[The present article is from The Challenge,
News of The Baptist Missionary Association Theological Seminary, Fall 2012]
"Your theology is not what you
say it is when your circumstances are comfortable. Rather, it is what you
demonstrate it to be when your circumstances seem unbearable: when you
experience excruciating, interminable pain; when things seem unfair—when you realize
your personal hopes and dreams will never be realized. Your thoughts, and
indeed your actions in those moments, are your theology.
Your theology is what you think
and do: when you get the diagnosis; when you get the call from the ER chaplain
informing you that your loved one is there; when you realize that the threats
against you are not merely perceived, but are actual; when you understand that
you are trapped in a miserable, dead-end job because you have to support your
family—those moments reveal to you, and to others, what your theology actually
is.
My summer project for 2012 was
to finish a Hebrew-based Ecclesiastes commentary I have worked on for several
years. Having previously completed the translation and exegetical work, and
incorporated relevant notes from my apologetics, counseling, and Hebrew
language courses, the project looked set. To polish things off, I preached
expositorily through the book on Sunday evenings for a year and then taught
Exposition of Ecclesiastes for BMATS in the spring semester. In God's
providence, however, instead of writing on Ecclesiastes over the summer, I
ended up living Ecclesiastes.
On Monday, June 4, the day
after preaching from John 9 and explaining physical evil with illustrations
including automobile accidents, I was in a near fatal car crash. My injuries
included a broken neck, fractured skull, two severely broken arms—one requiring
skin grafts, etc. In an instant, instead of writing out my theology of
suffering, I was given an opportunity to live out my theology.
The glory of Christ was
manifested by His obedience to the suffering and ignominy bound up in His
substitutionary death on the cross. Following His example, and that of His
servants, the whole life of the Christian, but especially the minister, is to
be a spectacle of the grace of God triumphing over evil in all its varied
forms. In this way, as he obediently follows Christ in his own suffering, the
Christian minister becomes a living object lesson for both the world and the
church of what it looks like for the redeemed to transcend suffering animated
by the Gospel, motivated by hope, and empowered by the Spirit.
With this understanding, the
Christian’s suffering becomes the most dynamic avenue for him to magnify Christ
and the hope of the Gospel. It is important to note here that the hope
Scripture offers sees pain and suffering realistically. We are not taught to
view suffering through rose colored glasses; pain, suffering, and evil are real
and terrible consequences of the Fall. We are taught, however, that
these experiences are neither accidental nor meaningless. God has given us many
magnificent promises and guarantees that He will work all things together for
good to those who love Him and are called according to His purposes, and that
He has an ultimately good plan for suffering and evil known at least to Him. As
important as preaching and teaching are, there is something more important,
more dynamic to which we must give attention—faithful living, especially in
suffering. No sermon, lecture, or book will be as powerful, convincing or
Christ-honoring as this."
--R. Brian Rickett, September, 2012
