt of truth (Ephesians 6:14) is tightly buckled around their waist, and knowing that truth is absolute, gives them a strong anchor through which to express their faith. The above description is certainly not bad, as a matter of fact, it is essential, if we are to be vibrant Christians. But people, who tend to be myopic about being a “Truth Christian” at the expense of the way and the life, have the tendency to go to the extreme of having a form of godliness, but denying the power, thereof. They have a danger of knowing the truth without doing the truth, and end up as the self-deceived person in James 1:22, or the self-destroying person of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount (see Matt 7:24-27), who heard the word but didn’t do it.
I was recently at a Pastor’s conference, and someone introduced me to a man, who had, at my first impression, an angry, skeptical look in his eye, as soon as he met me. Within two minutes of the conversation, he had slandered three prominent elders in the body of Christ, one of whom was a good friend of mine. He accused them of being, among other things, Gnostics, and having a “wrong hermeneutic”, and were a danger to the Body of Christ. This self proclaimed biblical watchdog (even though, I resisted the temptation to tell him), wouldn’t have known a Gnostic if he would have tripped over one, and it was clear he didn’t know whereof he was speaking. It was simply that these three brothers, whom he had mentioned, had certain views on the Bible that were different from his, but certainly were within the pale of orthodox Christianity, and within the bounds of historic Christian doctrine.
He had a myopic view of truth, and certainly didn’t come across in any way the way that Jesus would have or with the life that Jesus would have expressed. This is not to mention the fact that he certainly did not convince me that he loved these three brothers or me, whom he was trying to warn. About two and half minutes into the conversation, I cut him off and told him that he needed to read I Cor. 13, and I could no longer stand and listen to accusations against elders in the body of Christ unless there were two or three witnesses there. I proceeded to turn on my heels and walk away. This guy was, in my opinion, the worst example of a quote “truth freak” who not only needed to read Gayle Erwin’s book, but, perhaps, needed a good shot of the Holy Ghost in his life to liven him up a bit!
The Life
Speaking of life, the life category of the nature of
Jesus has to do with our present day experience of
actually walking with the Lord. Whereas, “Way” people
are doers and activists, and “Truth” type.
Myopic Lordship is when we, as sincere Bible believing
Christians, become “tunnel-visioned” when overly influenced by our culture, denomination, personality, or even creature comforts to see Jesus in one of these three aspects of His character at the
expense of the other two. I would like to suggest that to live life to the max or experience “mega life”, we need to follow Jesus as all three – the Way, the Truth, and the Life.
People, who follow Jesus as the Way and de-emphasize the Truth and the Life, tend to be doers. They are the activists within the body of Christ. They have a tendency to down play theology and experience, so that they can become involved in obeying the works of Jesus and follow the ways of Jesus. Their favorite Christian saying is “What Would Jesus Do”.
They also are concerned about the way Jesus would do things. This is what Gayle Erwin has referred to in his book as the “Jesus Style.” There is a way, a style in which Jesus works. These are people who have a tendency to get bored with theology and don’t have a lot of time for charismatic meetings that go around in circles and then neglect to “do the stuff”. These people to the extreme would end up being theological liberals; doing the works, the social activism, the healing, the feeding, and so forth, and not necessarily being concerned on how Biblical it is or how much life they are experiencing spiritually in their relationship with the Lord, or even whether or not Jesus is truly God.
I recently was provoked to jealousy and bewilderment at watching the local news program here in Honolulu one night to find that the local Unitarian church was spearheading the fundraiser drive for the Kosovar refugees in Albania.
A woman minister who most likely didn’t even believe in a personal God was talking about how we need to show Christian love and compassion to our neighbors across the sea who were suffering. Here was a lady following the works of Jesus, perhaps doing it even in the way Jesus would do it, but theologically is not grounded in the truth of the Word of God, nor does she experience the real life of God’s Spirit.
This short-term memory helped spur me, a couple of weeks ago, when the earthquake hit Taiwan. I immediately went on the radio to raise money for World Vision’s relief efforts in Taiwan, and tried to do my best as an evangelical Bible believing Christian, and not to let the liberals beat us to the punch! I’m not even sure if my motive was totally pure, but I did it anyhow!
So the “Life” people are experiencers, who like to live the Christian life. These types of folks love the new best seller by Blackaby and King called “Experiencing God”.
Their favorite hymn is “He Lives” and their favorite line of their favorite hymn is “….you ask me how I know he lives– he lives within my heart.” Their favorite gospel chorus is “I can feel Him in my feet, I can feel Him in the air, I can feel Him in the street, I can feel Him everywhere. I feel Him all over me….” Life people have a tendency, if they are not balanced with the Way and the Truth aspect of Jesus’ character, to become self-centered, even though, they do really want to love and experience the Life (GR. Zoe-the God kind of life) that He has for us.
The extremist Life people tend to become “chandelier-swinging” Pentecostals. They may tend to not be as big on serving the Lord as they are on experiencing the Lord. And the experiences that they have may or may not be backed up or grounded upon Scripture and sometimes this is of little consequence to them. Their favorite motto is “If it feels this good how can it not be God?”. When even well meaning and sincere folks come up to them and ask a question like “Where is that in the Bible?”, they’re often met with an icy stare or even worse; an out of context quote out of II Cor. 3:6 which says, “The letter kills, but the Spirit gives life”.
A just balance is the Lord’s delight
Please forgive the hints of sarcasm in this article regarding these three types of people, and believe me, I am shooting myself in the foot with each one of them. I think the anecdote to all three of these extremes is not to sit back and develop a “couch potato” mentality and do nothing, but in contrast, to actively pursue loving Jesus Christ with all of our heart by following Him who is at the same time and equally the Way, the Truth, and the Life.
We should do the works of Jesus in the way that Jesus would do them with the attitudes of Jesus while we complete the actions of Jesus. We should do them based upon an objective grounding and foundation in God’s inerrant Word, and be wary of anything that cannot be backed up or supported by that Word that has already been breathed by the God who we want to experience.
We should not however, be content simply to do the works of Jesus grounded on the truth, but we must experience the life of Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit. We must not only read the written Word of God, but hear the spoken Word of God. In short, we must develop a (please forgive the use of a worn out term) “PERSONAL RELATIONSHIP” with Jesus Christ.
In my travels throughout the body of Christ, I have seen a lot of weird things, but working in and through and with various types of denominations and different types of nations and myriads of different types of Christians, I have come to really appreciate the Way showers, the Truth knowers , and the Life experiencers, showers, the Truth knowers , and the Life experiencers, that are all over the world in the Body of Christ. I myself have swung between these three extremes at different times in my Christian life. I try my best not to be critical of my brethren whom are experienced in one or the other of these camps, but try to appreciate them all, meanwhile, trying to be an “extremist” in all three of those areas.
Someone once told me that a proper Biblical balance is someone who does everything to the max! Let us love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. (See Matt. 22:37-39)