Vision and religion
You've probably heard it said "When there is no vision, the people perish." It's a King James translation of a phrase that is more literally transliterated "in/when there is none vision he (is not) bridled the people (om)." If we continue the translation of the verse we call Proverbs 29:18, the couplet completes "and he keeping 'Torah' (is) happy him".
The waw (and) between the pieces of the couplet is not really a conjunction as much as a storytelling connector. It isn't uncommon to see a string of MANY thoughts connected together with waws. And many of the Proverbs are constructed as couplet comparisons with one half illustrating the other. To understand the Bible, it really helps at times to go back to the original language so we can throw out mistranslations we've run into. This verse is one of those.
So what's the complete thought? Well...having and following the Law is being compared to being unbridled. For the modern reader (or even the postmodern one), the comparison to being an undomesticated pack animal probably doesn't appeal. But this reading doesn't really deal with the Hebrew word chazon.
Generally, Hebrew nouns are based on root words that are verbs. The root for this one is chazah and Brown, Driver, & Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament claims it typically has poetic usage relatively akin to our behold. So it is something more than simple sight.
Another, related word is the male singular chozeh for seer. From that you get a clearer concept that the vision is supernatural in origin.
What's interesting about this? Well...while we can't strictly draw a parallel between the two portions of the couplet, there is a hint that Torah is divine revelation or at the very least is understanding on the same level as a "seer's" vision...i.e. supernatural or divine.
Why is this important? We can't actually construct a vision for God's people. It must come from God. I can't even discuss the word "vision" without thinking of Rob Zinn's leadership of Immanuel Baptist in San Bernardino (now Highland) California. As a very young pastor he proclaimed that God was leading him to grow Immanuel from the size it was when my dad arrived as associate pastor (circa 1978) to a membership of 5,000. Given the story of the feeding of the five thousand, given a church with about 500 active members, and given church growth theory that favored new starts and new congregations (i.e. "missions"), Rob was taking Immanuel in a decidedly distinct direction.
Now there were already "mega" churches like North Phoenix in the SBC in the late 70s and early 80s. So it doesn't seem as startling to someone east of California. But California can still be fairly characterized as a pioneer missions area because of the low demographics of evangelical Christians in the state.
But what struck me about the situation was that not only was Rob being very specific about what God was leading him to lead Immanuel to do, but he supported it with passage after passage where God dealt in specific details and numbers. Rob wasn't afraid to state these specifics because he trusted that the same God that led him to reveal them to the congregation would fulfill the vision that he was laying before this (then young) pastor.
I can't say this for sure, but I think it made Dad shiver when Rob did that. Now my opinion of my dad is colored by affection and history. The affection probably puts him on a pedestal he doesn't entirely deserve. And the history is--shall we say--a tempering addition to that viewpoint. As I've grown I've come to know my dad for who he actually is rather than who I thought he was. And along the way he has admitted to faults in each of several periods of our family's life.
So to say I thought Dad "shivered" when Rob would make comments like that isn't to say Dad didn't believe. Dad's quite practical. If Rob said "we're going to have 5,000 members", Dad would break it into time periods and Sunday School classes, and auditoriums, and worship services. Then he would say "we have to do this" to make the vision work. And Rob would lead the church to do exactly that.
I remember the excitement...ok...it was really boredom...of standing out on the slab of the new worship center at 1314 Date Street and...you've got it...watering the concrete so it wouldn't cure too quickly and crack. Let me tell you: a slab of concrete requires vision. It's REALLY HARD to see a building when you have a slab of concrete, even if you're somewhat handy with blueprints.
What's even harder is realizing that the building is just a proxy for the spiritual event that God has planned in advance and is bringing into existence. It's people who are reached who become class members who have never TOUCHED much less opened a Bible in their lives (yes...this really happens in California.) And then you see them become fervent witnesses for the truth that has transformed them. And--after I left--I heard some of them became teachers of the classes that they used to sit in.
I became convinced of the power of specific guidance for people because of that process. And in my career I have--time and time again--helped projects succeed by clarifying the vision of what would be most useful to the customer and creating a plan for getting there.
But as I think about the Southern Baptist Convention of today, I have to admit I'm worried. It isn't that God has left the building...he's still quite visibly involved in things like our mission efforts. While I can get pretty jaded over the bickering that has been the most consistent result of the Conservative Resurgence, I only have to step into the Northwest Baptist Convention office that Dad works in to dispel my frustration. Not only do the work with many denominations to help guide their churches in practical planning and in training the people of those churches, but in the basement there is a real live satellite campus of Golden Gate at work!
In fact, Jeff Iorg was the executive director at that very facility before he was selected as the current president of GGBTS. And after a more recent executive director came and went, former GGBTS president Bill Crews came in as the interim director of that Convention.
All of the guys I've mentioned know West Coast missions and evangelism. They have each lived at the very edge of the world spiritually as they have served on mission in California, Oregon, Washington, and Idaho. I'll argue that most of what I've learned in life about energetic, enthusiastic leadership either came from one of these four men or I WISH it had come from them!
Yes...I ramble when I write...and I'm sure you're wondering where I'm going with this. So here it is:
We don't need a fresh vision for reaching the world for Jesus Christ. The one we have remains alive and vibrant. If you want to be where the bickering stops, generally you need to be where the work is perceived as being vital. If you're in a town where there is more than one Baptist church, maybe it's time to consider going to a town where no one preaches the Good News of Jesus Christ.
If you do that, and if you serve God faithfully, I guarantee you that the only thing that will overwhelm you is how enormous and eternal our opportunity is to participate in God's vision for saving the world.
I pray that the churches who call themselves Southern Baptist will reignite with an outpouring of the Holy Spirit so that we would recommit ourselves to boldly...no FOOLISHLY...seek to win the world for Jesus Christ. As much as I admire the concepts of the Cooperative Program, of the IMB and NAMB, of the Lottie Moon and Annie Armstrong Mission Offerings, I worry that all of that is making life too complicated and preventing every single Christian from vibrantly and enthusiastically befriending non-believers, evangelizing, discipling, and baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Whether we are led to do that in our Jerusalem, our Judea, our Samaria, or to the ends of the earth, there is something about being directly involved in teaching people about Jesus that breaks down barriers and overcomes bickering and infighting.
And if there are some that insist on continuing the bickering and infighting when there is work to be done, I offer Jesus's comment to the young man that offered to follow Jesus as soon as he buried his father and mother:
"Let the dead bury the dead."
The waw (and) between the pieces of the couplet is not really a conjunction as much as a storytelling connector. It isn't uncommon to see a string of MANY thoughts connected together with waws. And many of the Proverbs are constructed as couplet comparisons with one half illustrating the other. To understand the Bible, it really helps at times to go back to the original language so we can throw out mistranslations we've run into. This verse is one of those.
So what's the complete thought? Well...having and following the Law is being compared to being unbridled. For the modern reader (or even the postmodern one), the comparison to being an undomesticated pack animal probably doesn't appeal. But this reading doesn't really deal with the Hebrew word chazon.
Generally, Hebrew nouns are based on root words that are verbs. The root for this one is chazah and Brown, Driver, & Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament claims it typically has poetic usage relatively akin to our behold. So it is something more than simple sight.
Another, related word is the male singular chozeh for seer. From that you get a clearer concept that the vision is supernatural in origin.
What's interesting about this? Well...while we can't strictly draw a parallel between the two portions of the couplet, there is a hint that Torah is divine revelation or at the very least is understanding on the same level as a "seer's" vision...i.e. supernatural or divine.
Why is this important? We can't actually construct a vision for God's people. It must come from God. I can't even discuss the word "vision" without thinking of Rob Zinn's leadership of Immanuel Baptist in San Bernardino (now Highland) California. As a very young pastor he proclaimed that God was leading him to grow Immanuel from the size it was when my dad arrived as associate pastor (circa 1978) to a membership of 5,000. Given the story of the feeding of the five thousand, given a church with about 500 active members, and given church growth theory that favored new starts and new congregations (i.e. "missions"), Rob was taking Immanuel in a decidedly distinct direction.
Now there were already "mega" churches like North Phoenix in the SBC in the late 70s and early 80s. So it doesn't seem as startling to someone east of California. But California can still be fairly characterized as a pioneer missions area because of the low demographics of evangelical Christians in the state.
But what struck me about the situation was that not only was Rob being very specific about what God was leading him to lead Immanuel to do, but he supported it with passage after passage where God dealt in specific details and numbers. Rob wasn't afraid to state these specifics because he trusted that the same God that led him to reveal them to the congregation would fulfill the vision that he was laying before this (then young) pastor.
I can't say this for sure, but I think it made Dad shiver when Rob did that. Now my opinion of my dad is colored by affection and history. The affection probably puts him on a pedestal he doesn't entirely deserve. And the history is--shall we say--a tempering addition to that viewpoint. As I've grown I've come to know my dad for who he actually is rather than who I thought he was. And along the way he has admitted to faults in each of several periods of our family's life.
So to say I thought Dad "shivered" when Rob would make comments like that isn't to say Dad didn't believe. Dad's quite practical. If Rob said "we're going to have 5,000 members", Dad would break it into time periods and Sunday School classes, and auditoriums, and worship services. Then he would say "we have to do this" to make the vision work. And Rob would lead the church to do exactly that.
I remember the excitement...ok...it was really boredom...of standing out on the slab of the new worship center at 1314 Date Street and...you've got it...watering the concrete so it wouldn't cure too quickly and crack. Let me tell you: a slab of concrete requires vision. It's REALLY HARD to see a building when you have a slab of concrete, even if you're somewhat handy with blueprints.
What's even harder is realizing that the building is just a proxy for the spiritual event that God has planned in advance and is bringing into existence. It's people who are reached who become class members who have never TOUCHED much less opened a Bible in their lives (yes...this really happens in California.) And then you see them become fervent witnesses for the truth that has transformed them. And--after I left--I heard some of them became teachers of the classes that they used to sit in.
I became convinced of the power of specific guidance for people because of that process. And in my career I have--time and time again--helped projects succeed by clarifying the vision of what would be most useful to the customer and creating a plan for getting there.
But as I think about the Southern Baptist Convention of today, I have to admit I'm worried. It isn't that God has left the building...he's still quite visibly involved in things like our mission efforts. While I can get pretty jaded over the bickering that has been the most consistent result of the Conservative Resurgence, I only have to step into the Northwest Baptist Convention office that Dad works in to dispel my frustration. Not only do the work with many denominations to help guide their churches in practical planning and in training the people of those churches, but in the basement there is a real live satellite campus of Golden Gate at work!
In fact, Jeff Iorg was the executive director at that very facility before he was selected as the current president of GGBTS. And after a more recent executive director came and went, former GGBTS president Bill Crews came in as the interim director of that Convention.
All of the guys I've mentioned know West Coast missions and evangelism. They have each lived at the very edge of the world spiritually as they have served on mission in California, Oregon, Washington, and Idaho. I'll argue that most of what I've learned in life about energetic, enthusiastic leadership either came from one of these four men or I WISH it had come from them!
Yes...I ramble when I write...and I'm sure you're wondering where I'm going with this. So here it is:
We don't need a fresh vision for reaching the world for Jesus Christ. The one we have remains alive and vibrant. If you want to be where the bickering stops, generally you need to be where the work is perceived as being vital. If you're in a town where there is more than one Baptist church, maybe it's time to consider going to a town where no one preaches the Good News of Jesus Christ.
If you do that, and if you serve God faithfully, I guarantee you that the only thing that will overwhelm you is how enormous and eternal our opportunity is to participate in God's vision for saving the world.
I pray that the churches who call themselves Southern Baptist will reignite with an outpouring of the Holy Spirit so that we would recommit ourselves to boldly...no FOOLISHLY...seek to win the world for Jesus Christ. As much as I admire the concepts of the Cooperative Program, of the IMB and NAMB, of the Lottie Moon and Annie Armstrong Mission Offerings, I worry that all of that is making life too complicated and preventing every single Christian from vibrantly and enthusiastically befriending non-believers, evangelizing, discipling, and baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Whether we are led to do that in our Jerusalem, our Judea, our Samaria, or to the ends of the earth, there is something about being directly involved in teaching people about Jesus that breaks down barriers and overcomes bickering and infighting.
And if there are some that insist on continuing the bickering and infighting when there is work to be done, I offer Jesus's comment to the young man that offered to follow Jesus as soon as he buried his father and mother:
"Let the dead bury the dead."
posted by greg.w.h@11:13 PM link-to-post
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