Sign up to save your podcasts
Or
Share Think like grownups, love like children
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Or
Think like grownups, love like children
Christmas is a time of joy, wonder, and hope in a world filled with hate, cynicism, loneliness, and pain. This season is a mirror on the world and on our own attitudes. As Christians, we need to respond to reality while maintaining our innocence and wonder. This may seem impossible, but this tension has been a part of Christianity from the beginning.
Christianity is filled with things that seem to be at odds with each other. Blessed are the meek. Humble yourself, and you will be exalted. If someone slaps you on the cheek, turn to him the other. And the list goes on.
Today I want to examine one of those paradoxes with you. Being wise while maintaining the innocence of a child. Let’s begin with these two passages.
First, Jesus tells his disciples this:
“Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves,
so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves."
Matt 10:16 [ESV]
Then Paul picks up this theme years later as he is talking to the church in Corinth.
Brothers, do not be children in your thinking.
Be infants in evil, but in your thinking be mature.
1 Cor 14:20 [ESV]
The Church today seems to always want to run to extremes. On the one hand, you have those who feel that we should all be thoughtless children. Always be nice to everyone and think happy thoughts, and Jesus will be happy with you. On the other hand, there are those who wish to be wise and influential and, in the process, leave innocence and virtue behind. The Christian view of politics is similar; some don’t want to touch it at all, while others fall into it headfirst, forgetting that we already have a king.
In the first passage, Jesus is preparing his disciples for the trials that await them as he sends them out into the world to preach the gospel and heal the sick. In the second passage, Paul is trying to help the church at Corinth navigate the gifts of the spirit and prophecy without allowing the whole service to degenerate into chaos. These are very different contexts, but in both cases the advice was the same.
We like extremes because extremes are simple. It is all or nothing. No pesky edge cases that don’t resolve cleanly into a nice black and white answer. Am I talking about moral relativism? Absolutely not! But wisdom is not needed in simple cases. Wisdom is needed when the answer is not as clear. And when that happens, we are to be wise and innocent at the same time. And that requires help.
As Jesus sent out his disciples in the first passage, he comforted them with this promise:
When they deliver you over,
do not be anxious how you are to speak or what you are to say,
for what you are to say will be given to you in that hour.
For it is not you who speak,
but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.
Matt 10:19-20 [ESV]
There was no question that trouble would find them, but they could take heart in the knowledge that God’s Spirit would be with them. To guide them and give them the wisdom they require in those bewildering and terrifying moments.
In the second passage, Paul was correcting pride, conflict, and confusion in the church. The gifts were in operation, but love and encouragement were being forgotten. In their zeal to use their gifts, they were forgetting love. They were forgetting the reason those gifts exist in the first place: to unify and grow the body of Christ in love.
This dilemma has not improved with time. The need to balance knowledge and love, wisdom and innocence, remains. We must engage this world to teach it the gospel. But engagement must never come at the cost of our innocence or the love that first brought us to repentance and taught us to trust God unreservedly.
We still need help to keep these seemingly opposite requirements in balance. And we still have that help in the Holy Spirit. But as with all things related to the grace of God, this help must be sought and received by faith. And faith to be living and genuine needs to act. I will close with a few words from James. These passages are not in order, but I think I am being faithful to their original meaning.
1:5 If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. 6 But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind.
4:6 But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” 7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.
1:27 Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.
James 1:5;1:27;4:6-10 [ESV]
Get full access to On walking the Way at tompossin.substack.com/subscribe
As we celebrate the Christmas season this year, let’s not be foolish, but at the same time, let’s not lose the wonder of it all in our grown-up cynicism either. And above all, let’s not miss the obvious, and let’s love one another in ways that bring glory to God for all of his kindness to us.
Have a great week and a great Christmas season!
Get full access to On walking the Way at tompossin.substack.com/subscribe
View all episodes
By Tom PossinChristmas is a time of joy, wonder, and hope in a world filled with hate, cynicism, loneliness, and pain. This season is a mirror on the world and on our own attitudes. As Christians, we need to respond to reality while maintaining our innocence and wonder. This may seem impossible, but this tension has been a part of Christianity from the beginning.
Christianity is filled with things that seem to be at odds with each other. Blessed are the meek. Humble yourself, and you will be exalted. If someone slaps you on the cheek, turn to him the other. And the list goes on.
Today I want to examine one of those paradoxes with you. Being wise while maintaining the innocence of a child. Let’s begin with these two passages.
First, Jesus tells his disciples this:
“Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves,
so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves."
Matt 10:16 [ESV]
Then Paul picks up this theme years later as he is talking to the church in Corinth.
Brothers, do not be children in your thinking.
Be infants in evil, but in your thinking be mature.
1 Cor 14:20 [ESV]
The Church today seems to always want to run to extremes. On the one hand, you have those who feel that we should all be thoughtless children. Always be nice to everyone and think happy thoughts, and Jesus will be happy with you. On the other hand, there are those who wish to be wise and influential and, in the process, leave innocence and virtue behind. The Christian view of politics is similar; some don’t want to touch it at all, while others fall into it headfirst, forgetting that we already have a king.
In the first passage, Jesus is preparing his disciples for the trials that await them as he sends them out into the world to preach the gospel and heal the sick. In the second passage, Paul is trying to help the church at Corinth navigate the gifts of the spirit and prophecy without allowing the whole service to degenerate into chaos. These are very different contexts, but in both cases the advice was the same.
We like extremes because extremes are simple. It is all or nothing. No pesky edge cases that don’t resolve cleanly into a nice black and white answer. Am I talking about moral relativism? Absolutely not! But wisdom is not needed in simple cases. Wisdom is needed when the answer is not as clear. And when that happens, we are to be wise and innocent at the same time. And that requires help.
As Jesus sent out his disciples in the first passage, he comforted them with this promise:
When they deliver you over,
do not be anxious how you are to speak or what you are to say,
for what you are to say will be given to you in that hour.
For it is not you who speak,
but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.
Matt 10:19-20 [ESV]
There was no question that trouble would find them, but they could take heart in the knowledge that God’s Spirit would be with them. To guide them and give them the wisdom they require in those bewildering and terrifying moments.
In the second passage, Paul was correcting pride, conflict, and confusion in the church. The gifts were in operation, but love and encouragement were being forgotten. In their zeal to use their gifts, they were forgetting love. They were forgetting the reason those gifts exist in the first place: to unify and grow the body of Christ in love.
This dilemma has not improved with time. The need to balance knowledge and love, wisdom and innocence, remains. We must engage this world to teach it the gospel. But engagement must never come at the cost of our innocence or the love that first brought us to repentance and taught us to trust God unreservedly.
We still need help to keep these seemingly opposite requirements in balance. And we still have that help in the Holy Spirit. But as with all things related to the grace of God, this help must be sought and received by faith. And faith to be living and genuine needs to act. I will close with a few words from James. These passages are not in order, but I think I am being faithful to their original meaning.
1:5 If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. 6 But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind.
4:6 But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” 7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.
1:27 Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.
James 1:5;1:27;4:6-10 [ESV]
Get full access to On walking the Way at tompossin.substack.com/subscribe
As we celebrate the Christmas season this year, let’s not be foolish, but at the same time, let’s not lose the wonder of it all in our grown-up cynicism either. And above all, let’s not miss the obvious, and let’s love one another in ways that bring glory to God for all of his kindness to us.
Have a great week and a great Christmas season!
Get full access to On walking the Way at tompossin.substack.com/subscribe