The Case for a Virtual General Conference, Part 1

by Steve | Feb 5, 2021 | In the News, Perspective E-Newsletter

By Thomas Lambrecht –

There is much anxiety about whether and how a General Conference will meet in 2021. General Conference was originally scheduled for May 2020, but was postponed to August 29 through September 7, 2021, due to pandemic travel and meeting restrictions. Now the Commission on the General Conference is planning to make a decision on February 20 about whether this postponed General Conference can go ahead as scheduled.

I do not have any inside information about what the Commission is likely to decide. They could postpone General Conference again or hold it in a limited form or hold it virtually on the Internet. What follows is my speculation about what could happen and my opinion about what should happen.

We do know that the Commission formed a task force to look at how digital technology could be used to allow young people to attend the General Conference virtually, due to the fact that it is scheduled during the first weeks of school for many students. We assume that this task force has broadened its investigation to consider whether and how a General Conference might be held in a virtual form online. Their report was due to the Commission at the end of January, so it could be considered as part of the decision-making process on February 20. We do not know if that task force report will be publicly released. In the absence of concrete information, prognosticators (including me) are trying to read the tealeaves and assess what might happen and what is possible.

Will there be an in-person General Conference in 2021?

I believe the short answer to this question is “no.” While the number of virus cases is starting to decline in some places, the overall caseload is quite high, both in the U.S. and in Europe. Travel restrictions have been put in place requiring a negative Covid test and a quarantine in order to travel. Europeans traveling to the U.S. would have to quarantine seven days upon arrival, participate in two weeks of General Conference, and then quarantine for seven to ten days in their home country upon return. Thus, in-person participation in General Conference would require at least one month of time from European delegates, which is an unreasonable ask, particularly of lay people who have non-church jobs.

Information about the situation in Africa and the Philippines is spotty, but we hear that cases are increasing in some countries and causing great hardship. Their hospital system does not have the capacity that ours does, so even a fewer number of cases can overwhelm their hospital system. Travel there is just as problematic.

Vaccination in the U.S. is speeding up but is still a monumental task. The latest estimates are that those in high-risk groups will not be fully vaccinated until April or May. That accounts for one-third of the U.S. population. It could take another four months for enough people to be fully vaccinated to reach “herd immunity.” Experts are estimating that might occur in August or September, right when General Conference is scheduled to meet. So there is a chance that life in the U.S. might open up to fewer restrictions on travel and large gatherings in the fall, but it is risky to plan for that to happen by the time of the scheduled General Conference. We have learned that very little about this pandemic has happened as we expected it would.

Unfortunately, vaccination in Europe is about two months behind the pace of the U.S. The population of the European Union is about one-third larger than the U.S., so it could take them even longer to reach “herd immunity.” That will affect the lifting of travel restrictions. Right now, even family members are not allowed to travel to Norway, for instance. (I have a daughter and her family living there.)

The situation is even worse in Africa and (I presume) in the Philippines. Vaccination has not even started there, and the poorer countries like the Democratic Republic of Congo (home of the largest General Conference delegation) are last in line to receive the vaccine. They also do not have a health system that is capable of efficiently vaccinating the whole population. It is highly questionable whether General Conference delegates from Africa and the Philippines can get vaccinated before next fall.

In addition, there is the complication of people from Africa and the Philippines getting visas to come to the U.S. Embassies in many countries are not currently open or accepting visa applications. It is unknown when embassies will open up, but it probably depends on when the virus is under control in those countries, which could depend upon when a critical mass of the population is vaccinated. There is no certainty that embassies will open up to grant visas in time for delegates to get them in time to travel to the U.S. for the conference.

Given all these complications, I do not believe it is possible to hold an in-person General Conference this year. I could be wrong.

Is it necessary for some form of General Conference to meet this year?

I believe the answer is “yes.” We are obviously in uncharted territory, but there are certain matters that need to be addressed. A new budget for the quadrennium needs to be passed, which would allow new apportionments to be levied to the annual conferences and then to the local churches. Right now, apportionments are being paid based on the 2017-2020 budget, which is substantially higher than what is proposed for the 2021-2024 quadrennium. Passing the new budget would allow general church apportionments to drop by at least one-forth from what they are now, making it much more likely for local churches to be able to afford to pay them. This is especially true of the Episcopal Fund, which is projected to run out of money in the next two years unless budgetary changes are made.

Church officials have said it is essential for General Conference to meet, so that jurisdictions and central conferences can meet to decide about their bishops. There is a movement afoot to refrain from electing any new bishops in the U.S. during this quadrennium. Also on the table is the proposal to elect five new bishops in Africa. General Conference is the body to decide these kinds of issues. In addition, some currently serving bishops are required to retire under the provisions of the Discipline. Yet, they have continued to serve in this crisis period. When will they be allowed to retire? General Conference needs to provide guidance.

Other elected leaders of the church have also exceeded their terms in office. This is particularly true of the Judicial Council, of which several of its members desire to stop serving. It is essential to elect new leaders to maintain these important functions.

It might be tempting to postpone General Conference yet again to fall of 2022, by which time we hope international travel can return to normal. However, doing so would cripple the church by putting off essential decisions. It might also precipitate jurisdictions and other bodies of the church taking actions not allowed under church law simply to deal with this untenable situation.

Is action on the Protocol for Separation necessary in 2021?

Some are promoting the idea that a decision as important as separation should only be addressed at an in-person General Conference. However, adopting the Protocol in 2021 is in the UM Church’s best interest. Resolving our conflict is the only way back to a healthy denomination.

Major changes are proposed for The United Methodist Church going forward. The delegates making those changes should represent the people who have a long-term commitment to remaining in the UM Church. Some of these major changes include regionalizing church governance (allowing the U.S. to create its own standards and practices), changing the definition of marriage to include same-sex couples, changing ordination standards to allow practicing LGBT persons to be ordained, and reconfiguring the general church boards and agencies in light of new financial realities.

It would be absurd to allow those wanting to align with a new traditional Methodist denomination to have a say in (or block) how the post-separation UM Church wants to operate. Better to move forward now with separation, so that the next in-person General Conference can make the major decisions proposed for the church’s direction.

Nuts and bolts decisions need to be made around separation before structural decisions are made. How many new bishops should the jurisdictions and central conferences elect? Should the church keep its current five jurisdiction as they are? How many general church boards and agencies can the church afford? How should they be structured? All these decisions depend upon how many people are left in the post-separation UM Church.

Moving to separate this year would enable annual conferences and local churches to decide where they want to be, giving the general church the information it needs to make these structural decisions at the next General Conference.

The theological conflict in the church continues, and the polarization is getting worse. Granted, the conflict has moved off the front page due to the drastic effects of the pandemic on church life. But the conflict is still there and will reemerge as conditions allow a return to more normalcy. Failing to resolve the conflict has done immeasurable harm to the church and will continue to harm us in the months and years ahead. No one wants to join a denomination in conflict.

Churches and annual conferences embroiled in conflict will not have the energy to ramp up the kind of outreach ministries necessary to recover from the loss of up to 40 percent of our members due to pandemic inactivity. Moving through separation now will resolve the conflict and enable each of the new denominations (including the post-separation UM Church) to move strongly forward in its preferred ministry direction without being held back by those who do not share the same vision.

Some will object that making a decision on alignment is too much for a local church to handle right now, with all the pressures of ministry during the pandemic. There are hundreds of congregations that have already resolved which direction they want to go following separation. All they need is the legal ability to take action on that decision. It is also important to remember that no decisions need to be made until after General Conference adopts the Protocol, which would happen potentially at the end of August.

By the fall, conditions should be returning to “normal” in the U.S., enabling churches to make the decisions they need to make. Annual conferences would not need to make their decision until they next meet in spring of 2022. And both local churches and annual conferences will have a several-year grace period during which they can make these important decisions.

All of this is contingent, however, on passage of the Protocol. Delaying the Protocol would delay the possibility of all these other decisions that depend upon it. Better to open the door to separation now, allowing churches and annual conferences to make their decisions on their own time, rather than hindering those who are ready now to decide by forcing them to wait.

Moving toward separation now is in the best interest of the church. It would resolve the conflict and clear the way for ministry after the pandemic to be about the positive direction each church wants to take, rather than continuing to refight the same old battles and damaging the church in the process.

Is it practical or possible for General Conference to meet “not in person” and deal with the Protocol? I plan to address that question in my post next week.

Thomas Lambrecht is a United Methodist clergyperson and the vice president of Good News.

Primary Reasons for Separation

by Steve | Feb 1, 2021 | In the News, Perspective E-Newsletter

Delegates pause for prayer at the 2019 special General Conference in St. Louis. File photo by Kathleen Barry, UM News.

By Thomas Lambrecht –

As we approach a possible separation in The United Methodist Church this year, one of the important questions to answer is, “Why should we separate?” There are many reasons for the conflict in our church that have led us to this point. Rob Renfroe and Walter Fenton explored many of these issues in their book, Are We Better Together?

The fact remains that there is a certain inertia about staying in a church that has been one’s environment for years, and for many, a lifetime. There is the cry of the conflict avoider, “Can’t we all just get along?” Can we not simply overlook our differences and keep doing what we have been doing?

Due to the pandemic, our churches and leaders have been focused on the critical adaptations to ministry that it required. Theological and practical differences have been set aside in this “emergency” time. It is therefore easy to think that we can just keep muddling along as we have been, ignoring our differences. However, once the “emergency” eases off and life and ministry return to a more normal rhythm, the differences resurface. Several annual conferences experienced that even during this season of virtual conference sessions. The underlying differences in our church are not going away, so the reasons for separation are not disappearing, either.

The differences between the “sides” in this intra-church conflict are so deep and so entrenched that staying together has become unthinkable for many. The increasing trickle of departing congregations and individual members testifies to the growing sense that we are a church that is coming apart. But why?

Many assume that the disagreement over the definition of marriage (does it include same-sex marriage) and ordination standards (do we ordain practicing LGBT persons into ministry) is the primary reason for separation. But these are just the presenting issue for a much deeper divide in the church. That divide is reflected in both substantive disagreements affecting core beliefs and practical abandonment of core church processes.

Source of Beliefs

Traditionalists and evangelicals within United Methodism have always made it clear that the disagreement is about Scripture and the source(s) of our denominational beliefs and teachings. The traditional side focuses on the primacy of Scripture to establish our church’s beliefs and teachings. The tradition of the church plays a role in setting the boundaries for interpreting Scripture. Such interpretation is informed by one’s personal experience of God and life, as well as the best historical, linguistic, and archaeological scholarship. We use reason to make those interpretations rationally coherent. But the source of our beliefs is the clear teaching of Scripture.

Many centrists and progressives, by contrast, continue to operate by what they were taught was the “Wesleyan Quadrilateral” approach to Scripture. This approach sees the tradition of the church and particularly contemporary knowledge (their definition of experience) and the application of human reason to be equal with Scripture as sources of our beliefs.

It should be noted that this is not the approach that John Wesley had to Scripture. This was a modern-day construct developed by Dr. Albert C. Outler, a well-known Wesleyan scholar. “The term ‘quadrilateral’ does not occur in the Wesley corpus – and more than once, I have regretted having coined it for contemporary use, since it has been so widely misconstrued,” Outler confessed.

In Outler’s misconstrued interpretation of Wesley, when modern knowledge contradicts our understanding of Scripture, we must change our understanding of Scripture. This attitude can be seen in the announcement by some that they want to be “on the right side of history.” Human knowledge and understandings are more important than any long-standing perception of what Scripture teaches.

This willingness to abandon (by some) or reinterpret the teaching of Scripture to match current societal understandings manifests in the issues regarding marriage and same-sex ordination standards. But it also holds the potential for any number of other accommodations to cultural assumptions.

Traditionalists believe the old adage still holds true: “Whoever marries the spirit of this age is destined to be a widow in the next.” It is too easy to adapt our beliefs to whatever fits our society, deluding ourselves into thinking that we are being faithful to Christ. Jesus said, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 7:21).

These two ways of arriving at our church’s beliefs and teachings are incompatible with each other and will always engender conflict. (Traditionalists are not immune from interpreting Scripture in ways that adapt to the prevailing views of a particular time and place. But having Scripture as ultimate authority offers a built-in mechanism to correct such accommodationism.)

Self-determination vs. God’s Revelation

A second foundational difference between the “sides” in this conflict relates to how we define ourselves and determine what is right. Most centrists and progressives value self-determination as the deciding factor in one’s view of oneself. This is connected to the postmodern idea that there is no such thing as absolute truth, but truth is defined by each person for themselves. My “truth” can be different from your “truth,” and we are obliged to respect and affirm whatever is another person’s “truth.”

This concept again plays out in our culture’s ongoing sexuality debate, where a person’s attractions, desires, or sense of self are supreme in defining who that person is. According to the centrist/progressive dogma, no one can question how another person defines themselves or their stated identity.

Furthermore, it is assumed that what “is” is what “ought” to be. The fact that a person defines themselves a certain way means that is God’s will for them. God created them the way they perceive themselves.

Traditionalists disagree. We would point to the pervasive effects of the Fall and the catastrophic impact of sin, both on human experience and human perception. “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9). What “is” might be that way because of the sin and brokenness of this world, not because it is God’s will for it to be so. What “ought” to be is what God reveals to us in his Word, through the life of Jesus and the teachings of Scripture. We are not who we think we are, but who God says we are. He is the one who can “search the heart and examine the mind” (Jeremiah 17:10), who knows us better than we know ourselves. Most importantly, it is he who created each one of us and knows what we are meant to be.

Traditionalists believe there is absolute truth that is valid for all people in all times and all places. That truth is revealed to us by God. God is unchanging and his truth is unchanging. What he reveals about himself and about us today is going to be consistent with what he has revealed in the past. We do not get to change the truth when it becomes convenient to do so.

These different understandings of truth will inevitably lead to endless conflicts between what God has revealed as truth and whatever new “truths” people want to adopt for themselves.

Different Agendas

The centrist/progressive agenda is an unapologetic social-justice agenda. Promoting “inclusion” has become the highest value of official United Methodism. The left wing of the church appears to believe that the church’s main purpose is to “transform the world,” often through political action in line with liberal political causes, such as abortion rights, unlimited immigration, and advocating for the Palestinians against Israel.

For traditionalists, the transformation of the world is a consequence of making disciples of Jesus Christ, not the primary goal of the church. As people’s lives are transformed in discipleship, the world is changed. Traditionalists do care about social justice and often work concretely to alleviate poverty, fight racism and sexism, and provide ways for people to overcome adversity. In advocating for social justice, however, we think the church should not always espouse one set of political solutions to addressing society’s ills, but listen to all perspectives.

Furthermore, the strident advocacy of liberal political causes that at times violate our understanding of Scripture has alienated traditionalists, as has the equating of discipleship with promotion of the latest political idea. The church is not built on politics, but on Jesus Christ, and on our worship of and discipleship to him.

These competing agendas pull the church in opposite directions. We cannot walk together if we disagree on the destination.

Breakdown of the Church’s Governance

The differences in the church have become so extreme and strident that the church’s governance has broken down. Since 2011, the church’s rules about marriage and ordination standards have been routinely and increasingly ignored by those who disagree with them. Some bishops have refused to enforce requirements of the Discipline with which they disagree. Under our current Discipline, there is no way to hold such bishops accountable or ensure compliance.

The General Conference is the one body that speaks for all United Methodists and has the power to determine the church’s laws. Yet, following the 2019 General Conference, more than 20 U.S. annual conferences passed resolutions repudiating the actions of General Conference, and leading pastors and laity took out full-page ads in newspapers apologizing for those decisions. A number of annual conferences in 2019-20 openly violated the church’s standards by ordaining self-avowed practicing homosexuals as clergy. This disregard for the church’s rules has spread to other aspects of the church’s life, including the unlawful suspension and removal of clergy (Here) and (Here) without due process and the closing of viable congregations possibly in order to seize their assets.

When significant portions of the church refuse to abide by that church’s governance processes, the church’s unity is no longer viable. Ordained clergy vow to abide by the church’s tenets, even when we disagree, but many now are renouncing that vow by their actions and words. In a troubled marriage, sometimes divorce recognizes the fact that the marriage has already ended. In our church, formal separation would simply recognize the fact that our church has already irrevocably divided.

Fight or Separate?

Some would urge traditionalists to continue to fight for what we believe is right within The United Methodist Church. We must ask, however, is this the best use of the time, energy, and resources God has given us? While we continue the fight, the church declines faster and faster. Separation would allow us to refocus on evangelism, making disciples of Jesus Christ, and strengthening the church’s life and witness.

No, The United Methodist Church is already irretrievably broken. Regrettably, the differences in how we decide what our beliefs are, how we perceive the truth, what our agenda for the church is, and our willingness to abide by the normal processes of the church are so deep that they cannot be bridged or papered over. The least harmful way forward is to recognize those differences and provide a fair and equitable avenue for different parts of the church to go their separate ways, pursuing what they believe to be God’s direction. It will not be easy or painless, but it will end the harm that is currently being inflicted on so many in the church due to this struggle. Relieved of the burden of conflict, perhaps all parts of the church can once again thrive and grow.

Thomas Lambrecht is a United Methodist clergyperson and the vice president of Good News.

Finishing Well

by Steve | Jan 25, 2021 | In the News, Perspective E-Newsletter

Saul attacking David by Guercino. Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica, Rome.

By Thomas Lambrecht –

It may seem out of place to talk about finishing well when the year has just begun. The senior pastor at the church I attend just announced his planned retirement. He is the founding pastor of this church and has served well for over 43 years (all at this one congregation)! He is in a good position to finish his ministry well.

The lesson last week at our men’s ministry was about King Saul and the fact he did not finish well. Blessed with physical stature, good looks, God’s anointing, and being filled with the Holy Spirit (twice!), he still ended up unfaithful to God and defeated in leadership.

There is an old saying that one must begin with the end in mind. Before one sets out, it is important to know where one wants to end up. I’m sure King Saul did not want to end up as a paranoid, unfaithful leader who failed his people. But he took his eye off the goal and became preoccupied with what people thought of him and with exalting his own image and power. (You can read his story in I Samuel chapters 9-31.) He did not keep the end in mind.

What is the end we should have in mind? Our goal is to live up to what God created us to be. He created us to enjoy complete fellowship with him and to bring glory to him by our lives. It is easy for us to lose track of that goal in the ups and downs of everyday life. Our culture tells us that personal happiness is what we should strive for.

But God knows that we will only find happiness in relation to him. Jesus said, “Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life” (John 12:25). Jesus is not saying we should literally hate our life, but that if we focus on this-world happiness, we will miss the purpose for which God created us. Whereas, if we focus on loving and serving God, we will actually find happiness in this life and experience eternal relationship with God. “’Truly I tell you,’ Jesus replied, ‘no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age: homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children, and fields – along with persecutions – and in the age to come eternal life’” (Mark 10:29-30).

So it is possible to start out well, to begin a faith-filled relationship with Jesus Christ, and then to finish poorly. Like all good Wesleyans, we believe it is possible for a person to turn away from God to such an extent that they forfeit the gift of eternal salvation. That is why Wesleyans emphasize perseverance in our walk with the Lord.

“Watch out, brothers and sisters, so that none of you have an evil, unfaithful heart that abandons the living God. Instead, encourage each other every day, as long as it’s called ‘today,’ so that none of you become insensitive to God because of sin’s deception. We are partners with Christ, but only if we hold on to the confidence we had in the beginning until the end” (Hebrews 3:12-14, CEB).

We do not abandon God in a sudden shift of perspective. Usually, it takes a period of time to fall away. We become deceived by our sinful desires and the constant message of an unbelieving world that encourages selfishness. We gradually lose our sensitivity to God and the nudging of his Holy Spirit in our everyday choices. Deception, selfishness, and sin gradually grow into unfaithfulness, which leads us away from God.

That is the story of King Saul. It is also potentially our story.

That is why the author of Hebrews warns us to “watch out!” We need to keep our focus on our proper goal: union with Christ. There is nothing more important than forming and growing our relationship with Jesus. Anything that gets in the way of that – even good things – ends up being at least a stumbling block and perhaps even an idol in our lives.

We are distracted and tempted by our own selfish, sinful desires. We want what we want when we want it.

We are also distracted by growing weary. Many of us have become weary of following all the pandemic protocols. We started out well and sacrificed a lot in lockdowns and other mitigation measures that drove down the virus. But we have become weary and careless, so that our virus and death counts are now reaching record levels. My wife and I lost a good friend of ours to the pandemic when she attended a concert where there was little mask wearing. Perseverance is called for in order to save our own life and the lives of people we love, as well as strangers.

In the same way, Paul says, “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up” (Galatians 6:9). I have been walking with Jesus for over 45 years. There are times I get tired of doing the right thing or I get careless about my spiritual life. We cannot let that happen! I cannot imagine spending all these years growing in faithfulness, only to throw it all away at the end of life.

That is why we need each other in the body of Christ, to remind and encourage each other to keep going. Daily Bible reading and prayer, weekly worship and participation in a small group or Bible study, serving others. These things keep me on track with the Lord. We all need them, the consistent practices that build our spiritual strength and lives of faith. We call them “spiritual disciplines” because they require discipline, intentionality, and consistency in order to bear fruit in our lives. If we keep doing them, we will indeed reap a harvest. We must not slack off on these practices because we grow weary.

Many of us have grown weary with the situation in our beloved United Methodist Church. We thought by now we would be part of a new Methodist denomination that would be headed in a direction we could enthusiastically support. We are not there yet.

It is tempting to give up at this point, to just leave the UM Church and become a Baptist or a non-denominational Protestant, or a Bible church member. But the promise remains, “at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.” God has something good in store for us, if we persevere to the end. No matter what happens over the next several months with the pandemic and with General Conference, I believe God will get us to the place he needs us to be, and we will get there together.

We need to finish this season of our life in the UM Church well. Good News has been in the struggle for 54 years. I personally have been in this for 38 years. Let us not throw away all those years of invested faithfulness by prematurely giving up or abandoning our goal of a faithful Methodism.

We can finish well on a personal spiritual level in our relationship with the Lord. We can finish well in our struggle against the coronavirus. We can finish well in our struggle for a faithful Methodist church. By God’s grace and our own perseverance, we can finish well, together.

Thomas Lambrecht is a United Methodist clergyperson and the vice president of Good News.

Learning God’s Ways

by Steve | Jan 15, 2021 | In the News, Perspective E-Newsletter

By Thomas Lambrecht –

We human beings do not like to be told what to do. Our DNA was formed in disobedience and rebellion in the first garden, when Adam and Eve decided they knew better than God.

We sometimes feel bound or restricted by the law. We tend to obey those laws that we think are appropriate or those for which we can understand the reason. We can understand why we need to go 30 mph in a crowded city street, but out in the country on a deserted road, we are more likely to disregard the speed limit.

We often take the same approach when it comes to God’s Law, as taught in Scripture. Those laws we can understand and affirm gain much more willing obedience than those laws that contradict our desires or do not make sense to us. The vision of God as an eternal traffic cop actually brings out a bit of the rebellious streak in all of us.

From Law to Instruction

That is why it is helpful to reframe our understanding of God’s Law. The Hebrew word for law (torah) more accurately means “teaching” or “instruction.” The purpose of God’s Law is not punishment, but teaching us God’s way of living.

This fits in well with our contemporary understanding of mentoring. We are encouraged to seek out mentors who can teach and guide us in our career or work life, and even in basic life skills, as well. (Previous generations looked to “Dear Abby” and Emily Post.) We look to models and instructors who can help us learn the ropes of life and work, marriage and parenting.

The ultimate mentor, however, is the Lord God of the universe. He created us and knows us intimately, having formed us in the womb. He knows how life is supposed to work, since he designed it. And he knows all things. He does not need to be taught anything. His knowledge is complete and expert beyond human knowledge.

Even more important, our mentor God loves us unconditionally and wants us to succeed in living a fulfilling and purposeful life. He is for us, not against us. He longs for us to fulfill the purpose for which we were made. Who better to teach us how to live life?

Psalm 19 describes for us this teaching function of God’s Law, reminding us that we have access to God’s mentorship through his written Word in Scripture.

The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul.

The decrees of the Lord are trustworthy, making wise the simple.

The commandments of the Lord are right, bringing joy to the heart.

The commands of the Lord are clear, giving insight to life.

Reverence for the Lord is pure, lasting forever.

The laws of the Lord are true, each one is fair.

They are more desirable than gold, even the finest gold.

They are sweeter than honey, even honey dripping from the comb.

They are a warning to those who hear them; there is great reward for those who obey them.

(Psalm 19:7-11 NLT)

Basis for the Instruction

The psalm describes the nature of the laws and commandments of God, so that we know we can trust them. There are six characteristics:

• “Perfect” – without fault or flaw, pure
• “Trustworthy” – we can lean on them without fear that they will prove false or lead us astray
• “Right” – upright, straightforward, and just, not crooked or deceitful
• “Clear” – pure, free of guilt or blame, morally uncompromised
• “Pure” – clean, refined like gold, unmixed with sin
• “True” – reliable, stable, faithful, rooted in reality (this is the Hebrew word from which we get “Amen”)

If God’s instruction is all of these things (and more), would we not want to learn from it and put it into practice in our lives? Is not this teaching to be trusted more than any human wisdom, which is tainted by error or moral compromise?

Effects of the Instruction

Even more encouraging are the ways that God’s instruction is meant to affect our lives:

• “Reviving the soul” – God’s teaching provides life to the inner person. It addresses not just the physical, but also the human spirit and mind. It brings refreshment, like a cup of cold water on a hot day.
• “Making wise the simple” – God’s teaching allows us to live with wisdom. The “simple” are the uninstructed, the naïve. We can live (as my father would have put it) like “a babe in the woods” (knowing nothing), or we can live as we are taught to live, as God made us to live.
• “Bringing joy to the heart” – God’s instruction is not meant to discourage us or oppress us. Some people think living the Christian life takes all the joy out of life. On the contrary, living God’s way frees us from many of the worries and cares that suck the joy out of life.
• “Giving insight to life” – Literally, it says, “giving light to the eyes.” God’s instruction enables us to see clearly how to live. Where there is moral compromise, things quickly become foggy and confusing. People express various opinions about what is right, and there is often pressure to go along with what people advocate. God’s instruction enables us to cut through the fog and see clearly the way God wants us to live.
• “Lasting forever” – going on for perpetuity. God’s instruction never goes out of style. It applies in all times and all places. We can count on it always being true.
• “Each one is fair” – Literally, it says, “altogether righteous.” If our goal is to be righteous in life, God’s instruction is the way to get there. His instruction, taken as a whole, leads us to live a righteous life.

God’s instruction is more desirable than the finest gold. It is more valuable than any material possessions.

God’s instruction is sweeter than the freshest honey. It is more valuable and satisfying than any worldly pleasure.

God’s instruction warns us away from unproductive or destructive thoughts and behavior. Instead, it steers us toward great reward. We experience that reward in this life, as living God’s way leads to much joy and a lot less heartache or anxiety. But we also look forward to the greatest reward, which is eternal fellowship with the Lord.

To experience that divine fellowship, we need to become holy and righteous (Hebrews 12:14). God’s instruction helps us learn how. Of course, in our human strength we are unable to completely live by God’s instruction. We keep being distracted and led astray by temptations and circumstances, as well as self-will. That is why God sent the Holy Spirit to live within us and empower us. As God through Ezekiel promises us, “I will give them singleness of heart and put a new spirit within them. I will take away their hearts of stone and give them tender hearts instead, so they will obey my laws and regulations. Then they will truly be my people, and I will be their God” (Ezekiel 11:19-20).

When I was learning how to play piano as a child, my piano teacher taught and showed me how to do it. She taught me how to hold my hands, how to place them on the keys, which finger to use on what keys, and all the various techniques of playing the piano. I could have argued with her, thinking I knew better, or I could have resisted because I didn’t like to do it the way she wanted me to. By doing that, I would have forfeited my ability to learn to play the piano. She was a good teacher and taught me the right way to play. Learning from her enabled me to mature in music.

In the same way, God is a good teacher. He is the one to be trusted above all others. His Word sets out how to live a godly life. Living that way yields a lot of benefits and enables us to mature as a person. We can resist and rebel, but we are then hurting mainly ourselves and those we love. By cooperating with the Holy Spirit, we can learn and put into practice God’s instruction.

We can start with the Ten Commandments: honor and respect God, give him our highest allegiance, observe a day of rest and worship, honor our parents, do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not bear false testimony against another, and do not covet what belongs to someone else.

We can go on from this foundation to explore the breadth and depth of God’s wisdom in all of Scripture, learning from the examples of the lives recorded there, as well as from the teaching found in its pages. We have a lifetime, and perhaps an eternity, of learning to live God’s way and being transformed into the likeness of Christ. Only so can we become all that God made us to be.

Thomas Lambrecht is a United Methodist clergyperson and the vice president of Good News.