"I'm plotting my escape from you."--Debbie's words 14 years ago.
"I love you with all of my heart. You're my best friend."--Debbie's words now.
Thanks be to God--correct theology when combined with the actions of God can liberate you from sin.
In 1998, I began attending Paul Zahl's Bible Study at the Cathedral Church of the Advent in Birmingham. I didn't understand anything he was saying, but it was intellectually challenging so I continued going. It wasn't just Zahl's teaching that saved me, it was God's "awful" work in my life. About 2001, God attacked my family, my job, and my health. I finally understood that, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't control my wife, my work, and certainly not my health. Zahl's teachings finally made sense. Finally, God was able to extricate my life from my clutching hands. Finally, I was able to say "over to God."
Three of the hallmarks of Zahl's teaching (which are three hallmarks of Christianity) were directly contrary to what I had been taught in a Southern Baptist church (and contrary to what is taught in most churches):
Free Will? Not.
Strength in Weakness.
Grace, not Law.
Baptists are big on teaching "free will." You tell your congregants that they have "free will" and can make correct choices. This is because the preacher is trying to get his congregation to live right, to look right for the rest of the world. THIS IS HERETICAL.
We now belong to a Presbyterian church which is theologically sound and life-giving (and there are a couple of others in B'ham, but not many). But most Presbyterian churches get it wrong as well. They teach that you are saved by God's grace, but sanctification is something we need to work at. THIS IS HERETICAL.
We are all bound to deep-down libidinal urges--anger and lust for Ellis. For Debbie, it was garnering the approval of others by serving them and never saying no to helping someone--even when helping them was not in the other person's best interest.
One of Martin Luther's most important books is entitled "The Bondage of the Will." It describes how we are dead in our trespasses and powerless to change without the intervention of God. And it's not that we just need a little help from God, God must go the whole way--it all lies with him.
I read "The Bondage of the Will" and thought it was theologically profound. Debbie went much further. She read "The Bondage of the Will" and said: "Now I can love _____"--a particularly difficult person in her life. After reading the book, Debbie could love this person and give them grace, because that person's will was bound. As Debbie has done this over the years, that person has blossomed. When true grace, not just servile obedience is directed towards someone, God's work can be done.
The idea that God's strength is revealed in our weakness is antithetical to our desire to be our own savior. It is also antithetical to the teaching in most churches that we can be good people. If I can be a good person in my own strength, then I don't need God (or maybe I just need him as a co-pilot). If I can be a good person on my own, then I have to compare myself to others to confirm that I'm good. In people like me, this leads to self-righteousness, which is death. For people like Debbie, it causes her to find that she is always lacking when she compares herself to others. God doesn't want us to be self-righteous or despondent.
Jesus didn't say "compare yourself to others." Instead, Jesus said "be perfect." And when you're being perfect, you better be doing it for the right reason, with a pure heart! This means that it is impossible to live a Christian life! Our only hope is grace. We find this when we get in touch with our weakness, not our strength.
And it's grace all the way. Not just grace for salvation, but grace for sanctification as well. This is why many Christians withdraw from church. Most churches teach that we can make ourselves better. But this just reignites our comparing ourselves to others. It diverts us from Jesus' teaching--"be perfect"--to trying to do what the pastor says: 1)tithe, 2)go on short term mission trips, 3)be truthful, 4)live a righteous life so that others will be drawn to Jesus. This was death for me.
In stark contrast, grace was life. Debbie went from "plotting her escape" from me to "planning on growing old together." I can't ever thank Zahl enough for his seemingly boundless energy and courage for proclaiming the Gospel. Every now and then, a prophet comes along--Zahl was one, and Tullian appears to be one. But, it's not about Zahl or Tullian, it's about the grace of God as manifested in their lives and proclaimed by them. It's about the God/man who desired to have a direct (non-mediated) relationship with his children. So, He came and lived among us, died for us, and rose that we might live.
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