Whit Sasser's Exhortations & Stuff
Whit Sasser's
Exhortations & Stuff:
Say What?
It
is no wonder that people misunderstand me when I preach. No, I am not
referring to my frequent verbal faux pas, mangling of multiple syllabic
words, or even the occasional disconnect
between my brain and mouth and sometimes the inserted foot makes for a
bad connection. No, what I mean is I am not surprised that people
misunderstand me because even the apostles were misunderstood.
First
century inspiration referred to the apostles, not the listeners, being
inspired. The hearers had to “test the spirits” (1 John 4:1). And just
like many of my math tests, sometimes
the grade just didn’t “add up.” When Paul wrote 1 Thessalonians,
apparently a contingent of Christians misunderstood concerning the
timing of the coming of Christ and taught others wrongly who
consequently believed wrongly. So Paul wrote 2 Thessalonians. When Paul
wrote 1 Corinthians, he had to correct a misunderstanding from a former
communiqué about with whom to associate (5:9-13). Countless times the
apostles misunderstood Jesus (Matthew 16:5-12).
All
this teaches some very important lessons: Perfect teaching does not
always mean perfect understanding. Successful communication takes work
from the listener. Miscommunications are not always the mistake of the
speaker. Communicating again the same message is sometimes necessary.
All
of this emphasizes personal responsibility. None of this was said to
relieve the messenger from the responsibility of working hard to
communicate successfully. The point is that learning takes work.
Sometimes we don’t get it right the first time. So let’s look at ourselves first before we blame the messenger. Because even the perfect and divine Holy Spirit was misunderstood.
Author Unknown
Comments
Post a Comment