Teach the tension

I don’t typically think of tension as a good thing. The stress of life, throbbing headaches, tight shoulders, difficult meetings, and arguments at home are not my favorite experiences. However, I was recently reminded again that tension is quite important as we teach our people the Bible.

I watched my friend and colleague Marty Sweeney skillfully take our summer Bible study group through Romans 2. This is not an easy chapter to teach. In fact, the lion’s share of Romans 1-3:20 leaves us feeling pretty uptight about the plight of humanity.

Think about what Paul does in the opening section of his letter. He skillfully dismantles all claims to human righteousness and justification. He clearly affirms the justice of God’s wrath against sinful humanity. The root of our sin is exposed as we “supress the truth” and fail “to acknowledge God” (1:18, 28). The evidence of this corrupted nature is seen through God’s present judgement in giving us “up to dishonourable passions” and “a debased mind”, which takes a variety of sinful shapes and sizes (1:26, 28). For the self-righteous and religious among us, Paul says:

Therefore you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgement on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things. (Rom 2:1)

In short, we’re hopeless: Jew and Gentile, American and Australian, self-serving and self-righteous. This is not a message that will be met with red carpets and bold headlines in our culture. Aren’t people really good at heart? Aren’t we all born as God’s children? Not according to Paul. Not according to the Scriptures.

What then do we do with this tension? The temptation, at least for me, is to get rid of it as quickly as possible. But as my friend Marty reminded me, it’s okay to let this biblical tension fill the room. It’s okay if our people feel the weight of their plight. It’s okay and even helpful to not move away from the tension of the human condition too quickly. Let it build. Let it settle. After all, how can we come to understand, appreciate, and savour the remedy that God provides us in Jesus Christ until we fully know the incredible depth of our problem?

So teach the tension. Allow the shape of the text to build this tension and don’t move away from it too quickly. This applies whether you’re taking the pulpit this weekend or reading Judges with a friend over coffee. And on the downside of the tension, rejoice with great fervour that Romans 3:21-26 is just around the corner:

But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it—the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

Photo credit: Guian Bolisay