“But why?”
“Because you should read something real for once.”
“What do you mean? This is real. Are you saying I’m reading the wrong thing?”
Tyler sat up in bed, his hair rumpled, the book Black Hawk Down held between his fingers, his eyes defensive. “It’s . . . it’s history. You’re all into history, aren’t you? You talk about it all the time.”
His brother Jared grinned and raised an eyebrow. “Some history, yes. But I don’t just indiscriminately read anything that has happened in the past and call it history.”
“Well, you wouldn’t put this in the same category as Harold and his Louis L’Amour books, would you?” Tyler asked.
Jared sat up slowly and tucked a marker into his own book and closed it, running a hand over the cover. “I wouldn’t put it exactly in the same category, but I have to wonder if it doesn’t come to about the same thing once it’s inside your head.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, Louis L’Amour books are fiction, and so all that shooting and tough-man posturing is made up sheerly for people’s pleasure. Black Hawk Down is about something that really happened, so it has some value because it is a retelling of actual events. Still, I don’t know that its effects are all that different. In both cases, the solution to the problem is killing bad guys, isn’t it?”
“Well, I don’t know about that . . . I mean, these men just wanted to bring their buddies home. It wasn’t like they loved killing people.”
“Sure, okay,” Jared nodded. “But what about you? When you’re reading either Louis L’Amour or one of those military action books, don’t you find yourself rooting for the good guys and hoping they’ll beat the bad guys? Even kill them?”
“Yeah . . . I guess,” Tyler said. “But . . . they’re bad guys. Somebody has to deal with them.”
“You?”
“No. No, of course not.”
“You’ll just enjoy following along, watching over their shoulder when the good guys, who incidentally are U.S. Special Forces, do it?”
“I . . . I guess I just don’t think it’s that big of a deal.”
“So, if you were a Christian living in Rome in the first century, would you go to the Colosseum to watch condemned people be killed by lions? They were considered bad too, you know.”
“No . . . but . . . look, I think you’re making too big a deal about this. I really don’t think it matters all that much. It’s just . . . just a book, okay? Just a book. I think you should just lay off.” Tyler shook his head and ran a hand through his hair, then flopped back onto his bed, his back to Jared, opening his book again, his toe knocking a Magpul AR-15 gun magazine to clatter from the nightstand to the floor.
*****
“So, what are you reading?”
Samuel looked up at his dad standing in the doorway and held up his book. A man in an expensive business suit filled the book’s cover, his tanned face wearing a confident smile.
“It’s a leadership book my business small group recommended to me. They said it’s really good. He teaches how to use Christlike leadership to grow your business or organization.”
“Oh . . . really?” Dad took another step into the room and seated himself on the corner of the coffee table. “Sounds interesting. Tell me about it.”
“Well, he believes there are certain leadership principles that span time and culture. Rules that, if we follow, will make us into wise leaders who can build businesses and organizations that have reach and influence. Things that will allow them to make an impact on God’s kingdom.”
“Oh . . . and what about Jesus?”
“He says that Jesus, as the perfect man, is the perfect example of human leadership. If we analyze His life, we can find these principles. Principles that if we follow, we can build and expand our influence for His kingdom.”
“Hmm . . .” Dad nodded, “expand the kingdom, you say?”
“That’s right,” Samuel nodded. “It’s a really good book. He says that with these principles we can build organizations that have the power and resources needed to bring the kingdom of God to the world.” Samuel looked up, his face eager. “It’s like . . . like a formula that if we follow, we can acquire the influence we need to properly steward His kingdom here on earth.”
Dad looked thoughtful. “Can I see it?”
“Uh . . . sure.” Samuel handed it over.
Dad flipped quickly through the book, stopping at the glossy photo section in the middle.
The man on the cover stood with the same broad smile before a large brick building with white pillars, a late-model luxury car parked before the doors.
The photo caption read:
We rejoice in opening the XWY Ministries headquarters in Washington D.C. This location will allow us to have better access to the Christian politicians on Capitol Hill and allow us to fulfill our ministry of “holding up the hands that hang down” and of bearing one another’s burdens as the scripture commands us.
He flipped another page.
The same man with the same smile stood beaming before a blue glass high-rise.
The caption said:
We bless the provision of the Lord, who has allowed us to open this center in New York City. New York, as the world center of commerce, is a key hub for us to spread God’s influence among those with the resources to fund the kingdom.
He flipped another page.
The same familiar smile stood on a set of steps, a high pillared building behind him. The tanned man with the smile was shaking hands with a man in a long black robe. The caption read:
By ministering to the spiritual needs of the Christians on our Supreme Court, we extend Jesus’ influence to key decision-makers who will promote the interests of Christ’s church in the world today.
Flipping a couple more pages, he saw the recurring theme and finally lowered the book to his knees. As he did, a flyer slipped from between the pages onto the scuffed floor.
Both men looked down at the flyer, at the photo on its front page. A man with greasepaint on his face was emerging from some sort of mud pit. His sweat-soaked T-shirt stuck to his muscled chest and arms.
“What’s that?” Dad’s voice was shocked.
“Oh . . . that. It’s just . . . just a . . . a teaching program. He,” Samuel nodded toward the book, “he recommends joining some sort of leadership training group. You know, because . . . because it’s easier to learn the right leadership principles with support and . . . and mentorship to help you along.”
Dad leaned forward and lifted the flyer slowly, opening it with a pained look on his face.
Inside a group of men wearing matching T-shirts sat around a fire while a leader, also in a matching T-shirt and with three days of beard growth, held an open Bible in his hand.
Across the page, a photo showed a small group of men running up a mountain trail, their faces set with strain and determination as their muscular legs powered them up the trail.
“You . . . you are actually looking into . . . this?”
“Well, not all of it. I wouldn’t do all that. I was just thinking, they have a good leadership study course, and some of us young men are talking about ordering it and going through it in our small group study. It’s . . . it’s based on the Bible,” he finished quickly. “I think it will be really helpful. We talked it over, and we feel that, while they are not Anabaptists, we could learn a lot.”
“I see,” Dad said slowly, looking from the book with its broadly grinning ministry leader shaking hands with the judge, to the men running up the trail, to the men around the campfire, his eyes pausing to rest on the Glock handgun peeking from beneath the T-shirt on the group leader’s side.
“Yes . . .” he said slowly, “. . . I see.”
****
“But . . . but it’s the perfect home-based business.” She stood, her face defensive, looking up at her husband. “I thought you believed in home-based businesses.”
Able stood between the wood stove and the table, slowly turning over the flyer in his hand. “But . . . but, this?” he said, his voice low, his forehead wrinkled. “I thought . . . thought when you got into this that you just wanted to buy a few of their products. Your mom said they had some good salve and thought it would help with Michael’s skin rash. But . . . but somehow this is going way beyond that now. What happened?”
“Well . . . that is how it started.” She paused and bit her lip. “But . . . then I saw there was a business opportunity and thought maybe we should try it. I mean, we’re already a member, and anyway Joleen says she takes home an extra $1,200 a month. And she says she’s just getting started.”
“Joleen,” he said slowly, the vision of Joleen with her made-up face and bobbed hair floating in front of his face. I remember Joleen when she was still a cute little first grader in an Amish dress and covering, he thought. He winced again and shook his head.
“Anyway, I was reading about it,” she continued, “and . . . and thought maybe it’s something we should do.”
“Reading about it?” he said slowly. “Reading what? That’s not all in this flyer.”
“Just . . . just this.” She held up a thin book, its glossy cover reflecting the tabletop.
He stepped slowly over and took the book, flipping through the glossy pages. A group of women in short dresses stood around a sleek new car.
“What’s this?” he asked.
“Oh that. It’s just . . . the best sellers, the ones with the most sales on their downlines, will get a new car at the end of the year. Of course, we wouldn’t be interested in that,” she laughed, but her voice sounded hollow even to her.
“I just thought we could, you know, make a little money so we could do a few things. Maybe go on a vacation, that sort of thing. Also, they have a great teaching program, and it’s based on the Bible.”
He nodded and flipped a few pages, stopping on a page with a woman in a tailored business suit pointing a laser pointer at a huge whiteboard on which was written, Five principles from Proverbs 31 for the modern businesswoman.
He swallowed hard, staring from the made-up face to the business principles, from the high heels to the open Bible on the lectern.
****
Every day our minds change. I doubt we could keep it still if we wanted to. Every day, it is shaped by the information we feed it. The information enters, becomes part of it, changes it.
We have some control over how the information changes it but not complete control. To some degree, like the human body, the mind simply becomes what we feed it. Feed it good things and it becomes better. Feed it trash, it becomes trashy. Its very desires and leanings are often a direct or indirect result of the things we fed it today, yesterday, last week. It’s like a bank account or even a cedar chest. We put things in, we take them out. We put them in, we take them out. And someday it starts to become more and more obvious that the things we are taking out look an awful lot like the things we put in. And it becomes harder and harder to take out the things we should be taking out, but we didn’t put in.
A great many things sound good, sort of, until we subject them to a quick test. There are leadership training courses that claim to be built on Christ-centered principles but ignore the most fundamental of all truths. Jesus didn’t claim organizational growth was the answer. He didn’t hold forth on the seven principles of servant leadership.
Instead, He lived a deeply sacrificial life and asked others to do the same. Most would not. Most still will not.
They wouldn’t follow Him. No, but . . . a few did. And we are told it will always be that way. Most want to rise on the org chart or stride confidently to the podium. They don’t want to be alone, rejected. They don’t want to stumble up the hill of Golgotha with a cross.
They don’t want to, and neither do I, but it is the way to have the mind of Christ.
“Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man. For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ.” 1 Corinthians 2:12-16
