Creativity and Imagination

I ran out of time last night while leading the discussion in our Bible class. I made reference to the need for a good use of creativity and imagination with regards to our self-understanding as the present-day people of God. I would like to elaborate on these ideas.

When studying the OT narratives, as we are in the book of 1 Kings, we are in essence reading an interpretation of the history of Israel. We know this great story builds upon great promises to Abram, it is furthered by great promises to David, and ultimate leads to the salvation of mankind. We understand the God's work is progressive and purposeful - He has the end always in mind, like any great strategic planner. The OT is not the account of a failed experiment, ultimately replaced by the new and improved NT plan of salvation. Rather, God has always had things under control. Even when punishing and destroying, He is still building to an ultimate goal. No plan of God's can be thwarted (Proverbs).

So, when we read OT passages, assuming the ultimate goal of our study is to grow in our understanding of God and His plan for our lives, we should study as if for a test! The test we should be preparing for is not of the multiple-choice variety, but is in fact the dreaded essay test. You all should remember from your school days that there is are critical differences in studying for multiple-choice type exams as opposed to open-ended essay exams. In other words, after all the years of studying Scripture, do we know more than superficial facts and associations; can we speak with some sense of reason and intelligence about the point of all things. Essay tests are harder because they demand we express a genuine understanding of the matter being tested. As a Christian, who has been carrying Bibles around for decades, I would like to think that I am at least striving to get the point of all things. As a member of a brotherhood of believers who have frequently touted our insistence on strict adherence to the Bible, I would hope I am among a people who get the point of all things.

It seems reasonable for me to conclude the following: If we are dealing with an Almighty, Wonderful God that is the great strategic planner of mankind; and His plans have and are coming to their glorious fruition; THEN, I can expect in my walk with Christ to be apart of something of monumental significance and of a fundamentally different nature the general flow of humanity. The Church of Christ should be monumental in significance and fundamentally different than non-church life.

Here's where I struggle:

There are two great commodities in Western hemisphere, American, middle-class life -- TIME & MONEY. Time and money dictate our lives. Most of our time is spent working to make money to pay for the cost of living. The basic standard of success is to make enough money to meet our expenses. If we can accomplish that, we are a productive citizen, furthering the economy of our community. The standard dream-- to get sufficiently ahead in time and money to engage in activities that are not essential but desired (travel, leisure, hobbies, luxuries, etc).

This entrenchment within the economies of time and money is so natural (normal) and so pervasive that we fail to ever think outside of it. It will take creativity and imagination to even begin to see something outside of this economic prison in which we live. POINT OF POST-> When we routinely live out our days entrenched in the ways of this world, we prove to be no better than the Israelites of long ago who continued to turn to the ways of their world rather than to cling to the God who led them out of Egypt and was leading them onward to a glorious future.

Stop and consider the magnanimous implications of for our lives of what Jesus said, "The thing you should want most is God's kingdom and doing what God wants. Then all these other things you need will be given to you" (Matt. 6:33 NCV).

The Christian walk cannot be conceived in the simple terms of pious morality and holy ethics. Jesus did not die on a cross, so that I might be a little nicer as I carry out my otherwise meaningless existence. There is far more to it than that. There has to be!

For me, it has come to this: I pray for God's power to concretely work in my life so that I might see a fundamental change in the way I manage the two great commodities of my existence, time and money. Anything short of a fundamental change leaves me wondering if the passage from the book of James doesn't capture me --"having a form of godliness, but denying its power."

[I realize this post is not sufficiently developed in some key areas and is a bit disjointed--for that I apologize. These ideas are unstable in my mind, plus, I drank a cup of coffee on an empty stomach--bad combination. Nevertheless, I trust that I am tinkering with a truth with which we all need to wrestle. I am very interested in your input.]