Tinkerin' with the Goods
Posted by: forthrightmag <forthrightmag@...>
http://www.forthright.net
Going straight to the Cross
Some folks have a full toolbox to tackle what
needs no repairs.
Tinkerin' with the Goods
by A. A. Neale
I'm a tinkerin' old fool. I may not know much
about it, but I'll raise the hood, take apart the
radio, and, even at my advanced age, peek inside
the computer's innards. Maybe it's just plain
curiosity, or maybe a secret desire lurks in the
old ticker to fix the world, but give me a
screwdriver and pliers and stand back, because I'm
at it.
I can't tell if I've saved more money by
tinkerin', but I've enjoyed it. Except when I have
to call the repairman, and he gives me one of
those "I-wish-you-hadn't-messed-with-this" kind of
looks.
Not only do I tinker with my own appliances and
purchases, but at the slightest hint I'll tear
into my neighbor's little item as well. (I have
two that will still talk to me.) I get itchy
fingers when something isn't working just right.
Other people are tinkerers, too. Among them were
the Corinthians. Except they started tinkerin'
with something that wasn't theirs AND that never
needed messing with to start with.
The good old apostle Paul slapped them on the
hand. "For who makes you differ from another? And
what do you have that you did not receive? Now if
you did indeed receive it, why do you boast as if
you had not received it?" (1 Cor. 4:7, NKJV). He
had just told them that they shouldn't tinker with
the Sacred Text, not to "go beyond the things
which are written" (v. 6). Why was that? One
reason was because the gospel wasn't theirs, it
didn't belong to them. They weren't any different
from any other congregation and couldn't boast
that what they had was original with them.
You just don't tinker with what isn't yours,
especially when it doesn't need fixing. Now I'm
still learning that lesson about appliances, but I
hope I figured out that when it comes to the
Perfect Plan the Lord sent down from heaven, we'd
best leave it as is and do things just like he
said to do them.
The Corinthians, to get back to our verse, had
begun to glory in men and their high-falutin
wisdom. And that led, as it always does, to some
bad teaching as well. So they got immorality in
the church, and abuses in the Lord's Supper, and
legal cases in the courts, among other problems.
Before we shake our heads at them, we might take
note that the modern church has done pretty much
the same. We've got some big-name britches writing
and speaking around the country and off in other
countries. They look good, and sound good, and
make us feel real good. Never mind they're not
quite dead center with the gospel. Besides, we
tell ourselves, who's got it 100% right anyway?
So Mr. Paul's words come back to slap our
tinkerin' fingers. Who's gospel is this, anyway?
Mine? Yours? Theirs? Then why have we taken
spiritual screwdrivers to God's purchase to play
at will with a perfect System? In some quarters,
it's the Corinthian church all over again.
Now there are some folk who just refuse to walk
around oogling at Personality Junction. They know
that what they've got isn't theirs to tinker with.
They have figured out that, no matter who we are,
even if we're the great apostle Paul, we're no
more than "servants of Christ and stewards of the
mysteries of God" (verse 1), and that's how
everybody ought to consider us. Another minor
detail: the big requirement for a steward is to
"be found faithful" (verse 2), not to be an
original thinker, or a confounded tinkerer.
Some of those old fools are still around. And I'm
thankful for that.
--
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