Beware

As a kid, you hear a lot of stories about wolves. Beware of wolves … Beware of wolves in sheep's clothing … Don't be the boy who cried "wolf."

A month ago, I wrote an article asking "Can a Muslim Be God's Voice to Me?" I explored the fact that anyone has the potential to be God's voice, be they Christian, Atheist, Muslim, or Drunkard. I considered the following ideas:

The belief that God is a creative communicator. He is able and willing to speak through a burning bush, an ass, a Centurion, and even through my non-religious neighbor.
The difference between spiritual identity and spiritual capacity. Have we Christians unnecessarily restricted what we expect from non-Christian spiritual capacity, regardless of their creed? Can we separate spiritual identity from capacity?
Christ's example in elevating spiritual outsiders. Jesus challenges us by hearing and honoring a widow of Sidon and a leper of Syria (Luke 4), a Roman Centurion (Matthew 8:10), a Samaritan (Luke 10), and a Canaanite (Matthew 15:28) to name a few.

In the end, I asked, "Am I open to the possibility that any person who crosses my path, regardless of creed or background, could be my spiritual teacher?"

As you can probably guess, that column resulted in spirited discussion, full of thoughts and critiques for which I am thankful. In the wake of that debate, I am challenged by the flip side of the question. How do I know if someone is not God's voice to me? This is tricky, and probably more than a single article can cover. But I want to try. Let me state the obvious, and then lay out six scattered principles to help guide our discernment.

Stating the obvious

There are a few moments when we can assume the source is not speaking for God:

Anyone arguing that the true God is actually the devil or a used Kleenex.
Anyone who defends intellectually inane ideas: the earth is flat, the earth is the center of the universe, babies come from storks, or that the moon is made of marshmallow.
Anyone desiring the eradication or marginalization of any people group on any grounds.
Anyone justifying acts that God and all sane humanity agree are evil: chopping up babies for fun, contributing to slavery, and wanton violence like bombing the Boston Marathon or destroying a rain forest.

These "obvious" categories cover a surprising percentage of human debate. Here are some other principles.

Principle 1: Trust No One.

I have an uncle named Larry. Larry is not actually my uncle, which I would not need to state if you saw the two of us standing side by side. Larry is a six foot, six inches, 270-pound retired cop. He is wicked smart and one of the most spiritually intuitive men I have ever known.

One day, Larry and I were sitting in a circle of men. Larry began to aggressively question one of the other men about his life, in the way that passionate leaders do. The other man responded, "I am not comfortable answering your questions because I haven't known you long enough to trust you." To this Larry responded, "Let me tell you something. I don't trust any of these men in this room and some of them are my closest friends. I don't trust them because I know that every one of these jackasses is going to let me down one day. They are going to lie to me. They are going to betray me." (If we ask ourselves about the most important people in our stories—our mentors, spouses and best friends—we all know that Larry's words are true. If you don't agree, then Larry would probably question whether you have any true relationships.)

"Here's the deal," Larry continued, "There is only one person that I ultimately trust and his name is Jesus. Because of him, I am ready to lay my life down for any of you son-of-a-guns. I haven't been called to trust you; I have been called to love you."

Principle 2: When it comes to Christ speaking, we are all on equal footing.

I have a brilliant friend and mentor named Dr. Paul Metzger. He's a faithful friend and honest with me. After reading "Can a Muslim Be God's Voice to Me," he called me with an important critique.

In the article, I had suggested that everyone, regardless of our spiritual identity, born again or not, has the capacity to be God's voice. Dr. Metzger, a fastidious theologian, took exception to my choice of vocabulary. "As Christians, we must always make Christ the center, there is no other angle on the discussion," he said. "The fact of the matter is that none of us, Christian or non-Christian, has capacity in ourselves. All of us, regardless of our spiritual identity can only speak truth, see beauty, or do justice because of the capacity that Christ works through any of us by his Spirit."

Principle 3: Warnings from Jesus

"Beware."

Jesus was certainly concerned about false voices. In fact he joined the chorus of my childhood storytellers when he warned us about wolves. "Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves; so be shrewd as serpents and innocent as doves. Beware … (Matthew 10:16)" and "Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves (Matthew 7:15)."

Good advice.

The word "beware," used above by Jesus, may offer us an unexpected perspective. Jesus uses that word on several occasions to help define the boundaries of hazardous spiritual exchange.

In my Bible, the word "beware" appears in eight passages in the Gospels, each time attributed to Jesus.

Two of those passages refer to "wolves" as listed above. In these passages, Jesus is warning against false teachers who will turn you over to the authorities to be tortured by religious/political institutions. Not pretty.

In Luke 12, Jesus cautions his followers to beware of the greedy. Jesus defines the greedy as those who have stored enough wealth for "years to come" (Should I check my 401K?). Jesus contrasts this by teaching, "consider the ravens … consider the lilies," two unlikely sources of God's voice.

In the remaining five passages Jesus tells us to beware of Scribes and Pharisees. Beware of the Scribes (Luke 20 and Mark 12) because they use their religious position/power to feed their egos and receive public praise (Luke 20:47). Beware of the Pharisees (Matthew 16, Mark 8, and Luke 12) because of their infectious (leaven) teachings and hypocrisy. Jesus warned us to be particularly suspicious of those who use the name of God for personal power, wealth, or public acclaim.

Principle 4: The Magic of Divine Translation

I remember sitting in a dilapidated dormitory room in Albania back in 1993. The walls were bare; the windowpanes were cracked or missing. The stench from the well-used but long-broken bathroom down the hall rolled into the room like a swamp mist.

Sitting next to me was a 19-year-old student from an outlying city. He was a brand new Christian, his faith only a few hours old. We were discussing the things of Jesus.

Suddenly his roommate burst into the room. Seeing his lifelong friend, the first student began to blurt out the gospel of Jesus. He did his best, but his presentation was horrible. It was full of religious half-truths and, quite frankly, a heretical understanding of Jesus.

I had been in this situation before, so I simply sat, waiting to see what God's Spirit would do. At the end of his five-minute presentation, the sort of which a first semester Bible school student could have ripped apart, he looked at his friend and asked, "Would you like to accept Jesus?" Without hesitation, the other smiled and they both knelt on the chalky floor. Together they prayed aloud the most beautiful, imperfect prayer I had ever heard.

Over the next hours (and weeks) as the three of us explored the Bible together, I was often amazed by the second student's grasp of biblical truth. When he told the story of his conversion, the words he heard were quite different than the flawed presentation I had witnessed. Through the stumbling gospel message, it became obvious to me that Someone had broken in, translating the presentation as it flowed from the first man's mouth to the second's ears.

Principle 5: Sometimes I need a lie.

I am not the first to say that the longest journey in the world is the 18 inches between your head and your heart. For a stubborn guy like me, that already long journey is even longer.

As a child and young man, I was taught quite a number of lies by the most well-meaning church people. These lies existed in categorical opposition to the gospel of Jesus. There were lies about God's character, about the source of my spiritual identity, and about God's affections for me.

And I needed all those lies.

You see, I am made of a certain sort of mettle, where I only learn by the long road, the painful road. I took those false beliefs on a long test drive to the other side of the world and back. Those lies eventually bankrupted my faith and left me feeling abandoned, broken, and bereaved. And that was exactly what this thickheaded, petulant boy needed. For in the wake of that spiritual bankruptcy and burnout, I finally met God and his seeds of truth were able to begin to burrow down into my heart.

I love those well-meaning people for the lies they taught me. I needed to be sent on my merciful, long journey.

Principle 6: The Protection of the Community of Faith

Determining truth is very difficult to do alone. So we need to rely upon the community of faith to help us discern. However, which community are we called to rely upon? It is the "body of Christ," where the eye needs the hand and the head needs the foot (1 Corinthians 12:21). This body, forged in the radical, multi-cultural fire of Pentecost (Acts 2) is being fulfilled in the every nation, every tribe, every tongue reality of Christ's eternal throne (Revelation 7:9).

Each of us has blind spots. Mine are particularly large. If I surround myself mostly with people who are just like me, what hope do I have? If my faith life is populated with people who look like me, worship like me, read like me, vote like me, spend like me, and sound like me then it is pretty safe to assume that we will all have the same blind spots.

Perspective can be found in faith-filled diversity: culture, race, gender, age, region, denomination, and economics.

Sometimes a wolf is not a wolf after all

When do I know that someone is not God's voice to me? That is a complicated question. I have only just barely started the conversation. I am sure you will have many important thoughts to add (the comment field is right below). But before I wrap up, I want to share just one more idea with you.

In my early 30s, I found myself at Reed College in Portland, Oregon. I was there for about three years, serving as a friend of the campus and something of a volunteer chaplain. I went even though I was warned against it.

You see, Reed College is widely considered the most godless college in America. It's the sort of place that suburban churchgoers come to visit on a sort of spiritual safari, hoping to see all the wild pagans in their natural habitat. It is, we're told, the very center of the wolf pack.

"Beware," I was told. "Beware of Reed College. It is the sort of place that will ruin your faith."

Well, it didn't ruin my faith. What I experienced was just the opposite. It was one of the most faith-promoting seasons of my life, living side-by-side with folks of diverse spiritual backgrounds, but who loved and supported me as I endeavored each day to walk with Jesus. Wolves they may have been, but they took me in, and supported me in my journey. They embraced this stranger as one of their own, and I heard the voice of God speaking through their barks and howls time and time again.

In that same spirit, please watch the video below. It's a powerful modern parable. It is, of all things, a commercial for a hotel chain, but the message is poignant—"To embrace a stranger as one's own." As the people of God, I believe there is something here for all of us, as we seek to both beware, and to welcome the voice of God, however he may choose to speak to us.