Passion vs. Obedience

Welcome to the Big Picture podcast. I’m Joel Fieri and this podcast seeks to begin, and hopefully sustain, a conversation about current trends, ideas and issues in the church and greater society. To begin today’s podcast, we’re going to introduce and check out the view from the back pew. You see I’m a bit of a Back Row Baptist. Most of you know of BRB. He’s the shy guy in the back of the church. He sings off key and can’t seem to clap in rhythm and he is really uncomfortable with all the dancing and hand raisings going on. But he’s a good Christian guy, and he sees a lot of things that you hyperactive folks in the front row miss that’s going on behind you. And actually today’s topic concerns what does go on in the front row these days and that is a greater and greater emphasis on passion and emotion, not only in our worship services, but in our personal walks as well.

In many of our sermons and books, and particularly our music, the word passion is ever more prevalent. There’s a Passion for Christ movement that’s gaining popularity today. We’re often told that if we want to serve God and find our calling, we need to find out what we’re passionate about, and so many Christians today are seeking to have a passionate relationship with God. So, I’d like to take a closer look at this trend and see how it lines up with what the Bible tells us.

Now, I do see the Bible saying that we should have a deep love for God, a love that encompasses our hearts, our souls and our minds. But is there a biblical call to passion? Actually, the Bible says very little about passion and when it does, it’s warning us against it. Recently, I did a word search of the Bible for the word passion, and this resulted in only nine verses on passion. And significantly, all nine of these verses put passion in a negative light, warning us against it as a hindrance to God’s control of our lives.

So why is there this movement in the church today towards passion? Well, I think it stems from a number of things. First, it comes out of a very talented, artistic and creative leadership in our churches and ministries. Many churches have pastors of worship and creative expressions. Many authors and musicians who are by nature emotive and expressive people have written books and praise songs that evoke and call for passion. It also mirrors secular society, which is increasingly emotion-driven. We see this in reality TV, for instance. We’re riveted by shows in which real life passions are flying, romantic and emotional. In sports, we see athletes engaged in passionate pursuit of victory, often leading to tears after both victory and defeat. Not to mention the uncontrolled passion in the stands aptly named fans, which of course is short for fanatic.

Lastly, let me say that this is subconsciously aimed at, or even consciously marketed to, the women in our churches, our sisters in Christ. Because let’s face it, even though our evangelical church leadership is still predominantly male, women lead in the activities of our churches, and they set the tone for our worship and our relationships. Any honest pastor today will tell you that the women in his congregation do most of the service and care more deeply about their church. They also buy most of the Christian books and music on the market and they respond to passion. So, the message to Christians today is that to love God and to love Jesus is to be passionate.

Now, I might hear you ask, “Okay, so what’s your point? You said the Bible tells us to have a deep love for God. So what does that mean?” It’s a good question, and to answer it, I turn to the one source we should all turn to, the words of Jesus, specifically Jesus’ answered to that very question. In just one passage from the Gospel of John, Jesus, talking about love, matches the number of times passion is mentioned in the entire Bible and he does it with the concept of obedience, and specifically the following of his commands.

That’s right. In John 14, verse 15 through John 15, verse 17, Jesus tells his disciples nine times that the love him is to obey his commands, and that Jesus’ love for his Heavenly Father is shown by his obedience to the Father’s commands. The Bible has a lot to say about obedience. The same word search I did earlier of the Bible revealed hundreds of references to the words obedience and obey and the phrase “obey my commands.” So the key to our love for God, folks, is obedience.

Another question would be, what do we do with our emotions then? Psalms, Song of Solomon, the prophets, and many other books and Bible characters are very emotional. Jesus himself wept and even lost his temper. That’s very true. I have a somewhat dated but classic illustration to share with you that can help answer this question.

Years ago in college, I was involved in an organization called Campus Crusade for Christ. This group had a little tract called The Four Spiritual Laws, and some of you are no doubt familiar with it. At the end of that booklet was a little diagram called the Fact, Faith and Feeling Train. The train had three parts: the engine, which had the word fact on it; the passenger car, with the word faith; and the caboose, with the word feelings.

Now, the idea was that the facts, the engine, drove the train, leading it to its destination. The passenger car and the caboose follow the engine. The passenger car is where we sit in faith which we put in the objective commands and promises of God. The feelings caboose is at the end of the train, also being pulled along by the engine.

Now, it’s every bit as much part of the train as the engine and passenger car, but it doesn’t drive the train. The caboose is there mainly for the comfort of the crew. So to the question of what to do with emotions, I would answer that we follow the engine with our feelings. Don’t let them drive the train, because they weren’t meant to and they can’t lead us to our destination.

Keep feeling subjected to the promises of God and to what the word of God commands us to do, whether or not we feel like doing so. Let’s put our emotions in their proper place of comforting the crew and enabling it to help the engine complete its work and deliver us to our destination.

And lastly, I would call for us to avoid the words passion and passionate in describing our total love for God. Passion can blind and deafen us to what God, in his still small voice, is often telling us. Let’s keep feelings and emotions subjective to the facts and knowledge of God’s promises and commands, just like Jesus says, as an expression of our love and obedience to him until the time we reach our destination, eternally in his presence. Then, we’ll experience perfect love and fellowship with our Heavenly Father. So that’s today’s word from the Back Row Baptist as he hurries out the back door before he has to hug someone.

Now in closing the podcast, I want to bring you the great cloud of witnesses, the segment of our podcast where we meet and hear the stories of those who have given, and some who are still giving their lives by faith in the promises of God, and of whom the world was and still is not worthy. If you don’t know that reference, please check out Hebrews 11 in your Bible.

Today’s witness is Shahbaz Bhatti, a Pakistani cabinet member. His story goes like this, and I’m reading from the Telegraph on December 23rd, 2012. In 2011, Taliban gunman shot dead Pakistan’s Minorities Minister, Shahbaz Bhatti, an advocate of reform of the country’s blasphemy laws as he left his Islamabad home. Two assassins sprayed the Christian minister’s car with gunfire, striking him at least eight times before scattering pamphlets that described him as a Christian infidel. The leaflets were signed Taliban Al Qaeda Punjab.

Bhatti’s 22-year old niece, Miriam, was the first on the scene. “I rushed out to find his body covered with blood. I said, ‘Uncle, uncle,’ and tried to take his pulse, but he was already dead,” she said at Bhatti’s house, extending a blood stained palm. The sound of wailing women rose from the next room. Dismayed human rights activists said it was another sign of rising intolerance at the hands of violent extremists. “I am sad and upset, but not surprised,” said the veteran campaigner [Tahira 00:09:11] Abdullah outside Bhatti’s house. “These people have a long list of targets and we’re all on it. It’s not a matter of if but when.”

The only Christian in Pakistan’s cabinet, Bhatti had predicted his own death. In a farewell statement recorded four months ago to be broadcasting the event of his death, he spoke of threats from the Taliban and Al Qaeda, but he vowed not to stop speaking for Christians and other minorities. “I will die to defend their rights,” he said on the tape released to the BBC and Al Jazeera. “These threats and these warnings cannot change my opinions and principles. I am living for my community and for suffering people and I will die to defend their rights. I prefer to die for my principles and for justice of my community rather than to compromise. I want to share that I believe in Jesus Christ, who has given his own life for us.”

So today I’d like to add Shahbaz Bhatti to the great cloud of witnesses of whom the world is not worthy. This is Joel Fieri. Thanks for listening. I’d love a few comments. See you next time on the Big Picture podcast. Blessing.