Badly Drawn God 2:
Meek & Mild Jesus
The next image that comes to mind is "Gentle Jesus meek and mild". Yes, Jesus taught "Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth" Matthew 5: 5 [NIV] – but that is quite different to the image of a timid person who would avoid conflict, let people walk all over them and not stir up emotion or cause controversy.
To plagiarise JB Phillips "Your God is too small" again:
'This word "mild" is apparently deliberately used to describe a man who did not hesitate to challenge and expose the hypocrisies of the religious people of his day: a man who had such "personality" that He walked unscathed through a murderous crowd; a man so far from being a nonentity that He was regarded by the authorities as a public danger; a man who could be moved to violent anger by shameless exploitation or by smug complacent orthodoxy; a man of such courage that He deliberately walked to what He knew would mean death, despite the earnest pleas of well-meaning friends! Mild'
If our image of Jesus is soft and woolly, then our image of God becomes the same; and if God is our architype of Love, our understanding of love can become equally soft and woolly.
Ask God to show you where your image of him is too "Meek & Mild"
God's servant must not be argumentative, but a gentle listener and a teacher who keeps cool, working firmly but patiently with those who refuse to obey.
2 Timothy 2:24 [MSG]
Guy Mowbray | |
No comments:
Post a Comment