"Illusions................................."

Last night’s midweek Bible study took us into the first half of Romans, chapter two, with a short reference back to the previous class. While no one “went to war” over perspectives, it was evident that one lady, my age, simply saw the world divided into two categories, lost or saved, the one thing separating the sheep from the goats being a confession of Christ, therein requiring no further discussion concerning human nature, God’s grace, and just how the two coexisted in the journey we all walked. Just like Monopoly, all one needs is the right card, one that reads “Go to Heaven. Go directly to Heaven. Do not pass judgment. Do not collect that which you deserve.” There’s a small paperback in my collection written by a guy named Shelley and entitled “What Is the Church?” It’s the best thing I’ve ever read on such topic, one segment of it opening with a scene set in the original “Alice in Wonderland” where the heroine and the pompous caterpillar are having a conversation. When he speaks of “glory”, she asks him to define such term; and he gets rather inflated, as if insulted by her audacity, declaring that whatever word he uses, whenever he chooses to use it, means exactly what he intends it to mean at the time. Nothing less! Nothing more! This, indeed, at least as far as my own digestion of the class suggested to me, way the very subject we were addressing: tunnel vision; being unable to see any farther than the doctrinal dogma we have cemented into our individual confession of faith. I wonder if there’s any significance to the fact that any great physical structure must be built with a “give” allowance, an ability to sustain outward force by being a bit “elastic” in its material design. Truth may well be “black and white”; but His mercy covers a lot of area in any direction one might be from center……