I could carry on about a particular time when our crazy pot-smoking upstairs renter threatened to call the police on my sister and me if we didn't stop screaming about whether or not she could watch MTV...
...but really, that is a whole blog post unto itself. I digress...
The point is my parents took their responsibility of guarding our eyes and ears seriously. Thanks be to God. We weren't mature enough to make those decisions. We clearly showed that in our actions many times.
Skip forward about 20 years...
I was recently having a conversation with a wonderfully mature (in age and wisdom) woman at one of my husband's churches. She was discussing how she knew she couldn't handle listening to a preacher from another denomination. This is as close to a quote as I can remember. I quote her because I couldn't have said it any better myself -
"You know, these pastors like your husband say they can sit and listen and hear the good from the bad of someone else. They can tell what is right and what is wrong in a sermon. Me, I just can't do that. I would rather not let that stuff into my brain. God has given us a pastor here, and I choose to listen to him."
What I particularly love about this quote [other than everything] is that she wasn't saying that no good things can come from other preachers. She fully recognizes doctrine is tricky and sometimes mashed up into a jumbled mess. She also recognizes God has brought her to a church where the Law and Gospel is rightly divided and spoken into her ears clearly. Therefore, she has no desire to try to figure it out from someone else.
She is mature enough in her theology to guard her eyes and ears. She knows that even in her lifelong membership in a Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod parish, she is not yet able to decide for herself what is right and what is wrong with someone else's theology. That is some great wisdom given by God.
We are all children. We all need our eyes and ears guarded from incorrect teaching. We need to recognize when we are not able to digest what is coming out of the mouths of those who teach outside of our own faith.
I am not a proponent of ignorance. I believe it is truly important to have a working knowledge of various religions and denominations. The differences do matter, and without some sort of knowledge of those differences, it is impossible to speak knowledgeably about your own. However, if I am reading and hearing more of what is wrong than right, I seriously question when I might just start believing the wrong one or mixing it with the right one. A little leaven leavens the whole lump, ladies.
Guard your theological eyes and ears.
Guard them with even more vengeance than a mother and father guard their child's eyes from MTV.
