Proclaimer Blog
Can we see without special effects?
The same issue of Leadership I mentioned yesterday also contains an interesting article by John Ortberg. He is arguing that we do not need special effects to see Christ. Amen to that. But I'm not quite with him. See what you make of his conclusion:
Clearly in the Bible, spiritual leaders found ways to get people to pay attention. The prophets would use such props as plumb lines and cisterns. They would set a record for most days spent lying on one side. They would bury and dig up undergarments. They would marry women with shady reputations. Their lives often looked like something between performance art and reality TV.
Jesus himself was both a riveting teacher as well a prophet and a worker of miracles. But it's striking that Jesus and the other apostles would sometimes refuse to do miracles. They didn't depend on them for the essence of their message. It seems like celestial special effects have limited impact….. The danger of special effects is that we begin to demand them and to demand more and more spectacular ones. Our attention can be arrested by deeply dramatic moments. But our character cannot be reformed by dramatic moments alone. That demands a longer, slower, less glamorous process.
On the whole, I agree with his thrust. But I don't think it's quite the whole picture. True, occasionally the prophets did use 'props' – but he has outlined above pretty much every prop in all the many chapters of the prophets. Most of the time they spoke and it was always enough. The props might have illustrated the message but they didn't give it power. True, Jesus was a riveting teacher and miracle worker. But there was power in his words, not just interesting stuff. His voice called people to follow him and they dropped everything. His words spoke to demons and they were gone. Similarly in the preaching of the apostles there was power.
Longer? Slower? Less glamorous? Perhaps. But just as powerful. More powerful. Because what drama ever raised the dead? What prop brought power to a prophet's message?
Preach the word, in season and out.