**** (this note added on 9/9/2015) As you will see from the comment thread below, I am feeling the need to add that when I say "heavily influenced", what I mean to say is that this teaching given primarily by Bell (in addition to some other teachers) was given in a sermon which can be heard here. The teaching had a profound impact on my life and settled in my consciousness. When I crafted this post, I did it from memory and after receiving the accusation below, I searched to find the teaching. Please know that I have no desire to take credit at all for Bell's work and claim it as my own.
****** (this note added on 9/29/2015) Just in the heart of full disclosure, it could/should be noted that Rob repeated this teaching yet again on a recent podcast ("RobCast" Episode 39) that was published today.
But there is one rabbit hole that’s worth jumping down. It really is a sidebar to the larger narrative we’ve been talking about; but every time I have spoke on this lesson, God does some incredible things.
The story of Samson gets complicated when Samson gets tied up with a Philistine wife. This causes tension with the people of Israel as he lives separated from her in the hills of Dan. One night, as he goes to visit his wife, he is told by his father-in-law that, since Samson is never around, he has given his daughter in marriage to another man. In a rage, Samson takes a hundreds of foxes, ties flaming torches to their tails and burns entire fields worth of grain.
Yeah, because that makes sense.
The Philistines come asking about why such an event has taken place and, after finding out the reason for Samson’s actions, kill the father and the daughter. Samson responds by killing “a multitude” of Philistines. Sheesh, this is getting complicated.
The Philistines respond by calling forth their army and marching against the tribe of Dan. The neighboring tribe of Judah brings their army out to see just what is going on. They find that the Philistines are looking for Samson and retribution. Their comment is, “We’re only doing to him as he did to us!” Samson, found hiding in a cave, responds to their accusations by saying, “I only did to them what they did to me.”
Because this is what retribution and revenge look like.
It started with a man and his wife. It then became about grain. Then people died. Then more people died. Now armies are involved.
Revenge always escalates. And revenge is always cloaked by a false conviction that “I’m only doing to them what they did to me.” (By the way, is the “eye for an eye” law making any more sense here? I hope so.)
So, in a sense, it seems to me that the story of Samson is a story about forgiveness.
Samson will be brought, bound by ropes, to the Philistines for judgment. But Samson breaks free from the ropes, grabs the jawbone of an ass, and slays a thousand Philistines.
The story keeps getting worse. And the story will not end will. Who will stop the madness?
Somebody needs to drop the jawbone.
The first step of forgiveness is simply being the one who stops the cycle of revenge. The one person who is willing to say, “No more. No more paybacks. No more killing. No more ‘they deserved it.’ Enough…” is the person who is willing to begin the process of healing. Because the cycle has to stop somewhere. Retribution will know no end until somebody is willing to forgive.
But far too often, we in the Christian world have spoken of forgiveness in similar terms and stopped there. But true forgiveness demands more.
The second step of forgiveness is making the choice that you are going to stop making that person carry that burden around anymore. You can’t just drop the jawbone; that isn’t forgiveness. You have to decide that when you see that person in your mind, you aren’t going to let them have the dark cloud of bitterness hanging over their head in your heart. You have to chase the dark clouds away and allow them to come into the light. Because really, that dark cloud isn’t about their freedom — it’s about yours. Ever since the day you decided to drop the jawbone, that dark cloud does nothing to the other person. It simply builds up in your heart like a cancer, eating away at your soul from the inside out.
Jesus tells this incredible parable in Matthew 18:21–35 about a king who goes to settle accounts and finds a man who owes him well over a lifetime’s salary of debts (which begs the question: What kind of a King lets a man rack up that kind of debt?). He calls the man in, only to have him fall at his feet and beg for forgiveness. In an amazing move, the king forgives the debt and wipes the slate clean. The man then does the unthinkable; he goes out of the presence of the king and runs into a man who owes him three months of wages. He demands payment, and when the man begs for leniency, he throws him in prison. Jesus closes the story by saying that this is how we should forgive our brother.
The king is willing to stop the cycle and drop the jawbone.
The king is not willing to let the debt follow the man around for the rest of his days.
But we’re still not done yet. One final question: In the story of the king, where did the debt go?
If you are like most people, you just said, “It went away. It disappeared.”
But that’s not correct. Debt just doesn’t go away. In order for a debt to be forgiven, the person that is owed the money must absorb the debt. The king had to absorb that massive debt that he was owed. And this is the painful truth about forgiveness. The forgiveness we never talk about — true forgiveness — comes at a hefty price.
And it’s not fair.
Here’s a quote from Timothy Keller in The Reason for God:
“Forgiveness means refusing to make them pay for what they did. However, to refrain from lashing out at someone when you want to do so with all your being is agony. It is a form of suffering. You not only suffer the original loss of happiness, reputation, and opportunity, but now you forgo the consolation of inflicting the same on them. You are absorbing the debt, taking the cost of it completely on yourself instead of taking it out of the other person. It hurts terribly. Many people would say it feels like a kind of death.
“Yes, but it is a death that leads to resurrection instead of the lifelong living death of bitterness and cynicism. … No one “just” forgives, if the evil is serious. … Everyone who forgives great evil goes through a death into a resurrection, and experiences nails, blood, sweat, and tears. … Everyone who forgives someone bears the other’s sins. …
“Forgiveness is always a form of costly suffering.”
How true that is.
As a side note, it is probably worth noting all the things that forgiveness is NOT:
Forgiveness is not admitting that what they did was OK and doesn’t matter.
Forgiveness is not saying that there isn’t a place for boundaries.
Forgiveness is not always forgetting.
Forgiveness is not saying that there won’t be consequences.
Forgiveness is not ignoring the fact that some people are destructive (e.g., if he’s beating you, get out!).
Forgiveness is not saying that they won’t have to answer to the law.
Forgiveness is not calling good what God has called evil.
But forgiveness is letting the jawbone drop to the ground. It is refusing to let the bitterness take root in your heart. And it is deciding that you will shoulder the pain and absorb the debt.
Because it’s the only way that the world gets put back together.
And I believe it’s the truest form of trusting the story.
This was not just influenced by Rob Bell, it was plagiarized.
ReplyDeleteWell, hello "unknown". And thank you for stopping by my blog.
DeleteA few notes on your comment:
While I certainly appreciate your observation of how liberally I have borrowed from Rob Bell's teaching here, this is certainly not plagiarism for a few reasons.
Frist of all, I gave Bell credit before the reader read a single line of this post. I said it was heavily influenced (not just influenced). Plagiarism is the complete copying of another person's work without giving them the credit. I openly gave the credit to the person behind this teaching.
Second, I am putting in written form and presentation (and changing the delivery) of a teaching that was given through oral communication. Since I do not have a copy of that teaching, but merely wrote this out of memory of that teaching, it is hard to believe this could be plagiarizing. That teaching had a profound impact on me and obviously the pieces and movement of that teaching found a place in my memory. However, unless I'm taking a written transcript of his oral communication and then putting it in its written form, I would have a hard time calling it plagiarism.
Third, Bell and I share the some of the same teachers, so there is much material that has been shared from common sources. A good example of this would be to see a very similar teaching from Brad Gray in his book "Make Your Mark". Gray also shared some of our same teachers. Since we received our information from similar sources, it becomes hard to know where the plagiarism (by your liberal definition of "plagiarism") begins. I have heard very similar presentations from multiple teachers.
Plagiarism is defined as "the practice of taking someone else's work or ideas and passing them off as one's own."
If you feel that I have passed this teaching off as mine, without giving primary credit to Bell, then you are welcome to your opinion. But I believe I made it a point to not give this teaching without pointing to Bell as the source. It is his content and as far as my memory serves me, it is the same points he used in that delivery years before I wrote it.
At any rate, I appreciate you trolling my blog.