There are multiple issues at play here,
but one is that this gentleman’s actions
have introduced noise into the signal.
The message hasn’t changed—it still
has all the power of the gospel (if the
server should happen to read through
the tract). But refusing to tip (perhaps
intended to communicate that Jesus
is more important than money?) is not
communicating the good news. So let’s take a minute and examine the
context of this verse. The reference
is from Isaiah 55:11. The way my
acquaintance was reading it, that verse
tells us that God’s Word (meaning the
Bible) is a magic cure-all. If you quote
a Bible verse, it will work its magic
on your communication partners no
matter what and be understood exactly
as it should be understood.
Anything that corrupts the signal is
noise—for instance, leaving a generous
tip, yet the server spills left-over cola
on the tract; or a printing error that
leaves out the final page. Ironically, this interpretation does not
understand the verse in the way it’s
meant to be understood. In Isaiah 55,
God is talking about making a covenant
with his people. As he says in verse 3,
he has made an agreement with his
people. And God always does what he
says. He’s talking about how he keeps
his promises, not saying that quoting
Bible verses will always be effective in
a supernatural way during evangelistic
conversations.
The Holy Spirit Overcomes the Noise
When we confronted my cheapskate
acquaintance about how his miserly
interaction corrupted the signal that
carried the good news, he said, “The
Word of God does not return void.”
In other words, God will deal with this.
He’ll make the message clear. And, yes,
sure, there’s some person somewhere
who came to Jesus despite a cheap
tipper. The good news with a corrupted
signal is better than no good news at
all. God does what he wants. He can
translate a terrible, corrupted message
and make it clear if he chooses.
On the other hand, this man was using
that particular verse out of context to
say something Scripture does not. I
was taught by well-meaning people in
my faith community to do the same
thing when I was growing up.
“
If we can trust
God to translate the
message, can we not
also trust him to keep
the message pure?”
So while I absolutely believe the Holy
Spirit will gladly pick up the slack when
we communicate the good news, that
particular verse isn’t telling us Bible
verses are magic spells and will always
work if we quote them right.
Okay, Matt, but I don’t treat the Bible like
a spell book! Who does that? you may
be thinking. And my answer would be
Solutions • 45