Hindering Hurdles

Have you ever engaged in a conversation with someone, identified yourself as a Christian and quickly realized you had to qualify your descriptor? It happens often in our culture. It happened to me and my friend Jarred the other day. We settled in to our seats at our favorite Starbucks and struck up an exchange with our new retired friend, Lou. It was obvious to us that Lou did not share the same evangelical viewpoint. So when we pointed over I-75 to show Lou where we worked, that look of "Oh…you're those types" spread across his face. 

Now to Lou's credit, there are a myriad of issues that Christians, namely evangelicals, have raised higher than others. And not all of these issues deserve the center stage position we've given them. Whether we've become more partisan-happy than politically-responsible or divisively-driven than socially compassionate, many claiming to follow Christ have taken important issues and made them more "visible" than the Gospel. As Barna Group research has shown, many Americans see Christians as simply, "hypocritical, anti-homosexual, sheltered, too political and judgmental." Are social, political and ethical issues important? Yes, but not at the expense of blocking people from seeing Jesus…first.

Before I point my finger too long at the fundamentalists, let me make my confession. I have a tendency to take this the other way. Sometimes, due to my jaded and cynical view of unhealthy tradition, I'm tempted to abuse my freedom in Christ to "upset the apple cart." I'll go one more level of transparent….sometimes I thrive off of the shock factor. I become so frustrated with the pace of certain leaders that I go for "shock and awe" out of frustration rather than "truth and love." But maybe that's just me.

In Acts 16:1-5, Paul advises Timothy to become circumcised before visiting Jewish Christians. Wait a minute! Just a few verses earlier, the church had decided that circumcision was NOT a prerequisite of salvation. So is Paul simply reverting to his default mode of pharisaical requirements? A deeper investigation of the text shows that Paul is lovingly discipling Timothy. He's NOT encouraging him to ADD to salvation through rite of passage. He's teaching him to remove all hindering hurdles so people can see the simplicity, depth and beauty of the Gospel. 

In other words, Paul could be saying, "Should these Jewish Christians grow up and get over the circumcision issue? Sure they should. But's let's allow Christ and His Gospel to be on center stage and then we'll tackle these issues later." Paul's reminder to young Timothy: let's remove any hinderance from them seeing the Gospel first and foremost. 

What am I doing this week with those I encounter? If I allow the ceremonial, political, ethical, social to be the centerpiece of conversation, the best I could hope for is behavior modification. And that's neither deep or eternal. My prayer is to remove the hurdles so others can hear, see and respond to Jesus.