October 19, 2012
Follow Me
My friend’s nine year-old asked her mom how she knew for sure if Bible
was really true. Rather than going into a lengthy explanation her mother simply
explained that men who followed Jesus wrote down everything Jesus did and they
put it in the Bible. “Oh,” she said. “You mean Jesus had stalkers?”
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Gail;
-----That is so cute! Char gave me a book catalogue a couple years ago and said I needed to order a few books from it. I picked three. She said, “Is that all? You don’t want more?” Well, sure sweetie! I always want more books. So I combed through it again and chose one more called Metaphor, A Practical Introduction. It’s funny how significant changes to a person’s life are drawn into reality by only one tenuous thread. That book advanced my understanding about thought, emotion, and basic human psychology to a new level. I now see God’s messages delivered in the Bible through historical metaphors that were simply bewildering phrases to me before. The human soul can not escape metaphor because it is made of it. And in spite of the fact that the most of the aspects of a metaphorical subject may counter the aspects of its target, a good parallel in just one aspect will provide a very useful metaphor, maybe even the more pronounced by effects of that fact.
-----The stalker approaches its target stealthily. He does not want his target to know he is there, generally because his target does not want him there. His target usually doesn’t want him there because the stalker is in one way or another damaging to the target. Those aspects of “stalker” as a metaphorical subject to followers of Christ just don’t fit the reality of the relationship with Him. But what is so cute and fitting is that a stalker is relentless. And so are His followers. Neither will take no for an answer. They will do whatever they can that will actually get them as close as possible. And most of all, they are obsessed with getting close. I love this kid’s metaphor!
-----And it’s service of enlightenment does not end there! Jesus does have stalkers. I mean real ones, who, if they truly were a part of Jesus, would do Him great damage, like cancer cells in a body. For these guys are not made of what Jesus is made. Their characters and names are antithetical to His, because they are about their own ambitions, whether or not they realize it, while Jesus was about His Father’s. They have been throughout history. They have entered the church and defiled its apparent image. And they are much of why many centuries of church history is written about religious war, and many more about religious animosities and theological feuds and fellowship splits. More subtle yet are the ones who show up for any variety of reasons to feel good or something about being in church on Sundays, while not really believing either the Bible nor Jesus. It became a fad for churches to respond in whatever cultural ways to attract these stalkers, thinking they could convert them to followers without ever challenging them to repent and actually believe the Bible as it is written. We know them as seekers. Yet they are stalkers.
-----Well, young man, kid of my friend’s friend! You know, I stalk Jesus too. I stalk Him to eat His flesh and drink His blood. Cool, huh?!
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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