Keeping Jesus’ Words
When you can’t understand another person’s language, there is
very little from that person that you can learn.
Once you understand the language, the
learning can begin.
But what do you
learn?
A few years ago, Monica and I and
our son James spent ten months in Germany.
I was there as a student of theology, but I spent most of my time trying
to learn as much of the language as I could.
Although I was still very far from
mastering
the language, I do remember the first day in Germany that I was able to
completely understand a long, compound German sentence.
For weeks I had been listening in the
classroom, and concentrating
so hard,
trying to catch as many words as possible.
When I finally understood, I was so proud and excited at my progress,
that with a big smile on my face, and sitting high in my chair, I could hardly
contain my delight.
It was one of the
most beautiful things I had ever heard, for no other reason than that I could
finally understand it – I had figured it out!
Here’s an English translation of what my professor said that
made me so happy: “In my personal
opinion, there’s nothing wrong with ordaining women as pastors.” He continued, “Those passages in Scripture, where the Apostle Paul said that women
cannot be pastors no longer apply to us today because Paul wasn’t aware of our
contemporary situation.” My
professor was wrong. What he said was
contrary to the word of God. And yet it
made me happy simply to understand what he said. Now,
although there is satisfaction in figuring things out, there’s not much benefit to understanding something, if
what you learn by it is not true. But
that’s life. Typically, we have to figure things out and come to understand
them before we are able to determine whether or not they are reliable.
