There is a little old woman living in southeast Asia who is known to her fellow church members simply as “Grandmother.” The religion of southeast Asia is primarily non-Christian featuring a belief in evil spirits and reincarnation. Grandmother had been converted from just such a background. She had studied the Bible for an extended period of time and satisfied her teachers that she knew and agreed with all the fundamental Christian beliefs before she was baptized and became a respected church member.
Grandmother looked like a model Christian. That old woman attended church regularly. She always placed money in the mission offering. In addition, she could be counted on to listen attentively to her worship leaders at church rather than taking a refreshing nap. If you looked in her weekly Bible study lessons used in church, you would see that all the blanks were filled in, and she had looked up every verse in her Bible. In fact, her Bible was filled with underlined verses from her intense study.
A few years ago, the associate director of the Center for East Asian Religions for Grandmother’s denomination visited the church that she attended in Southeast Asia. The director was taking a trip through the region speaking with various converts to Christianity in order to promote missions. The associate director wanted to interview Grandmother to ask her why she had left her non-Christian religion to become a Christian.
Grandmother started out the interview by telling the tragic story of losing her parents in a motorcycle accident when she was only five years old. And if being an orphan were not bad enough, Grandmother had suffered years of harassment by evil spirits. Grandmother had repeatedly gone to doctors and spiritual mediums for help, but the medicine they gave her had only offered temporary relief.
Years passed, and then one day, a Christian pastor moved in next door to Grandmother. She watched his house curiously one Friday evening as person after person entered the pastor’s house. She walked closer and stood right outside his gate to discover what was happening. From her vantage point, she heard music drifting out from inside the pastor’s residence. She continued to listen from the street week after week because for some reason that music filled her with peace. The pastor soon noticed her standing by his gate listening so intently, so he went outside and attempted to persuade her to join the worship service, but he never succeeded. However, he was able to speak with her a little each time. When he learned of her spirit problems, he offered to pray for her, and Grandmother agreed. As a result of his prayers, a miracle happened, and the evil spirits left Grandmother alone for the first time in years. The peace that she experienced was not temporary like when she had taken medicine to be relieved of the harassment. Those horrible tormentors were gone permanently. Grandmother was filled with gratitude to the pastor and to Jesus who had freed her from the evil spirits. She accepted Jesus as her Savior and after completing Bible studies, she became a faithful member of the pastor’s church.
For the next part of the interview, the associate director asked Grandmother to explain what Jesus meant to her. Speaking through an interpreter, Grandmother praised God saying that Jesus meant everything to her. Jesus had healed her and given her peace. She declared that she could not help but speak about Jesus to everyone she met. That is when Grandmother said something that shocked the associate director and the interpreter. Grandmother explained that she knew that she did not have much longer to live since she was such an old woman. However, because of her love for Jesus, she had decided to be a Christian in her next life also! The missionary interpreter translating for the associate director was stunned. The interpreter had been the teacher who studied the Bible with Grandmother and had thought that Grandmother had left behind all her old beliefs and pagan ideas, yet Grandmother still believed in reincarnation even after all her Bible study.
Grandmother’s story can teach us quite a few lessons that we can apply to our own experience. When I first read this story, I was confused. I wondered if Grandmother had been lying when she said that she loved Jesus totally. Secondly, I wanted to know why the interpreter had never realized that Grandmother still believed in reincarnation. Next, I asked how it was possible for Grandmother to believe and study the Bible and still have beliefs that were totally wrong. Finally, I thought about how the interpreter should deal with Grandmother’s mistaken ideas. These are some important questions that any student of the scriptures should consider.
To put Grandmother’s modern-day situation into perspective, we should first look at the scriptures for applicable verses. Interestingly, there is a Biblical example of something similar that happened to Paul: “Now at Lystra there was a man sitting who could not use his feet. He was crippled from birth and had never walked. He listened to Paul speaking. And Paul, looking intently at him and seeing that he had faith to be made well, said in a loud voice, “Stand upright on your feet.” And he sprang up and began walking. And when the crowds saw what Paul had done, they lifted up their voices, saying in Lycaonian, “The gods have come down to us in the likeness of men!” Barnabas they called Zeus, and Paul, Hermes, because he was the chief speaker. And the priest of Zeus, whose temple was at the entrance to the city, brought oxen and garlands to the gates and wanted to offer sacrifice with the crowds. But when the apostles Barnabas and Paul heard of it, they tore their garments and rushed out into the crowd, crying out, “Men, why are you doing these things? We also are men, of like nature with you, and we bring you good news, that you should turn from these vain things to a living God, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in them. In past generations he allowed all the nations to walk in their own ways. Yet he did not leave himself without witness, for he did good by giving you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness.” Even with these words they scarcely restrained the people from offering sacrifice to them” (Acts 14:8-18). Whenever I read these verses, I want to laugh because I have experienced a lot of cross-cultural misunderstandings in my life, but Paul’s miscommunication was a great deal larger than anything I have ever experienced. Paul thought that he was preaching the clear simple message of Jesus to the pagan group with no confusing ideas mixed in, but the people interpreted the situation much differently. They thought that Paul was the spokesperson for many gods and Barnabas was the king of those gods. Paul saw a healing from Yahweh, but because of their backgrounds, the people saw representatives of their own superstitious beliefs. In other words, this passage teaches us that the environment that a person was raised in can interfere with his or her understanding of God’s message. From this Biblical example, we can learn a valuable lesson about the necessity of being aware of others’ backgrounds and ideas as we interact with them.
Now, it is time to consider my questions about Grandmother. The first question asked whether it was possible for someone to love Jesus totally and yet still believe in false doctrines. Obviously, Grandmother’s story demonstrates that they can. My own experience has also been the same. I have found long-time Bible-reading Christians who love Jesus while still holding on to some strange, definitely non-Biblical ideas. As we interact with people, we need to be aware of the fact that we cannot trust other humans to be our only source for Biblical truths. We need to search the Bible for ourselves rather than to take another person’s word on truth or falsehood.
The next question asked how the person who led Grandmother through Bible studies could be ignorant of Grandmother’s continuing belief in reincarnation. This is an important question as we interact with others and try to teach them truths from the Bible. I believe that there are two possible reasons for this lack of knowledge
The first possible reason for why the leaders of Grandmother’s church did not know that she still believed in reincarnation is that the church members were using confusing church talk that Grandmother did not understand completely. Christians have a tendency to speak in code phrases like being redeemed and being good Samaritans. This phenomena is true of every specialized group. They have their own vocabulary and traditions that can seem mystifying to an outsider. One of my personal experiences helps to illustrate how using specialized terms can interfere with comprehension. Many years ago, I used to complain to my Palestinian husband that whenever we visited with his friends, they all spoke Arabic and nobody translated for me, so I did not understand any of the conversation. I lectured him that they should speak English when I was with him so that I could understand. Then one day, I stopped grumbling because of a situation I experienced. My husband and I and three of his Arab friends who happened to be in his engineering program were all eating in a restaurant together. We were sitting around a table talking. They were speaking English, and I was totally frustrated. Why? Because I still could not understand their conversation! They were speaking in English, but they were using specialized vocabulary that dealt with electrical engineering.
Christians can be just as incomprehensible when they are speaking. What comes to your mind if I say the word Redeemer? How about God’s wrath, being moved by the Spirit, and Adonai? These are wonderful words that help us understand God better and have great depths of meaning and beauty, but we need to realize that when we use them around people who are not totally familiar with the terms, others may just be hearing “blah-blah-blah” coming out of our mouths. Think about your own experiences. What do you do when someone is talking to you and expecting you to understand, and you do not want to show your ignorance? Smile and nod, of course, so that you do not reveal your lack of knowledge. We need to be careful when we are teaching others that we do not use “churchy” language which they cannot understand. We also need to look beyond smiles and nods to check for true comprehension. Another aspect of this problem is that sometimes our definition of a word and another person’s definition might be completely different. “Wrath” is just such a word. We need to be aware that a listener may have a different idea in mind than we do.
The second possible reason for why Grandmother’s Bible teacher did not know that Grandmother still believed in reincarnation may have been that the teacher was so busy speaking that she did not listen. This is a problem that teachers like me have to be constantly aware of. We have a tendency to think that just because we have said something, it means that the other person has retained that information. Unfortunately, that is not usually true.
One of my teaching experiences helps me to keep this lack of comprehension in mind. I once had a student named Rosa who taught me an important lesson. One day in class I said, “Yesterday we learned about ______________, so today we are going to study ______________.” Rosa responded quickly. “You may have taught it yesterday, but I didn’t learn it.” Unfortunately, most of the people we talk to about Jesus are not like Rosa. They will not tell us when they do not grasp the topics that we are discussing. This is the reason that we need to be listeners more than talkers. When you are speaking with someone about the Bible, stop jabbering away every so often and ask them what they think. Then, really listen to them and ask them questions that will get them to explain their thoughts to you. This accomplishes two objectives. You can check on their understanding, and just as importantly, you can show that you care about their thoughts.
This leads me to my third question: How could Grandmother believe the Bible and still have ideas that were totally opposite of the Bible she loved? We might laugh about Grandmother and the believers at Lyconia and think that this is just a problem for converts from other religions, but the truth is many of us have beliefs and superstitions that we have either retained from our past life before knowing Jesus, or we have later picked up from the world around us without realizing it. This is true even when we have been walking with God for a long time.
What beliefs do we have that we do not even recognize as interfering with our understanding of the Bible? Unfortunately, it is easier to pick out other people’s misconceptions than our own. However, if you humbly and prayerfully ask God to show your problem areas to you, I am sure He will. At least, He frequently reveals my false ideas to me (and boy, do I have a lot)! I have learned that I have a weakness for believing in predestination, even when I have learned better. I always need to be careful as I study the scriptures to make sure that this propensity that I picked up from my culture somewhere does not intrude into my comprehension of the verses that I am reading.
What are some other examples of beliefs that many Christians retain even though they study the Bible diligently? Some people are superstitious about the Bible and look at it as if it were magic. They think having a cross around their neck will protect them from evil and holding a physical Bible up will somehow repel the evil that threatens them. They do not understand that it is God’s word in our hearts that transforms and protects us, not a bundle of paper. This belief can also affect their interpretation of the words of the Bible. A good example of this problem is the idea of a mustard seed of faith. For many Christians, faith is a mystical element in a healing incantation rather than simply being our trust in God. If a healing does not work, they are sure that they did not stir in enough magical faith to power the mighty work. Thus, miracles become dependent on squeezing out more faith rather than abiding in Jesus.
Other people have picked up the idea that some privileged people are elevated to the rank of perfect saints who can do and say no wrong. These Christians revere the prophets of the Bible as sinless beings who are one step below the angels. They ignore the examples of Jonah and Elijah. Because of their misconceptions, they hero worship preachers and other religious leaders and overlook their own evils because they have not reached that rarified state yet. These are just a few examples to illustrate my point, which is that we need to examine ourselves to see if we are believing in false ideas.
My final question was to ask how the interpreter should have responded to Grandmother’s false beliefs. In other words, what if someone you know in your church has a false belief? What should you do? Fortunately, God has already taught us about this problem in the Bible. Paul answered that question many years ago in a letter of advice to Timothy. “Have nothing to do with foolish, ignorant controversies; you know that they breed quarrels. And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will” (2 Timothy 2:23-26). Paul was giving advice about people who were set on a sinful course, but this advice is just as valuable when we are dealing with someone who is simply misguided. First of all, we need to avoid controversies and quarrels. If the matter is not important, do not even open it up for discussion. On the other hand, if the matter interferes with a true understanding of God and His word, we need to always use kindness and gentleness when correcting others.
The story of Grandmother helps us to remember that people can love Jesus and still have false beliefs. It teaches us to be aware of the words we voice, and that other people might not understand what we mean when speak of Jesus and lessons from the Bible. Finally, we need to be aware that at some level, we are all Grandmothers. We all see the kingdom of heaven through a glass darkly, as Paul says. We all have misconceptions. We need to humbly learn from each other, and gently correct each other so that we can build one another up. After all, we have a far greater hope than Grandmother. Her goal was to come back in another life here on this sinful world as a member of a Christian denomination. We plan to live together with Jesus on the new earth where there will be no more sin. Let’s gently help each other to reach that hope.