Summer School: The Gospel — Wednesday
Proverbs 3:5
Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. (ESV)
The movie Airplane!, along with basically any other movie with actor/comedian Leslie Nielsen in it, has humor that revolves around misunderstandings. One pretty famous one you may remember involved Rumack (Leslie’s character) and Elaine, the female lead who played a flight attendant:
Rumack: “You’d better tell the Captain we’ve got to land as soon as we can. This woman has to be gotten to a hospital.”
Elaine Dickinson: “A hospital? What is it?”
Rumack: “It’s a big building with patients, but that’s not important right now.”
The shtick of that type of humor is successful because it leverages what could be a genuine misunderstanding of what is happening or being said, even if it’s ridiculous.
Misunderstanding happens in the small things of everyday life, but it also happens in the big things. And a subtle way that misunderstanding of the gospel happens is when we insert fear, conformity, complacency, or lies into what the Bible says and what Jesus did for us.
The gospel is miraculously simple, but because of that simplicity, it can sometimes be hard to accept through all of life’s complicated ups and downs, even when we know it is the best gift we will ever receive. The churches in Galatia were facing similar challenges, albeit at the hands of the Judaizers who were convincingly adding in details to the gospel in the form of traditional laws.
It’s not a new temptation to add and twist God’s message, power, and truth. It’s actually the oldest trick in the book. It worked on Adam and Eve, it worked in Galatia, and it still affects us today. However, I’d propose that all of us living in current times may be more equipped than anyone before to be able to combat the temptation to change the gospel, and that brings me courage. We have God’s Word at our disposal 24/7/365.
During our High School Beach Week trip a few weeks ago, I challenged my sophomore boys group (and myself) to talk about where we found ourselves having doubt, and why that may be. The consensus we arrived at was that when we aren’t spending time with God, in His Word, in prayer, and in Christian community, we find that we stop being so certain of who He says we are, who He is, and the enormity of what Jesus did for us.
Wednesday’s Reflection
Spend time today being still, reading God’s Word, and praying. Focus that time on thinking about the truth of the Gospel and what it means in your life.
