100% Right! ... but only partly. An article by Pete Greig

Published: July 29th, 2008

Is it a snake? Is it a spear?
Erm - no, it is actually an elephant.

There’s an old, Persian parable about a group of blind men gathered around an elephant, trying to work out what it is. You probably know the story: The man touching the elephant’s trunk assumes it’s a giant snake. The one with the tusk says ‘No, this beast is strong and sharp like a spear.’ The elephant’s side gets likened to a vast wall, its leg suggests an animal shaped like a tree, and the man with the tail envisages a creature as course and thin as rope. Each one is 100% right. But only partly.

I’ve been thinking about this story recently, specifically with regard to all the hype, heat and careless words surrounding the revival reports from Lakeland, Florida, but also more broadly with regard to the bigger question of how we recognise the coming of Christ’s Kingdom in answer to prayer.

What does it look like when, at last, Jesus comes to town?

We all think we know the answer to that fundamental question, but then we default to such different presumptions! For some of us, the primary signs of the Kingdom are mighty miracles of healing and demonic deliverance, for others they are social transformation and care for the poor. Some of us consider conversions and baptisms the primary manifestations of Christ’s reign, while others scan the horizon for signs of jubilee and liberation from oppressive structures.

We don’t like to admit that our different perspectives and expectations of God are determined more by our limited context and personality-type, than they are by Biblical reality. In the greater scheme of things, each one of us only gets to hold one peculiar part of the elephant. The fact that you might (for instance) think Bono is the business, or Shane Claibourne is radical, or Henri Nouwen is deep, or Todd Bentley is God’s man of power for the hour, or John Stott is solid but stolid, or the pope is (or isn’t) the anti-Christ, probably says far more about you, than it does about any of them.

For each of us, the experiences we equate with God’s authentic presence vary. For some it is preaching which moves us higher. For some it is power. For some it is peace. We live our lives hunting for these life-giving encounters, like hungry beasts, presuming that everyone is pursuing the same prey in life’s complex ecosystem.

Finding God in our midst, it’s much too easy for every group to adopt the moral high-ground from which to look down on others, whilst forensically excavating their imperfections. But all Christian traditions – not just our own - have a legitimate biblical hermeneutic, they have remarkable heroes and they have their own social markers (eg dress or language that make us feel safe or threatened). Whenever there is renewal in a particular tradition, those who resonate with the distinctive values of that tradition rally to the renewal, while those who recognise other expressions of God’s presence can feel ambivalent, confused or rejected.

Understanding that our position and preference is not absolute – that each one of us grasps only one part of the elephant - will help us hold our convictions humbly, but also with confidence; knowing that our insights and convictions matter.

The Parable of the elephant, which originated in Persia, concludes with the blind men in disagreement – a classically Eastern paradox. But a Christian worldview might invite those blind men into conversation. Together they would compose a surprisingly accurate (and much greater) perception of the elephant in its entirety. The discovery of God comes through the Emmaus revelations of humble conversation, far more often than through otherworldly withdrawal into mystical isolation. That’s just one of the reasons we talk so much about community in the 24-7 movement. We find ‘the hope of glory’ not just by shutting our eyes and raising our hands, but also, especially, by opening our eyes wide and embracing one another. (Col. 1:27)

In Paul’s great hymn to Christian unity, he urges us to ‘keep the unity of the Spirit by being completely humble and gentle…patient….bearing with one another in love.’(Eph 4:2) All it takes for Christ’s great prayer for Christian unity to be fulfilled in our generation, is a little more humility, gentleness and patience towards those with different passions and revelations. We can do this by vowing to speak positively instead of critically about those who make us feel uncomfortable. We can do it by praying, not just for our enemies, but also for our brothers and sisters in Christ who have a different spin on things. We can do it by learning to recognise and worship Jesus in many disguises.

Do you ever think it would be better for everyone if God just cloned all Christians to think the same? (By which we mean, like me and my friends!) Why such diversity? Paul differentiates between the different graces apportioned differently to each one of us (v7) ‘so that (in needing one another) the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.’

Christ is bigger than any one perspective or set of prejudices, just as that elephant was bigger than any one of those blind men could comprehend alone. No matter how beautiful and moving we find God’s particular revelation in our own lives and churches, he wants to blow our little minds by giving us eyes to see that His hand is equally at work on a hundred different canvases simultaneously. All different in style. All beautiful. All disturbing. All profound. When we move away from a single perspective and begin to move around the entire gallery of God’s world, admiring the breathtaking scope of his artistry, a surprising thing happens. We begin to grow!

As Paul puts it: “Then we will no longer be infants tossed back and forth by the waves and blown here and there by every wind of teaching.’ (v11-14). I meet so many people who have grown weary of the ‘faith fads’ which seem to lurch from one location, or personality, or revelation, to the next, year after year. But the answer, says Paul, is not to be cynical about ‘the latest thing’, but rather to celebrate Jesus fully in every season, for he is ‘through, and over and in all things’ (v6). He is 100% in the latest revival. But only partly so.

If you’re watching Todd Bentley on God TV and thinking ‘This feels like home, it’s just what we’ve been praying for,’ you’re 100% right! But only partly.

If you’re reading Bono’s latest interview about AIDS and Africa and thinking ‘This is what the Kingdom of God is all about’, you’re 100% right. But only partly.

If you’re thinking about a friend whose life has been turned around by Jesus, or weeping as you read Henri Nouwen’s ‘Wounded Healer’, or listening to Keith Green, or even watching the pope in Australia apologising for the church’s sins; if you’re doing any of these things and thinking ‘Here at last I see Jesus’ then remember the blind men grasping the elephant.

You’re 100% right.

But only partly.

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