The Knowlesletter

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INTIMACY ALONG THE EVERLASTING WAY

By Lincoln Knowles

How well-known do you want to be? I’m not referring to fame or visibility but rather transparency, vulnerability, and authenticity. Not only that, but who gets to see it? Often, we don’t even want to see ourselves clearly and honestly, let alone be truly seen by others, even those closest to us. What about being seen and known by God? Hebrews 4:13 says that “no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.” Is that a little frightening to you, as it is to me? Too intimate?

     I hope that you will read the article on page three of this newsletter, written by my friend, Marj, who was the director of our local adult literacy center during the short time I volunteered there. Here, she writes about God’s intimate knowledge of us as described in Psalm 139, and how we should welcome it and take advantage of it by listening to Him.

     I hope, too, that you read Psalm 139 in its entirety, as Marj encourages you to do. In the psalm, David poetically depicts God’s omniscience, omnipresence, and omnipotence – all in loving relation to our being and even our creation. It is humbling – don’t you think? – to be so well-known and still so well-loved. George MacDonald wrote that “to have been thought about, born in God’s thought, and then made by God, is the dearest, grandest and most precious thing in all thinking.” Of course, God continues to consider us and create in us even after our birth.

     It seems that we have two possible responses to such intimate knowledge that God has of our spiritual nakedness. Our instinctive, pride-driven response is to close (and clothe) ourselves and try to hide from God, just as we tend to hide from others and even ourselves. Ask Adam and Eve how that went. “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself” (Gen. 3:10). Those fig leaves from the garden are not much different from our attempts at self-righteousness, by the way. A better response is shared by David in verses 23 and 24 of Psalm 139: “Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!” These final verses of the psalm seem to echo the first one (“you have searched me and known me”). Not only that, they serve as an acknowledgement that God’s searching and knowing of us is actually a good thing – not frightening or too intimate.

     It was said of David that he was a man after God’s own heart (1 Sam. 13:14, Acts 13:22), and here David is not daunted by the “omni-ness” of God; he wants to make sure that he is not like the wicked men he had asked God to slay in the preceding verses. He wants to be righteous, to be led in God’s everlasting way, so he embraces his vulnerability and invites God to inspect him, to assess his heart and his mind. Later, Jeremiah will write, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” The prophet then answers his own question with words from God: “‘I the LORD search the heart and test the mind’” (Jer. 17:9-10). Samuel wrote, “The LORD sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart” (1 Sam. 16:7). Of course, David knows this; at another time, he asked of God, “Create in me a clean heart . . . renew a right spirit within me” (Psalm 51:10).

     This heart and spirit renewal always requires God’s discernment. Charles Spurgeon wrote of Psalm 139: “The Lord judges our active life and our quiet life. He discriminates our action and our repose, and marks that in them which is good and also that which is evil. There is chaff in all our wheat, and the Lord divides them with unerring precision.” So, here at the end of Psalm 139, David needs his chaff removed, just like we do. We need good and evil to be separated. If we want evil to be punished (Psalm 139:19), for His winnowing fork to do its work in judgment upon the sinful world (Matt. 3:12), then we need to invite God to discern, divide, and dispose, to remove all that would prevent us from walking in the everlasting way (Psalm 139:24).

     Ultimately, David desires to be guided by God. “Lead me in the way everlasting,” he writes. What does that look like, David? Perhaps it looks like Proverbs 3:5-6. “Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.” We can also be led in the everlasting way by following the Son of David – the everlasting Jesus Christ, who said of Himself, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). Finally, we can be searched, known, and led in the everlasting way by daily reading the Word. “For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword . . . discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Heb. 4:12). When we open our Bibles, we invite God’s close inspection and clear direction.

VINTAGE VIEWPOINT

THE CHALK LINE SISTERS

By Victor Knowles

Robert Louis Stevenson, in his non-fiction travel book Edinburgh: Picturesque Notes (1878), wrote about two unmarried sisters who shared a single room. Sadly, the sisters had a falling out, which Stevenson said was “on some point of controversial divinity” – so much so that they never spoke to each other again! There were no words, either kind or spiteful. Just stone-cold silence.

   You would think that they would have separated, but nothing of the sort happened. Perhaps it was because of a lack of financial means, or of an innate Scottish fear of scandal, that they continued to keep house together in a single room. A chalk line was drawn across the floor, which separated the two domains. It divided the doorway and the fireplace so that each could go in and out and do her own cooking, without invading the territory of the other.

   For years, they coexisted in hateful silence. Their meals, their baths, even their family visitors were exposed to the other’s unfriendly silence. And at night, each went to bed listening to the heavy breathing of her enemy. Thus, the two sisters (ostensibly daughters of the same church) continued the rest of their miserable lives. (From “Discover the Word,” February 8, 2013).

   I guess you could chalk up this story to any number of things. Pride would probably top the list. Each sister was proud of her theological understanding on whatever the point of difference was. The church in Corinth was divided over meat offered to idols. Paul wrote, “No about food sacrificed to idols: We know that ‘we all possess knowledge.’ But knowledge puffs up while love builds up” (1 Cor. 8:1). Pride of knowledge on some issue can cause us to reach for the chalk and draw a line down the very center of the church.

   Selfishness would have to be added to the “chalk it up” list. A man named Diotrephes was selfish to the core. John warned about him, saying, “he loves to be first” (3 John 9). Everything had to go his way, or out came the chalk. Not only did he “gossip maliciously” about the apostle John, but he refused to welcome other Christian brothers. “He also stops those who want to do so and puts them out of the church” (v. 10). Some “chalk artists” do the same today. “It’s my way or the highway for you!” Is there a Diotrephes in the house?

   Personal preferences in matters of opinion can also make the chalk talk. Churches have divided for years because some prefer this and others prefer that, from music to meals to ministers. In the church in Rome, a chalk line threatened to separate the bellicose broccoli brothers from the militant ministers of meat. Paul told folks on both sides to erase the chalk line. “One person’s faith allows them to eat anything, but another, whose faith is weak, eats only vegetables. The one who eats everything must not treat with contempt the one who does not, and the one who does not eat everything must not judge the one who does, for God has accepted them” (Rom. 14:2-3). Who am I (and who are you) to reject someone whom God has received?

   There were actually two surly sisters in Scripture who could not seem to agree with each other. Their names were Euodia and Syntyche, and they were living on opposite sides of their chalk line. (Someone nicknamed them “Odious” and “Soon Touchy.”) We do not even know what it was that they could not agree upon! This sad situation existed in the church in Philippi. Paul was extremely distressed over this sorry situation and found it necessary to include their names in a church letter. “I plead with Euodia and I plead with Syntyche to agree with each other in the Lord” (Phil. 4:2). How would you feel if your name were read aloud in a church letter for being a problem in the congregation? Embarrassed? Ashamed? I would think so. Paul even had to ask one of his yokefellows (some say his name was Szygus) to “help these women who have contended at my side in the cause of the gospel” (v. 3). What amazing irony! At one time, these two sisters in Christ had “contended for the faith” right alongside the great apostle Paul, but now they were kicking up the chalk dust, reduced to being contentious with each other over who knows what!

   I hope good old Szygus took their piece of chalk away. I surely hope the two sisters in Philippi made peace, got down on their knees, and scrubbed away the chalk line. I hope they started loving each other once again and began “contending for the faith” instead of being contentious with each other and drawing childish chalk lines over who knows what. Friends, when we decide to agree with each other in the Lord, there is no need for any more chalk talk, chalk walk, or chalk lines in the church. Chalk one up for the Lord Jesus when you can divest yourself of pride, selfishness, and personal preferences; gladly accept those whom God has accepted; and plunge into the great work of contending for the faith! In essentials, unity; in opinions, liberty; in all things, love.

Revised and extended from the November 2016 Knowlesletter.