September 24, 2009
Doctor in the House
There is an old joke that says doctors are called practitioners because that’s what they’re doing…practicing medicine. As patients, we want our Physicians to leave medical school being proficient, not just practicing. I think it’s interesting that we have high expectations for professionals; however as believers we give little thought to one another when it comes to practicing the Word of God. As noted by Dr. Luke, Jesus however does have expectations for his followers, “My mother and brothers are those who hear God’s word and put it into practice.” (Luke 8:21 NIV)
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Gail;
-----During my efforts to defeat a bipolar condition in my early twenties I found one word progression to be most useful: discover, learn, practice, and perform. By it I came to perform a few mental and emotional processes that most folks always performed in their lives naturally. But many of the behaviors that I had to modify never seemed to progress beyond the practice stage. That is when I began to notice the Bible’s use of the word “perform” was rather limited to performing the laws of the covenant, performing vows and oaths, and performing specific acts, while the New Testament made copious use of the term “practice”. Doctors may perform a surgery, but they practice medicine. And you may hear of a lawyer’s performance in a legal case, yet they, too, only practice law. As a CPA, I practice accounting. In fact, when I was being interviewed for my first job in this career, I was asked what made accounting a profession. I did not then have the perspective I now have, so I was unable to say that a profession is a career involved in a continuously developing field which requires continual learning, and therefore, ongoing practice.
----- It was the Old Covenant that held us up to the perfection of performance, as if we could master the whole field of godliness and perform it. But the human element is just not enough capable for that. So, the New Covenant of grace and mercy recognizes our inability to achieve the perfection of performance. The standards of the new life are presented as things we must do and practice, not only bespeaking of the vastness that is the field of godliness, but also reflecting the condition of continual learning involved in the new life given to us. God could have left us in a condition that demanded a constant flow of performing His law perfectly within each event of our lives, subjecting us to robotic lives akin to player-pianos responding to holes in passing sheets of paper. And we may have made music that way, too, performing note by hole, note by hole, note by hole. But it would be flat music, not the song which springs out of the living fingers of a practiced pianist, able to pound the crescendos, and tickle the movements. God wants our living hearts to be in the godly life flowing from us. He does not want our robotic actions. So, like a good trainer, He acknowledges the efforts we make and desires we have in practicing the field of godliness, forgiving the sour notes and stumbling rhythm, and at the moments of our crescendos, enjoying an interlude of rather nice performance.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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