I will now ask my male readers and my logical readers to move along. This post is going to be my purely illogical way of explaning a big idea. Good-bye.
Recently a family member has asked me to debate my views on eschatology. In going over my own arguments it occurred to me that perhaps my blog needed clarifying. When I repeat over and over again that ideas have consequences I imagine half of you are groaning, “how elementary,” or “not again,” and half are complaining that it is too intellectual. It isn’t really intellectual at all but if you want to understand the times you must understand that ideas have consequences.
So much that goes on in the internet world is a direct inability to trace things back to primary ideas. We argue about The End of the Spear but we fail to understand that the argument isn’t really about whether or not you or I decide to attend the movie. We should be asking how did we get here. This is not an argument about whether we love or don’t love a homosexual man. This is a discussion about primary ideas. Do we like this fruit? Do we want more?
Every argument we have is framed by ideas. The times we live in are the consequence of ideas. Most of those ideas were planted many moons ago, usually during The Reformation, The Enlightenment or sometimes the founding of our country and of course, the primary source document of western history: the Bible.
Much of the current mess that we call evangelicalism is the consequence of the ideas of dispensationalism. If people today denounce dispensationalism it doesn’t mean they aren’t bearers of its fruit. The Bible speaks of all this as sowing and reaping. But it helps to understand that if we sow the wind we will reap the whirlwind.
To understand anything we must examine the fruit and trace the seedline. If we just throw darts at the bad fruit we will get nowhere.
Today we are sowing ideas that will also bear fruit in the future. No matter where we are today we can determine our future fruit by the ideas we have. We can change history by having right ideas. Bad fruit will rot and good fruit will grow and replenish. As someone recently asked, “How many apples are in the seed?”
So whatever argument or cultural trend we are debating on the internet, we must follow the trail back to the birth of an idea.
If you can cultivate this habit it will help you in every way.
It will help you understand the times.
It will help you guard your heart.
It will help you understand why people can’t see things your way.
It will help you debate.
It will help you predict the future, see the trouble ahead and avoid it.
I challenge you today to take some bad fruit that you have been complaining about and trace it back to its original idea. I promise you will be enlightened.
Now take some currently popular idea and trace it to its logical conclusion. Not that hard really. Just follow it step by step through your mind. You will be able to see years in advance where things are headed and it won’t be magic.
The only variable in this formula is the direct intervention of Christ or the Holy Spirit in a situation but since God is the one who designed this formula that doesn’t usually happen although it has. Just ask Jonah.
