He Chose the Wise to Confound Fools
Rev Paul Kahn was a man given to fits of anger. He walked briskly to his office and shut the door, gritted his teeth and inhaled deeply. His father, Steiner Khan had taken him through this homemade course in anger management and it had helped him cope with many stressful situations.
He picked up a copy of the current edition of ‘Christianity Today’, the newsletter of his church, Christ the Redeemer Ministries and leafed through the pages. A story in the centre page caught his attention. It was a testimony by a woman from the Stuttgart branch of the Apostolic Faith church. She said the Lord cured her son of leprosy in response to the prayer of a godly neighbour.
Paul smiled. He remembered the look on Bishop Hegel’s face when he was given the woman’s testimony along with others for preview before the publication went to the press. Without batting an eyelid, Hegel said, “I am uncomfortable with testimonies that do not have the stamp of this ministry. God holds me accountable for every item included in the newsletter.” In order not to curt his displeasure, the editor, Alexander Berliner agreed to drop the ‘offensive’ story.
Oh well, Paul said to himself, Maybe God overruled the Bishop this time around and found a place for the beautiful and inspiring story of the Stuttgart saint.
He glanced through other articles in the newsletter before putting a call across to his wife. She was his confidant, especially on the subject of Dr Bishop Hegel. When the call entered voice mail, he remembered that his wife said she would be visiting her parents from the office. He dropped the cell phone in its pouch and settled down to take stock of some things agitating his mind. A knock on the door signalled the end of his reverie. He felt irritated. He wished whoever was at the door would go away. He was still too angry to want to socialize with anyone except his wife.
Reluctantly, he opened the door and was glad that it was the Youth Pastor, Louis Goldberg. His guest shared his sentiments on a number of issues in the church. He brightened up and held open the door for his visitor. “Hi Louis, thought you left the compound after the meeting. Have a seat”.
The moment Paul shut the door, Louis blurted out, “What’s with the old man? I am tired of putting up with his tantrums and autocratic ways. If it was not for my father’s relationship with him, I would have left this compound today for good. Why should the man be riding roughshod on everybody in the name of exercising spiritual authority? Honestly…”
Paul looked his friend straight in the eye and said, “I subscribe to the popular dictum that two wrongs do not make a right. I came into this ministry on my own accord regardless of the fact that my dad was one of the foundation members. I could walk away right now if I am sure the Lord would sanction my action. Your situation is not half as bad as mine. How many times has the Bishop called you a rebel? That seems to be his pet name for me nowadays. How have I earned that title? Just because I call his attention to some unscriptural decisions, he has taken in recent times.
Take for instance his refusal to ordain Emmaus Klaus into the ministry. Why should the Bishop prevent that young from fulfilling his ambition to serve the Lord in full time capacity just because he lacks a college degree? Do you know what the Bishop said when I pointed out to him that most of the early Apostles were illiterates? He retorted, “Jesus operated in an environment totally different from ours. What would an illiterate pastor do for my ministry? Can he penetrate the enlightened society? Such a fellow would be plagued with inferiority complex. He cannot function in the high office of a pastor.”
I was too stupefied to respond to what I felt was an insult on the person of the Holy Spirit who should validate a person’s calling as minister in the church of Christ. I kept my mouth shut at the meeting today because I have already taken up the matter with him and did not relish having my nose bloodied by a ‘Bishop’.
Let me share something with you. Last year while my wife and I were at the youth camp at Nurnberg, I shared with her a dream I believed was from God. In it, I saw myself feeding from a pig pen. I was too hungry to care about the maggot infested refuse that littered the pen. When I woke up, I was too horrified to share the dream with Sophie. This was about 3:20 a.m.
Later that day, about 8:00 a.m., my wife casually said, “Christianity is in crisis.” Not knowing where she was coming from, I held my peace. Then she said, “The kind of things some people preach these days look more like pig food. They are infected with maggots of lies!” I was stunned. It could not be a coincidence. It was then I told her about the dream. Since we did not have a clue as to why I was eating from the pigpen, we decided to take the matter to God in prayer.
Three days later, a girl at the camp visited us. She said the Lord laid it on her heart to share something with me. The summary of what she said was that the ministry had deviated from the course ordained by God. We were more committed to projects that fanned our ego than leading people to Christ the Saviour.
Naturally, I shared everything, including my dream with the Bishop when he visited the camp the next day. I was taken aback by his reaction. He looked me straight in the eye and said, “When did you give your life to Christ that you should be the one to receive a message from God for my ministry? If you are tired of functioning in the office of an Associate Pastor, feel free to move on to another church where your ‘great’ gifts would be appreciated. I don’t have time to waste listening to your contrived visions and dreams.”
With that, he stormed out of my room, leaving me perplexed about his state of mind. I quickly sent for my wife who was at a counselling session with some youths to fill her in on the development. I was deeply troubled because this man was my mentor. I sat under him and drank from his well. Was he a channel of the pollution represented by the pig pen? Was the Lord pointing at another source of defilement or was I part of the filth?
I was still mulling over my fate when I heard a knock on the door. Instinctively, I knew it was not my wife because she had the spare key to the chalet. I literally dragged myself from the couch to open the door. It was Emmaus Klaus. He had a Bible under his arm and a big grin on his face. I almost turned him back but his pleasant disposition disarmed me.
Still clutching the Bible, he followed me into the sitting room and sat on a side stool close to the couch. Without any preamble, he said, “Pastor, God is not through with you yet. His ways are too marvelous for us to comprehend them without insight from the Holy Spirit. You are not the problem of the church of Christ. God desires to use you as a vessel to set captives free in this ministry. Sir, He is not asking you to throw in the towel, although that would have been the most sensible thing to do under the circumstance. God gives us the cross tailor-made for us. Yours is to remain under the Bishop and yield yourself to the Holy Spirit to breadth life into the dead womb of this ministry. That’s the message I was instructed to relay to you Sir.”
As if in a trance, I watched the young man open the door and leave, still clutching his Bible. I was not happy with the message at all. It was more like a death sentence to me. I was not keen on staying under the authority of the Bishop anymore. Here was God literally tying my hands and feet to keep me under the influence of a man I realized was no longer interested in serving the Lord Jesus Christ.
The burden was so much that I broke down and wept. I was still on the floor attending my one-man pity party when my wife returned. She took one look at me and walked straight into the bedroom without uttering a word. I was ashamed that I had allowed emotion to control me. I quickly got myself together and joined her in the bedroom. I told her about the word from Klaus and entreated her to pray for me because I knew I could only remain under the authority of the Bishop by God’s special grace. What baffles me is why the Bishop endorsed his admission into the Bible School in the first place.”
Louis, now in control of his emotions, said wryly, “I guess he wanted to underscore the strength of his authority. Frankly speaking, I think it is unfair to deny Klaus the opportunity to fulfil his dream. I don’t know what I would have done if I was in his shoes, but I admire the spirit of the young man. He has remained his cheerful self despite the obvious injustice. I asked him if he was thinking of moving to another ministry and he looked askance. He said he was convinced that God led him to this church for a purpose and he would remain here even if the church leadership tasked him to perform the most menial task. Interacting with people like that gives me the courage to continue in this Christian journey. Sometimes I feel our generation is cursed with mediocrity- a generation that boasts of all the gifts of the Spirit but is the most corrupt in terms of morals…”
Paul cut in and said, “Talking of morals, you need to know what some ministers think of the subject. Last week, I had an occasion to compare notes with a banker friend, who doubles as a Pastor at the Apostolic Assembly. What he said captured the bent of ‘modernized Christianity.’ He was of the opinion that the gospel Jesus preached did not have morals as its focus. He said the emphasis on morals has taken the zap out of Christianity and made it rather boring.
When I pointed out that atonement for sin paved way for man’s deliverance from all forms of corruption including moral depravity, he retorted that man does not have to be born again to be morally upright. He went ahead to say that some sages like Matma Gandhi attained spiritual purity despite the fact that they were not Disciples of Christ. Anyway, everyman is entitled to his opinion. Now back to the issue of Kraus’ disqualification, we could have enlisted the help of senior ministers in other churches to wade into the matter but…”
Louis looked at his friend and shook his head. He balanced the elbow of his right hand on a nearby table and said, “It would have made sense to approach the problem from that angle if other Bishops held opposing views on the matter. Which of the churches in Stuttgart would ordain members with educational deficiency into the ministry? To be candid, I was pleasantly surprised when our Bishop endorsed the admission of Kraus into the Bible School. My grouse is that he should have gone the whole hog since the boy scaled through the rigorous training.
The way we are going, we may one day update the entire Bible to accommodate our nuances. Were there no religious scholars in Jesus’ day when the Holy Spirit chose anglers and the like? Indeed, our generation celebrates mind power over spiritual discernment. Paul said God chose the foolish things of this world to confound the wise. Not so with us. We look out for the theologians of this world. The fad is the acquisition of Doctorate degrees. The church is coming of age! Very soon, attaining the status of a Professor of theology would be the new craze.”
Paul doubled with laughter and poked his friend by the side. He said, “I will make do with ‘Dr’ when my seniors drop that for Prof Bishop or is it Bishop Prof? Jokes apart, we need to repent of our whoredom. Jesus said a servant could not be greater than the master could. We have proven him wrong in our own generation because men who claim to be his servants now despise his word and spurn his Holy Spirit. We have become too wise for the God of the Bible. As you said earlier, we just might come up with another version of the Bible that would give leverage to the thriving humanism and ungodliness in the church.”
He checked his watch and exclaimed, “Old boy, Sophie will skin me alive. I promised to pick up the kids at school by 3:00pm. It is now 4:15.” His friend gave him a playful push and said, “You know God designed us to serve Him and his pets-women. Why do you think Eve got off lightly with just labour pains despite the fact that she was the one who actually enjoyed the apple? With pretended outrage, Paul said, “Are you insinuating that old Adam was coerced by Madam Eve to break God’s heart? He ate the apple period and he got his just desert. I could have said served him right except that his action gave Lucifer the license to corrupt the human race.”
Both men were almost at the door when Paul remembered that he left the key to the office at the sideboard of the gents. His friend waited for him and they left the office together, each with his thoughts.