(Thoughts for teachers, parents & preachers)
The tired parent looked at the shining eyes of their child as another “why” question rolled off the lips. The unsuspecting parent glibly muttered a reply unaware that she had also communicated a whole host of messages, most of them extremely powerful and “invisible.”
The visible message is the literal answer, that is, the content of what is being stated, but it is not the only message we send. Whenever people give an “answer,” they often also communicate a “path” on how they arrived at that answer. That path is what I am calling the “invisible” message and it is extremely powerful. It is more powerful than the visible answer, because it often teaches a method on how to understand, how to live and how to solve other problems.
Consider these examples:
1) It was just another typical Sunday morning sermon. The preacher had a number of humorous antidotes that made the congregation laugh. Although he never read a single verse of scripture, he started with some commonly accepted ideas and then carefully weaved his way through a series of illustrations that “proved” his point. When he had finished, his conclusion was “right.” So everyone went home happy.
However, many in the congregation heard the invisible message clearly. What they learned was that we discover what is true and how to live by starting with what we think is right and then using “common sense” and experiences as guidance. Although that preacher might never arrive at the “wrong answers” because he already knows the right answers, the methodology he is teaching could very easily lead the next generation to live and worship erroneously.
2) It is every parents nightmare. A child grew up in a society constantly hearing that premarital sex was not good because it could lead to negative consequences reducing someone's personal comfort. The almost invisible message was heard clearly. Right and wrong are determined by what “works well for you” and the goal is “personal comfort.” Perhaps even the parents’ predominately made their decisions based on personal comfort, not moral and faithfulness to the scriptures. Being a good student of pragmatism, the young adult later used this defense, “love is beautiful, how can love be wrong? God wouldn’t condemn something so beautiful! He made it!”
What should have been ingrained within the family setting is that God determines what is right and wrong. When God prohibits something as being wrong it is for our own well-being. In this case, God condemns pre-martial sex as immoral behavior. And therefore if you really love someone you don’t want to bring that person under God’s condemnation by immorally living with them.
3) The Bible class went something like this, after a text was read, for the rest of the period everyone shared “what I think it means.” Different people heard a bunch of different invisible messages. Some heard “nobody really knows what this means.” Others understood, “the proper method of interpreting scripture is for everybody to read and comment - even if one doesn’t have a clue about what the rest of scripture says or how this fits into a greater context.” The more educated listeners heard an affirmation of pragmatism, namely “what counts is your own path of self-discovery - regardless of what the original author was actually communicating.”
How you respond and the path you use to arrive at the “answer” can be more powerful than any specific answer. Why? Because that path can be used in many different circumstances as a guide for living.
Paul focused the evangelist Timothy on “the how” when he wrote, “all scripture is inspired of God and is valuable for teaching, refuting error, correcting faults and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.” 2 Timothy 3:16-17 True doctrine is a statement of “what is.” The path toward living well is to base our decision making upon reality, and not “what seems to work” or “what I want.”
Barry Newton, Copyright © 1998
Other articles which may be of interest:
Whose Message Is That?An Initial Foray Into Hermeneutics