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cookieI love theology, doctrine, the revelations to be found within those pages, the way scripture reveals itself, “precept upon precept, line upon line, here a little and there a little.” Isaiah 28:10.

What I  am not so fond of is academia, religiosity, and a wrong-headed heart. Can a heart be wrong-headed? Well, I have just declared it to be so, so it must be true. Our exegesis can be a work of art, our hermeneutics glorious and yet, “Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.” 1 Corinthians 13:1

Scripture rendered bloodless, loveless, devoid of  life, and often quite hostile towards all the alleged “heretics” of the world, just doesn’t appeal to me. Least anyone think I’m exaggerating the nature of the problem, the Babylon Bee has poked some fun at this very thing.

Internet faith can sometimes be a real bloodsport.

Sadly what always seems to get me into trouble is suggesting that God is love. That can make people very uncomfortable. But it is not as if I just pulled this out of my ear or something,  “He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.” 1 John 4:8.

To cope I like to poke irreverent holes in our ideologies and doctrines, rather shamelessly make fun of our foolishness and theology. Some may well be skilled in apologetics, I happen to be skilled in unapolgetics. Impudent, I know, but my irreverence is not for God or His word, or even for sound doctrine, it is flat-out directed at the arrogance of people.

All in good humor, but by the time I am done here, I shall have created an entire nonsensical theology that is oddly more rooted in scripture and packed with common sense than half the other things I’ve heard and read. And so “panism” becomes the eschatological idea that it will all pan out in the end according to God’s will. “Complimentary marriage” ends the egalitarian/complementary wars forever, because now one simply pours endless compliments over one’s spouse and lives happily ever after. Try it, it really works.

pezEnter the great debate over dispensationalism, ai yi yi. Absolutely no one agrees with my theory of dispenserism, but I refuse to let it go, because I believe it is well rooted in The Word. Dispenserism is when you simply make yourself into a little pez dispenser and take all the love, grace, and mercy God has shown you, and proceed to go forth and dispense it into the world. Dispenserism, you as a little Christ, dispensing the truth of God’s love, however and whenever you can.

I suggest dispenserism is so important, so biblical, that it is hidden right in Luke 7:47, “Wherefore I say unto thee, Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much: but to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little.”

Or, if you prefer, as Paul Mc Cartney once said,  “And, in the end the love you take is equal to the love you make.” (When in doubt always refer to the Beatles. Or Hitler if this were a political discussion, but I digress.)

The point being, those who have fully received the Lord’s grace and love will pour it out upon others with an abundance of dispenserism like a heavenly conduit. And those who do not, well, they obviously need to go drink more deeply from the Father’s well.

One last word about a word, the word “impudent,” my favorite word of all.  “They” think it means rude and disrespectful. Perhaps I am sometimes, but never to God Himself, never irreverant in that way. Those who fear the word “impudent,” I encourage you to embrace it with great enthusiasm. It actually means shameless, impertinant, and bold.  “Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” Hebrews 4:16

Now that’s my kind of faith, an impudent one that boldly proclaims the scandal of the cross, with a healthy dose of impropriety thrown in for good meassure.

 

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