The Power of an Overturned Table

Mike Leake

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“He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly.” –1 Peter 2:22-23

It’s interesting to juxtapose these passages in 1 Peter 2 with the account of Jesus overturning tables in the temple. They don’t contradict each other, by the way. Both are fundamentally a “for them” action. But I think they need each other.

Imagine if 1 Peter 2:22-23 wasn’t the general tenor of Jesus’ life. Picture Jesus as a man burning hot with anger. At the drop of a hat he’d call down fire and judgment from heaven. He’d pick fights with his enemies. He’d comment on every outrage of the day. If anyone was off just a little bit theologically he’d be quick to muscle them back into conformity. What kind of impact would his overturning the tables have had?

Not much affect at all.

It would have just been like any other day. “Oh, looks like Jesus is mad about something again. I wonder what has gotten him so stirred up this time.” But that’s not how folks responded to Jesus overturning tables. It shocked them. Why? Because it was so out of the norm for him. He wasn’t a rage monster, and that’s why when he did show that outrage it made such a powerful statement.

I said earlier that both his silence and overturning were “for them” actions. Why’d he turn over the tables in the first place? It was certainly to defend the honor of His Father’s house. But it wasn’t because God is brittle and needs a passionate defense when His truth is dragged through the mud. We get a clue from his quotation of Isaiah 56.

God’s heart has always been for the nations. And this table-turning happened in the court of Gentiles. Isaiah 56 was all about the nations coming and seeking the Lord. But there was no place for this to happen because the temple had been overran by those who co-opted it’s mission for personal business. The lighthouse had become a marketplace. So Jesus cleared the deck of Israelite prosperity so the nations could come in.

Jesus saved his outrage to clear the way for others. And in the same way he quietly endured suffering “for others”. When he could have called upon legions of angels to preserve His life he maintained silence because it was His innocent blood spilled which held more power than any angels could muster.

We have much to learn here. There is much to be outraged about. Truth does matter. But if we’re outraged at everything then our overturning tables isn’t going to do much good. The general tenor of our life needs to be tracing the steps of the Suffering Servant. Otherwise our overturning of tables is just going to be another day of outrage swallowed up by every other day of outrage.

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Deceptive Depravity

Mike Leake

photo-1542185400-f1c993ecbea2I was bullied as a child. Short and skinny kid. Big ears. Glasses. Impoverished. And just as awkward then as I am now. I didn’t stand a chance.

But I learned a little secret around 6th grade. If I started making fun of myself—if I didn’t let their barbs bother me—then it would go away. This isn’t the time or place to talk about the psychological and emotional damage that this strategy wrought. My point is different.

Fast forward to my coming to Christ. It wasn’t much of a hurdle for me to believe, “all our deeds are like filthy rags”. Nor was it difficult for me to heartily affirm what Paul said in Romans 7:18

For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. –Romans 7:18

It’s never been too difficult for me to acknowledge my sinfulness before God. Nor even to say that I’m sinful in my core. Introspection…morbid introspection…has been one of my spiritual gifts. I’m comfortable telling you that I’m messed up, but I’m not quite as comfortable hearing you tell me that I’m messed up.

So why, if I really truly believe that I’m messed up, would I have a difficult time accepting the truth that my sin has consequences upon other people? Asking this question helped me to see that I was actually using the doctrine of depravity deceptively. It was a way for me to have control over the narrative of my depravity. If I make fun of having big ears then it distracts you from saying something that’d really hurt me deeply. Likewise, if I acknowledge my depravity in general I can avoid some of the specifics.

I even found that I was using my battle with depression in this way. Whenever I’d be pressed with dealing with something that I didn’t want to face I’d get very depressed. Why? Because I was comfortable with the narrative of being a depressed person. Depression is muddy. It can even garner a bit of sympathy. Oddly enough depression became a defense mechanism to keep me from dealing with the more uncomfortable parts of my story.

I found some rescue in these words from Martin Luther:

If you are a preacher of mercy, do not preach an imaginary but the true mercy. If the mercy is true, you must therefore bear the true, not an imaginary sin. God does not save those who are only imaginary sinners. Be a sinner, and let your sins be strong (or “Sin boldly”), but let your trust in Christ be stronger, and rejoice in Christ who is the victor over sin, death, and the world….Pray hard for you are quite a sinner.

Really digging into what Luther said here allowed me to be specific about my sin—and to allow others that same specificity. Basically, I gave up the reigns to the narrative of my depravity. And doing this created actual change within me in some of those deep places I wasn’t comfortable going. And I found Jesus there. And he is good.

It is not an imaginary sin which we bear. It’s real. It carries consequences. It truly hurts and harms others. But Christ is bigger. And the more we boldly acknowledge our specific sins the deeper the gospel goes into our hearts. And the deeper the gospel goes into our hearts the more it will ravage our idols. So let us not hide behind a doctrine of depravity that only fictitiously goes to the depths.

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Why Seminaries Should Focus on Artful Precision More Than Scientific Precision

Mike Leake

photo-1513364776144-60967b0f800fIn order to make a point I need to tell you a story. But I’m running the risk of sounding like a disgruntled student who received a B when I think I should have gotten an A. So bear with me as I give a bit of context. (Also, I’m ecstatic to have gotten a B).

I’m a 38 year old seminary student. I hope to graduate by the time I’m 40, but such a feat will require taking Hebrew. I’m still holding out hope that Jesus returns before I’m forced into this most undesirable of situations. I’ve been doing ministry in a local church for almost 20 years now. This means that I have a bit of a unique perspective when it comes to taking these classes. I’m also not a very good academic. I’m a nerd, yes. But I also understand that I’m never going to fit into academia and I’m okay with that. And what I’m sharing with you today is part of the reason for that.

I’m a pastor. I’m a preacher. I’m a writer…but not of academic journals. And I’ll be so bold as to say I really think academia ought to listen to what I’m saying because I’m what they are attempting to produce for local churches. And what I’m saying today is that there is a flaw within all of this which I believe poorly trains preachers.

I wrote a paper awhile back and received a B. I’m ecstatic with that. Given the rubric for grades I’m even wondering if that B was a bit generous. The grader made a very true comment. “The resources you cite are of good quality but your citations are all over the place”. I received an 84 not because of content (though my thesis could have been more tightly worded and argued) but because I didn’t do the greatest job of following the manual of style. That’s not a news flash to me. I’m usually going to break codes of style, just ask my oft embarrassed children.

To sum, my content was great but my form was off. “Here’s a B”. 98% of the interaction with my paper was on the way the paper was written and not on the actual content of the paper. And this is what I am saying is a problem. This isn’t true of only this one particular class. This is almost always the way papers are graded in seminary.

I don’t believe for one moment that any of my professors would say that form matters more than content. Form matters because we don’t want to be needlessly distracting. And it’s good to have a manual of style which students must conform to. It’s a helpful practice. But the unintended consequence is that we are churning out young pastors and thinkers who are placing a greater value upon being technical than upon being compelling. Don’t read me wrong. There is a value in precision, but your precision doesn’t matter much when nobody remembers what you’ve said.

It’s the type of precision which matters. I agree with what Tim Pollard says here:

When presented with great content that has been elegantly organized, audiences are shockingly tolerant of so-called delivery deficiencies. The reverse, however, is of course not true. Great delivery cannot and will not rescue deficient design. Random, confusing, imprecise material does not become great when it’s delivered well. It merely becomes well-delivered random material. (Pollard, 56)

What Pollard is referencing here is artful precision. This is the stuff that preaching and pastoral ministry is made up of. It’s precision doesn’t terminate on itself. Precision is the means to a greater end; namely to be persuasive. If you try to dissect a piece of art you end up ruining the beauty of it. Likewise,mastering the technique of preaching and pastoring is at best only half the battle. At worst, it’s a distraction from the deeper things which really do matter.

Os Guinness is correct:

With the deepest things in life, there is always more to knowing than knowing will ever know, so the deepest knowledge must be learned in life, from experience, and under a master. Even a master cannot specific in words what, at its deepest, is beyond words. The best of teachers, lectures, seminars and books simply cannot do what it takes. The way of the disciple is a different and deeper way of learning. (Guinness, 36)

I’ll close with a confession. My title is more artful than scientific. The truth of the matter is that the local church has often outsourced to the seminary what she ought to be majoring in—disciple-making. A massive part of the problem here is that we’re sending men and women to seminary in order to disciple them into being the type of people who could be pastors or ministry leaders. But the seminary wasn’t built for this. It was built for scientific precision.

The seminary has had to pivot. But I believe there is more pivoting that needs done, otherwise we’re going to be training scientists to paint upon our canvas. Perhaps it isn’t only the seminary which needs to pivot. Maybe our local churches need to find our artistic hearts again.

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When Your Faith Goes Down the Drain

Mike Leake

3960590498_c2f7a3e8ea_bThe cold tile splashed with my hot tears. I was becoming undone. I don’t believe it was shame which plummeted my desires into such an abyss. It was my dreams and my hopes dashed against the rocks. It was my faith. Truth be told, I wanted to somehow escape down the drain in the tub. I couldn’t, my person couldn’t, so instead my faith did.

I can hold this up. I can make my future bright. If I do right things, say true things, and attempt to compellingly love and persuade folks then the power of God’s Word can and will create lasting change. If I speak truth then everything is going to be okay.

That was my faith. And that faith escaped from my heart and flushed down the drain that day. That was the beginning of my rescue.

I think one of the greatest disservices that fundamentalism gave to us is the inability to lose our faith. Losing your faith—faith in a false god of your own perception—is a necessary component to growth. God always challenges our perceptions of who we think He is.

“Never question”, we are told. But what that does is keep you stuck worshipping the same god you knew 25 years ago. That wasn’t a God-belittling typo. It was intentional. Our coming to and embracing the living God is real and a very real encounter with who God truly is. But within that is also a good amount of coming to a god of our own making. It takes years for God to put down the gods of our own creation.

And I’m convinced that much of fundamentalism, evangelicalism, liberalism, whatever ‘ism’ you want to blame actually cooperates with our idols in keeping our faith in gods alive. But I’m also convinced that God isn’t satisfied with such half-hearted devotion and he is dedicated to exalting Himself in our lives at our idols expense. So he’ll take us to a place with hot tears and cold bathroom tiles and let our faith escape down the drain.

Yes, there are some things which we should not be questioning. Spurgeon is correct and there are some things which we don’t need to “have a conversation about”. There really isn’t much benefit in questioning something which is already settled.

But there are also relational questions and character type questions that we must always be asking. It’s part of learning and relating to a living God.

As an example, if I asked my wife 10 years ago if she wanted to decorate something with barn wood, she’d likely have given an affirmative. But that’s not true today. I’ve had to learn this by continually relating to her. Now, you cannot take that illustration too far. God is unchanging. If he liked barn wood ten years ago he’d still like it today. But there are questions we need to ask about the things we’ve assumed about God.

Perhaps a better analogy would be to say that ten years ago my wife liked a particular piece of art that just so happened to have a frame made of barn wood. And I assumed she liked the barn wood—but in reality she was tolerating it because she loved the art so much. I couldn’t figure out why all of my purchases of barn wood weren’t making her as happy as I thought they would*. In the same way, we’ve made many assumptions about the character and purpose of God.

Your worldview is always going to collapse when a god is at the center of it. The God of truth is driving out all rivals. But what happens if you’re entrenched in a culture which doesn’t allow questions? You will likely be forced into the binary choice of continuing to fake believing in a god you no longer believe in OR you’ll have to leave the whole thing. A more biblical option is to pursue God as He actually is. It’s far better to walk away from a god you assumed was real but isn’t, than to tenaciously cling to one who isn’t. Even better is to embrace the I Am. The never changing God who is always transforming us.

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*That’s just an illustration. My wife really did like barn wood décor about a decade ago…at least I think she did.