Rick Sams: Why do we shoot our wounded?
I’m reminded of the pastor preaching the funeral sermon for a man who was a known adulterer, cheat, liar and such. But the minister skewed the sermon more toward a saintly description than a sinful one.
This pastor didn’t know the man in the open coffin well and was merely following the unwritten rule of eulogies (and life): ”It’s never a good idea to speak poorly of the dead.”
After the sermon was finished, the widow went up to the casket, stared in for an uncomfortably long time. Then glared up at the minister and calmly muttered: “I just wanted to make sure the guy you just spoke about was the guy in this casket.”
Too bad the folks who’ve spoken poorly about best-selling author Sarah Young didn’t heed the above rule. Critics writing mostly in Christian magazines have said she wrote new Scripture and claimed revelations directly from God on the level of the original inspired authors of Scripture.
This is tantamount to heresy in conservative Christian circles. Her publisher, editors and widower said she never said such. She in her devotional book, "Jesus Calling," 45 million copies sold, simply tried to describe her experience of daily walking with Jesus, experiencing his presence, and carrying on conversations with him, based on the Bible. Young herself challenged people to read her book with their Bibles open.
I’ve read and re-read her book every day for over five years. I’ve also read the entire Bible more than 40 times. I’ve studied the Scriptures for over 60 years. I’ve taught them for over 44 as a pastor. I taught theology at a conservative Christian university.
There is no way I’d call Young heretical (deviant teaching from the accepted orthodox faith). Young also had a degree from Covenant Theological Seminary and was married to PCA missionary, Steve Young. Some supporters even expressed that John Newton (“Amazing Grace” fame) wrote in the voice of God in one of his hymns “Doubting, Fearful Heart.”
In fact, I’d label her inspiring and inspired. Not on the same level as the Scriptures, which she never claimed, in fact, denied. But she was clearly gifted and led by God to write this amazing, comforting and instructive devotional. Read it for yourself and as Young challenged: “With your Bibles open.”
One of the stones people could legitimately throw at Christians is we don’t read our Bibles. Instead we read books about the Bible. Leading Christian pollster, George Barna’s research on evangelicals, folks who say they believe the Bible is God’s true Word to us, often show these stats — 10% read their Bibles daily for 10 minutes. Not exactly exemplary.
Another well-known cliché is: “God’s ‘army’ of his followers is the only army in the world that shoots its own wounded.” But aren’t we all wounded in some way?
If we truly are guilty of what that caustic quote says, pretty soon we’ll all be dead. Then at least there won’t be anyone left to speak poorly about us.
Rick Sams is pastor emeritus of Alliance Friends Church.
This article originally appeared on The Repository: Pastor Rick Sams writes about Sarah Young and "Jesus Calling"
