Keeping Score

As I listened to the apologetics talks at a conference, I kept thinking, "I know exactly who needs to hear this!" I couldn't wait to get home and tell my friends why they were wrong about everything they believed. 2 Corinthians 10:4-5 explained my approach: "We demolish arguments and every proud thing that is raised up against the knowledge of God."

In the Seinfeld episode "The Red Dot," George gets fired after sleeping with Evie, the cleaning woman at Pendant Publishing. When his boss, Mr. Lippman, talks to him about it, George tries to defend himself. He says, "Was that wrong? Should I have not done that? I tell you, I gotta plead ignorance on this thing, because if anyone had said anything to me at all when I first started here that that sort of thing was frowned upon..." George knew it was wrong, and he knows he's lying about it. But he can't stop himself. The show got us to laugh at him and he lost his job, but the deeper questions about power, injustice, and abuse remain unresolved.

I was talking with a friend in Memphis about the difficulties I was having raising enough money to keep doing campus ministry. A few minutes later, he dug into his pocket, pulled out his wallet, and took out everything he had. "Here," he said. "Take this." I hadn't asked him for anything and I didn't know that he had margin to spare. I still remember how grateful I felt.

When I was studying at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, a friend told me, "I've gone to church every Sunday of my life, with only two exceptions." I was amazed that she knew her church-going record was so nearly perfect. I figured she had done better than me. In any case, I hadn't kept records like she had. But then I wondered: What about all the campus ministry worship services and Bible studies I've attended? Maybe I've got her beat.

When rabbis studied the Torah, gezerah shawah was one of the methods they used to interpret it. The rule was that if the same phrase appeared in two different passages, the meaning of one passage could be used to help interpret the other. Is that a legitimate way to understand the Bible? If we tried to connect God turning Lot's wife into a pillar of salt with Jesus telling his disciples, "You are the salt of the earth," then no. But if we connect the responsibility to "work and keep" the Garden of Eden with the responsibility to "work and keep" the Tabernacle, then yes (Genesis 2:15, Numbers 3:7-8). The shared words help us to connect these passages and understand that work is intended as an act of worship. Like any interpretative tool, this method must be used with wisdom.