Matthew 16:13-17
Sometime ago there was a
Bishop who lived in Ohio. He belonged to a church called United Brethren in
Christ. One day he went to visit a small college that was affiliated with his
church. He stayed at the home of the college President, who was also the
professor of physics. One night after dinner the Bishop declared that the
millennium could not be far off, because just about everything about nature had
been discovered and all inventions were conceived. The college President
politely disagreed and said there would be many more discoveries. This made the
Bishop angry. He challenged the president to name just one such invention, the
president replied that he was certain within fifty years men would be able to fly
using machines. “Nonsense!” sputtered the outraged Bishop. “Only angels are
intended to fly.” The Bishop was proven wrong – the Bishop
did see people flying on machines. What makes the story interesting is that the Bishop
was Milton Wright, and he had two young boys at home who would prove to have a
greater vision than their father. Their names were Orville and Wilbur. Orville and Wilbur
made flying machines feasible on December 17, 1903.
It’s
not just the Bishop, people are wrong all the time. And many Christians have
wrong ideas coming to Jesus. They are like the four blind men who were taken to
an elephant the first time. One
blind man felt the elephant’s leg and exclaimed, “The elephant is like a
pillar”. The second felt its side and said, “The elephant is like a wall”.
Another touched a tusk and said it's like a spear. The last one touched the
elephant’s tail and said it’s like a rope. So the blind men basically used
their own experiences to get an idea of the elephant. This story is used by
eastern religions to teach people that based on man’s own experience, man will
know a certain god or certain aspects of a god.
The problem is many
Christians, like the blind men, have certain experiences they use the
experiences and form their own ideas of Jesus. And the problem is the ideas are
wrong ideas. Furthermore their Jesus is not Jesus of the Bible.
Dear brother and sister in
Christ - you and I can have all sorts of wrong ideas about many things. You and
I can be wrong about relationships, wrong about money and investments, wrong
about our jobs, wrong about the food we order– we will be fine later. But if we
are wrong about Jesus, you and I will pay for that error eternally.
So let’s open the scriptures
and learn
from God himself (John 6:45) about Jesus.
God the Holy Spirit please teach me and turn me to Jesus the Christ. Amen.
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