"Let Them Lead Me"

Before we discover the identity of the "them", we need to establish a couple of cogent facts, and then three meanings of this clause.

This comment by David, nine hundred years before Christ, directly infers two significant facts. One is that each of us is "moving"...even if we bodily and physically stop and stand, we continue on our life's unstopable journey. Even if we are asleep in bed in unconscious slumber, we are still unknowingly but continually moving on to a destination. DAvid recognized this. Also inferred is that David wanted a leader. It is as though he was walking in the dark... at least, as it concerned what was a head, and that he could not see ahead.

Three meanings: One, it was a prayer. It parallels an aspect of the so-called Lord's Prayer where Jesus said we should pray, "Lead us not into temptation". Okay, so the opposite is also prayed, "Lead us away from temptation and into wherever You want to go, and whatever You have planned for me." Two, it was a request. This is a continually paramount truth that God forces no person. He leads who will follow. He leads who wants to be led. Three, it was a choice. Knowing David from his writings, I would classify this as a yearning choice; an earnest choice; a hungering choice; yes, a passionate choice.

NOW, what are the "them"? (let them lead me). The Bible being its own best commentary, there are two
identities: (SEE Psalm 43:3 "Oh send out Thy light and Thy truth: let them lead me; let them bring me into Thy holy hill, and to Thy tabernacles".)

Both "light" and "truth" are elements of illumination, of revelation, of uncovering and opening, and David was passionate and direct in his insistance that his God would shine into his mind and heart and soul the ideas, the thinking, the logic and the meanings of HIS ways.

I have no question that God answered David's prayer...that day, and throughout his earthly journey with God...and He does the same today for those hearts who question and hunger and seek Him today!

"The Culture Has Shifted"

So, what's new? "The culture" has shifted in every generation...in fact...within every generation.

It is within the minds and consciences of each succeeding groups, families, clans, etc. to do away with the old, and welcome the new. This is called progress, and a cardinal, universal, clearly spoken rule about progress is "not to stand in its way". Traditional has ever been the enemy of progressive. Wisdom dictates that change is not only inevitable, but wise as it relates to methods, working and living conditions.

But God's laws historically comes heavily against moral and behavioral changes! God's laws were originally given to His people to bear directly upon each generation's codes of morality and ethics, and were clearly purposed to be passed on - and applicable to - each new generation.

But listen to, and read, what was just approved by the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America at its most recent National Assembly: (by Eric Gorski, ASSOCIATED PRESS, August 23, 2009)

" 'We're going to be living in tension and ambiguity for a longer time, partly because the culture has shifted,' said David Steinmetz, a Duke Divinity School professor of Christian history. "The question is whether the mainline church will shift alongside, or if it will decide that the more welcoming attitude toward homosexuality is wrong, he said. "The ELCA - the nation's seventh largest Christian church - reached its conclusion after eight years of study and deliberation. That culminated Friday when the church's national assembly in Minneapolis struck down a policy that required any gay and lesbian clergy to remain celibate."

I would agree that there is "tension" - as seen by David Steinmetz - but I disagree that there is any "ambiguity" in God's Word about the matter!

I instantly concur with The Living Bible's interpretation of Jude 3b - so strongly that I have it written in my King James Bible, and I quote:

"...you should stoutly defend the truth which God gave, once for all, to His people, to keep without change, through the years".

Certainly "the culture has shifted". Every culture "has shifted", but God insists that His followers stand firmly by His commandments however strongly the fierce gales of change blow!

On "The Emerging Church" Movement

Truth does not develop - or emerge - or expand - or multiply - or intensify.
Truth remains always the same!

Neither does it dissipate, or minimize, or weaken, or neutralize, or lessen, or reduce.
It is just what it is and always has been.

It does not get stronger or brighter or greater or higher or more profound or more emphatic.
The power of truth is of itself.

It does not matter what men do with truth, how they treat it, deal with it, define it, judge it, critique it, label it, impoverish it, or emasculate it.
Truth is self-sustaining.

Men can abandon it, deny it, change it, redefine it, contemporize it, degrade it and substitute it...
but it remains changeless and pure.

Truth does not need constant updating, new understanding, greater intepretation and later revelations.
It is the same as Jesus left it to us.

Truth does not need neo-orthodoxy, or higher criticism, or post-modernism, or "Jesus seminarianism" or contemporary theology.
Truth is as changeless as God.

Truth does not need validation or support or underwriting, or assistance or apology or corroboration or explanation.
It stands alone.

Truth cannot be organized or methodized or standardized or departmentalized or relevantized.
It is, and will always be pure and whole.

It does not need to be dramatized or embellished or groomed or cosmetized or aggrandized.
Its beauty is of and in itself.

By W.L. Boone