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Introduction:
Hermeneutics
Derek Poole
Comment
Alan Wilson
From
the Director
David Porter
What
is Hermeneutics?
Brendan W Devitt
The
Bible and the Church
Alwyn Thomson
Hear
the Word of the Lord
David Bruce
Patience:
An attribute of love
Graham Cheesman
The
Bible and Christ
Alwyn Thomson
Understanding
Scripture: Issues of Gender
Fran Porter
The
Bible and the Christian Life
Alwyn Thomson
Take
me to the Theatre
Steve Stockman
Anabaptist
Hermeneutics
Walter Klassen
Reading
the Bible Then and Now
Alwyn Thomson
Cross-Cultural
Communication
Alan Wilson
PATIENCE
An Attribute of Love
When our English Bibles use the word patience, they are usually translating one of the loveliest words in Greek makrothumia. It means patience with people.
The
Case of the Clawless Cat
I once knew a large family with plenty of little children. They had a
big grey cat and it suffered. It was thrown around, it's tail pulled.
It was stepped on and played with in ways cats are not meant to be played
with. Of course, like other cats, it had sharp claws, but it never used
them on the children. That’s makrothumia , not that you can’t hurt, but
you don’t. You are patient with people.
It is a good description of God’s way with men and women. Paul says he was the recipient of God’s ‘unlimited patience’ and so are we. Three Mile an Hour God is a book by Kosuke Koyama. Three miles an hour is the speed of a buffalo cart not a modern car. God is not the God of McDonalds and instant fixes. He is the one who was patient with Moses for forty years in the desert before he used him, and has been patient with me for over forty years so far. In all our sin, imperfection, misunderstanding and lack of faith, we owe a lot to the patience of God.
The
Need for the Clawless Christian
Patience is needed in bucketfulls at the moment by Christians. Why?
The
normal Christian experience is a journey not an arrival
Our churches are full of ‘frozen’ Christians, who have stopped moving
on because they think they have arrived, as if to change one's opinions
or practices is a sin. But only God doesn't change, and for a very good
reason; only his opinions and practices are perfect. You are not there
yet, so journey on. And people are all at different stages in the journey.
Perhaps you are ahead of them. Perhaps you think you are, but you are
mistaken and it is they who are ahead of you. Be patient.
People
do not change quickly
Frustration with other people's sin or error is not bad but is often counter-productive.
We are rarely dealing with something which can be switched on or off like
a light bulb. Opinions are deeply ingrained and supported by a lifetime
in a society or church which has told them, “This is the way it is and
all else is of the devil”. Sins ride into people's lives on the back of
weaknesses that are often psychological and deeply rooted. Time is needed,
so patience is mandatory.
People
need to be loved before they change
Patience is an act of love to sinners before they are perfect. It is an
act of love to people who have got it wrong before they get it all right.
Only the perfect don’t need God's patience and only the perfect don’t
need yours. As Paul says in Ephesians 4, “Be patient, bearing with one
another in love”. This patience of grace is needed equally today for enemies
and brethren.
A three mile an hour peace process is not alien to a three mile an hour God. A loving patience with our brethren who disagree with us is a reflection of the character of the one who made all the colours of the rainbow and rules over a varied and diverse church.
"Be patient as I am patient," says the Lord.
Graham Cheesman - the Principal of Belfast Bible College. His latest book ‘Hyperchoice’ has recently been published by IVP.
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