Waiting

But you, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life. (Jude 1:20-21)

In the verse before this one, Jude reminds his readers that "In the last time there will be scoffers, following their own ungodly passions. It is these who cause divisions, worldly people, devoid of the Spirit."

I imagine I'm not the first person in 2,000 years of reading this verse to think, "He's describing our current time!" But still, I think it.

There are so many doctrines out there, and each doctrine has its refuters and naysayers. You have "traditional Christianity" and "progressive Christianity." You have "white Evangelicals" and ... well, people who didn't vote for Trump. You have your atheists and your agnostics and your "spiritual but not religious" and your feminist theologians and your Black Liberation Theologians and your "nones." You have your Unitarian Universalists and your Mormons, and you have people who swear that those people aren't true Christians, and you have people who point the finger right back at the accusers and can say, with some justification, "No, YOU'RE not the true Christians!"

And if you skim the comments of any NPR story related to Christianity, you'll find the scoffers and mockers on full display.

Turn on the news--any channel, whether MSNBC, CNN, or FOX--and the mockers and scoffers abound there, too. Heck, I've been able to find them at church, and among my Christian friends on social media.

And yes, it is these who cause divisions, to a great degree.

It can be very disorienting. I want to follow Christ, and yet there are those who would say that the Christ I'm following is the white Christ, or the European Christ, or something other than the real Christ. If I point to the Christ of the Bible, there are many who would find me naive for trusting that the Bible is actually God's word as spoken through his inspired mouthpieces at particular places and times.

Still, the Bible is what I have, what we all have. And I do believe that it is the inspired Word of God.

Anh and I have started a year-long journey of studying the Bible chronologically. For my last read-through, I occasionally looked things up, but I read it more to get a sense of the big picture. This time around, I'm digging in. I want to learn who Christ is, who God is. And I want to know for sure that I'm not just following my own ungodly passions, putting too much stock in the world, picking and choosing what best supports my political views. No, I want my political views--and my social views, and my everything-else views--to find their foundation in the Bible.

In the meantime, I am doing my best to build myself up in the "most holy faith," "pray in the Holy Spirit," and remain "in the love of God," "waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life."

Come, Lord Jesus.

From my first time reading through the Bible: I read for the overall story, but not much else.