I read a sad social media interchange between a church leader and the people responding to something he posted. The comment he made appeared flippant and out of tune with God’s heart. I assume it is a comment he now regrets making, maybe not in content but in his method of presentation. We all say and do things from time to time we wish we had another chance to process in a different fashion. The subject addressed in the social media interchange is one that has a very painful and personal to a large percentage of our culture. It also has a deeper understanding and meaning than a casual and assumptive surface read can reveal. 

When I finished reading the comments relating to the leader’s post, I saw a large knot being loosened. It was the knot of theological assumption tied over the valley where I live. It could also exist where you live. It is a knot that keeps people living in fear because it exercises control, not grace.

The knot I saw was not loosening because people were becoming more liberal in their interpretation of God’s Word. It was loosening because people are learning about God’s heart and that is affecting how they read and interpret His Word, a reading without the filter of an outside and separate controlling presence telling them what to believe.  When the Spirit is leading people in the interpretation of Scripture the deeper truth on challenging subjects is revealed.  

We are in a time similar to when Gutenberg used his famous printing press to print the first Bibles. Social media has changed the landscape of our culture and in some cases, the Church. No longer is the pulpit located in a building. Each believer is now a mobile pulpit of sorts, each with a valued opinion. 

In the year 1450, Gutenberg began to print sections of Scripture. It is no surprise when Luther tacked his 95 Theses to the door of the church in Wittenberg in the year 1517 that one of the driving forces behind the Protestant Reformation was the increasing availability of Scripture to the masses. This also happened when Jesus walked the Earth. The Word became flesh and walked among the people without the controlling presence of the religious leaders of the day dictating what people could believe.  

The knot of assumption is loosening. It is actually being untied and turned into a rope of rescue used to pull people up from the depths of narrow and misguided interpretations of Scripture and the heart of God. God is untying the knot of assumption and He is offering a rope of grace to pull His people higher. Grab the rope!