Congregation Shema Yisrael

“Thinking outside the box is to think differently, unconventionally or from a new perspective. This phrase often refers to novel, creative and smart thinking. This is sometimes called a process of lateral thought. The catchphrase, or cliché, has become widely used in business environments, especially by management consultants and executive coaches, and has spawned a number of advertising slogans.” -From Wikipedia

Generally, we’re told that “thinking outside the box” is a good thing, at least in a business paradigm, and probably in other endeavours, such as art, writing, and so forth. Conversely, people of faith are seen as “inside the box” by our secular counterparts, which isn’t considered desirable. We’re thought of as at least conservative, old-fashioned, bigoted, controlled, and down-right inflexible. People who operate with a secular humanist understanding tend to think of themselves as “outside the box”, progressive, advanced, and having the latest and most correct conceptualization of how the world and everything in it works. In fact, we all live inside a “box” or a conceptual understanding of what reality means, conservatives and progressives alike.

Oddly enough, we people of faith have a difficult time being able to understand the difference between being inside and outside the box, at least in terms of our own box. It would help though, if I more clearly defined my terms.

Think of “the box” as a set of conditions or assumptions by which we operate within the reality of our lives. Inside the box, we expect gravity to always work. We expect the sun to always rise in the east and set in the west. We expect grass (ideally anyway) to be green, and the sky to be blue. Those few examples explain the box in which we all live, no matter who we are, our country, our ethnic background, and so on.

We people of faith, and particularly those of us who have attached ourselves to the God of Abraham, Issac, and Jacob, and who accept Yeshua (Jesus) as Messiah, Lord, and Master, live in a “box” as well. The box is defined by a number of covenants that apply between us and God. Within our box, God is the absolute Creator and Ruler of the universe. He defines our reality and in fact, He created what we think of as reality. When we accepted the existence and the Sovereignty of God, and we voluntarily became members of the covenant, we accepted the rules inside “the box”. We accepted God’s definition of the universe and our role in it.

I know that sounds rather harsh and cold, but it’s necessary to understand things this way to be able to see clearly what comes next. Christians and Messianics have accepted the covenants that I previously described. Jews (religious Jews anyway) have accepted most of those covenants, minus the one that has to do with Yeshua. When you accept those covenants, you agree that God knows better than we do and that His judgments are better than ours, at least when we don’t let our human nature get in the way.

However, we people of faith don’t represent the entire human race. There are plenty of people who have accepted other covenants or who otherwise see themselves in different boxes. Muslims accept the God of Abraham and see Yeshua as a prophet, but the definitions and understandings shift in different directions from ours (Christians/Messianics) inside their particular box. There are other faith groups that operate outside the framework of the Torah/Koran/Bible and thus accept a different set of boxes. Even secular humans, who believe in no supernatural forces, live inside a box that defines their view of reality, and accept the rules of their box. Problems occur when people in one box apply their rules to folks living in a different box.

The rules of the box that says gravity always works apply to everyone, so there’s no argument there. The rules of the box that accept the covenants of God, including the Messianic covenant that accepts Yeshua, on the other hand, have a problem when applied to the people in the “secular human box”.

How can this be, though? God created the whole earth and everything in it. He created everyone in it regardless of the box we choose to inhabit or the framework we accept about reality. God created us all, though none of us was born with a faith. Don’t the rules of “God’s box” apply to all of humanity? Yes and no.

Yes, of course, since God is Sovereign and is the final Judge; His will is applied to everyone and there will be a final reckoning with everyone. “No”, in the sense that we still have a choice as to what we accept as reality.

Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. Earth and sky fled from his presence, and there was no place for them. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books. The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged according to what he had done. Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death. If anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire. -Revelation 20:11-15

This is God’s Sovereignty applied to all humanity at the End of Days. but this isn’t the point of my article. I’m talking about how we, you and I, apply the rules we’ve accepted in our box to those who aren’t inside of our box. That is, we apply (at least sometimes) the rules we accept upon ourselves voluntarily, to those who have not accepted those rules upon themselves voluntarily.

I’ve written a number of articles about judging and judgmentalism in this blog, including the recent Without Love, I am Nothing. The article you’re reading now can be considered an extension of those other writings, but if so, why am I bothering rehashing the same topic ad nauseum? The answer is in our ability to understand who we are or rather, our inability to understand both ourselves and the people around us who aren’t like us. In our zeal for the Torah and our desire to live out the commands of God, we forget that not everyone sees God and God’s Word the same way. Not everyone lives inside our box.

Let’s take an outlandish (literally) example. Say for instance, you had the opportunity to talk to a person from Mars. Never mind that there don’t seem to be indigenous, intelligent people there; let’s just pretend. Let’s say you are in radio contact with a Martian and further, that your radio has a “universal translator” (a la Star Trek) so that you can understand each other’s language effortlessly. Now let’s apply some box rules. You tell the Martian that grass is green. To everyone living on earth in a box where grass exists (and gets enough water), this rule of the box is true. The Martian, hip deep in red rock and sand, but no grass, can’t even figure out what grass is, and maybe not even what “green” is. If you try to apply the green grass rule to the Martian, not only doesn’t the rule apply, but the Martian won’t even understand what the rule’s about.

Here’s another one. Gravity always works. This rule would seem to apply to both you and the Martian, since both Earth and Mars have gravity…until you dig a little deeper and apply the exact intensity, degree, or force of Earth’s gravity. Objects here fall at a certain rate based on the mass of the Earth. Mars has less mass, thus objects fall at a slower rate, and it take less force applied against Martian gravity to go “up”. While the Martian can at least understand this rule, it doesn’t apply in the same way, or at least to the same degree. Just imagine the problems in explaining the rules about “air” and “what is a hot day?”.

Let’s get back down to Earth (literally) now. A Christian/Messianic is talking to a non-Christian/Messianic. They share the same rules of the box that have to do with grass, gravity, air, and what they consider a hot day to be. What happens when the Christian/Messianic tries to apply the “God is Sovereign over your life” rule to the non-Christian/Messianic? Not only will the other person not consider God Sovereign, but will question God’s existence and has a completely different set of rules about humanity’s purpose, relationship to each other, and how everything got started in the first place. Amazingly (to us), the non-believing person even gets insulted and indignant at the suggestion that God is Sovereign over his or her life, and that they “should” obey the rules of the “Christian/Messianic box”. If it’s true that God is Sovereign, why get upset?

They didn’t voluntarily accept our rules and our box. To them, it doesn’t matter that we understand God’s Sovereignty is ultimately true and correct; they didn’t accept the rules of our box. We each voluntarily accepted the conditions of reality when we accepted the reality of God, but we tend to forget, that we didn’t have that understanding before we volunteered. For people raised in a believing home who may have never questioned the faith of the family, this can be a really tough one to swallow. I came to faith in my early 40s, so I can remember living out a significant amount of my adult life as a non-believer. I can recall the specifics of shifting my understanding from one box to another. I can remember what it’s like living inside of and accepting the rules of another box; another framework of understanding.

Assuming the reader of this article is a believer, the reason you need to understand this, is to understand who you’re talking to when you talk to an unbeliever. When you share your faith in Yeshua with someone who doesn’t have that faith, and they rebuke you or insult you. Remember, they are living by the rules of a different box. It’s nothing personal.

Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you. -Matthew 5:11-12

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect. -Matthew 5:43-48

Not only is it nothing personal, but you should be happy when people put you down or insult you for your faith. I know that it’s easier said than done for most people, but that’s one of the rules of our “box”. The reality we accepted when we accepted Yeshua is that we should expect to be insulted, ridiculed, and disbelieved when we share our faith. Anyone can strike back by yelling or hitting when they’re insulted, but it’s exactly how we react when we suffer such things that provides validation that the rules of our box ultimately extend beyond our framework and indeed, make up the very fabric of an objective reality. This is how God uses us to communicate the reality of God to people who don’t believe.

You see, almost anyone in the “secular humanist” box wouldn’t put up with being insulted if you told them that evolution was bogus, or that the existence of such a perfect, life supporting environment as the Earth didn’t occur by random chance. They would fire back that we were idiots and it’s not worth their time to try to convince us of the “reality” of the universe (according to the rules of their box). We, on the other hand, if we’re obeying God, believe that everyone is worth our time, regardless of how they treat us, and that how we react to insults either sanctifies or desecrates the name of God. We sanctify the name of God; treat it as something holy, when we don’t react to insults the way the rules of the world say we should.

We should also understand a few other things:

“Woe to him who quarrels with his Maker,
to him who is but a potsherd among the potsherds on the ground.
Does the clay say to the potter,
‘What are you making?’
Does your work say,
‘He has no hands’?

Woe to him who says to his father,
‘What have you begotten?’
or to his mother,
‘What have you brought to birth?’

“This is what the LORD says—
the Holy One of Israel, and its Maker:
Concerning things to come,
do you question me about my children,
or give me orders about the work of my hands?

It is I who made the earth
and created mankind upon it.
My own hands stretched out the heavens;
I marshaled their starry hosts.
-Isaiah 45:9-12

But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. -2 Corinthians 4:7-9

We “jars of clay” don’t complain back to the potter who molded us. OK, we do. Admit it. At least on one occasion (and maybe more), you’ve complained to God about something. You’ve questioned His Sovereignty. That’s a “no-no”, but you’re not the first. Job did the same thing and God took four or five chapters at the end of the Book of Job to explain to Job (and us) that we don’t get to “talk back” to God.

“Who is this that darkens my counsel
with words without knowledge?
Brace yourself like a man;
I will question you,
and you shall answer me.
“Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?
Tell me, if you understand.
Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know!
Who stretched a measuring line across it?”
-Job 38:1-5

Once we accept Yeshua as Messiah; once we accept God as God, we accept a certain set of conditions on our lives and a particular definition of reality. We also accept that God doesn’t have to make our lives a bed of roses and He probably won’t. We accept that we are to share our faith with as many as will listen, but that not everyone will listen. Further, we accept the reality that people will argue back against us, insult us, and call us names like “bigot”, “stupid”, and “superstitious”. We also understand that we can’t expect unbelievers to behave like believers. We can’t expect someone who didn’t voluntarily enter our box to behave by the rules of our box.

It’s sad for us that we sometimes get wound up when people disagree with our stance on God and all that it means, because it is so unnecessary. Just let us be who God wants us to be and let God be God. We don’t have to be concerned when folks live lifestyles differently than us. They don’t understand. Getting bent out of shape about how people seem so ready to accept something like the Gay marriage issue is more our issue than anyone else’s. Accepting evil as good and good as evil is part of the rules of the “box of the world”. Expecting the world to not act like the world is unrealistic of us, and complaining to God about what He already knows so well won’t change things.

If we really do accept His Sovereign rule over the world and especially over our lives, we’ll obey His commandments and live lives of exception and cleanliness. This is how we communicate that our “box” is not just one context among many, but God’s representation of His objective reality for everyone. All we have to do is behave by the “rules of our box”; the commandments of God. God will take care of the rest. We don’t share our faith in vain.