Avoiding Extremes
Posted on June 1, 2007
Filed Under Brandon Renfroe, Christian Growth
by Brandon Renfroe
He never saw it coming.
It was cold, the rain was likely cascading down in sheets, and he had just survived a harrowing experience at sea, culminating in shipwreck and a desperate swim to shore. Though probably near exhaustion, his mind still foggy because of the events of the previous two weeks (cf. Acts 27:33), the apostle Paul managed to think practically, knowing the fire that had been kindled must be kept burning.
Though weary, he gathered a bundle of sticks and added them to a fire that would have to keep himself and his companions warm during the night. Not long after laying the sticks on the fire, suddenly, and without warning, a viper lashed out of the flames and latched onto his hand, refusing to relinquish its deadly grip.
The curious island natives, witnesses to the horrific event, decided among themselves that this unfortunate castaway must be getting his just desserts. “He is a murderer,†they concluded, “and though he survived the seas, fate will not allow him to live†(28:4).
However, these islanders did not know Paul, nor the promise made by the Savior he served, guaranteeing protection from serpents and any deadly things he might encounter (Mk. 16:18). Thus the apostle, with a simple flick of his wrist, shook the viper harmlessly back into the flames.
But the death watch began. The natives weren’t sure how it was going to happen. Would he swell, lingering for days at death’s door, paralyzed by the toxins and forced to silently suffer before finally succumbing? Or would he die suddenly, instantly falling prey to the viper’s potent venom?
After watching Paul “a great while,†waiting for him to show some sign of physical distress but seeing none, the islanders changed their mind. “No,†they declared, “this man is not a murderer—he is a god†(28:6). Quite a significant shift!
Please forgive Paul if he seemed unmoved by their adulation and subsequent attempted deification—it was not the first time such a sudden swing in opinion toward him had occurred. On Melita, the change had been from “bad†to “goodâ€â€”literally, from “bad†to “godâ€!—but Lystra, well, that was a different story.
A few years earlier, the same Paul, together with traveling companion Barnabas, had barely been able to restrain well-meaning onlookers from offering sacrifices to them as though to gods after having healed a crippled man (14:8ff).
Soon after witnessing the miraculous display, the good intentions of those ancient onlookers turned to malevolence. After being persuaded by the jaundiced testimony of Jews from Antioch and Iconium, the same fickle crowd who earlier had been eager to worship the two preachers joined with the enemies of the gospel in stoning Paul, then dragging him out of the city and leaving him for dead.
Yes, Paul had certainly been on both ends of emotional pendulum swings by unstable souls. Having experienced the opposite poles of misguided zeal, he sought to warn others of these potential pratfalls. Perhaps he had these events in mind when he later penned, “That we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting†(Eph. 4:14).
To be sure, the religious world is particularly fertile soil for producing extremes. For instance, there are extremes in salvation. The Catholic Council of Trent declared that good works performed by men merit “the attainment of eternal life.†In a knee-jerk response to this erroneous theology, Protestant reformers fell victim to a pendulum-swing mentality, arguing instead that man is saved by “faith alone.†Both positions, of course, are palpably false.
While it is certainly true that men are not saved by “works done in righteousness, which we did ourselves†(Tit. 3:5), it is also true that man “is justified by works, and not by faith only†(Jas. 2:24). There is no contradiction here. Though works of human merit are completely inefficacious in procuring man’s redemption, works of obedience are absolutely essential (cf. Jn. 6:28-29; Col. 2:12). Salvation by grace does not negate the necessity of obedience on the part of man (cf. Heb. 5:8-9).
There are other extremes in doctrine. Some are guilty of binding where God has not bound (anti-ism). Others loose where God has bound (liberalism). Many, after escaping the clutches of anti-ism, rush headlong into liberalism. Others, in breaking away from liberalism, stumble into anti-ism. Neither is pleasing to God.
In truth, the need to avoid extremes is hardly new. God exhorted Joshua, shortly after the death of Moses: “Only be strong and very courageous, that you may observe to do according to all the law which Moses My servant commanded you; do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may prosper wherever you go (Josh. 1:7). Further, Christ declared that “if the blind leads the blind, both will fall into a ditch†(Mt. 15:14).
The conscientious child of God must be ever vigilant in his efforts to avoid extremes, veering neither to the “right†nor to the “left.†By arming himself with “the sword of the Spirit†(Eph. 6:17) and determining to “handle aright the word of truth,†(2 Tim. 2:15) he will stay squarely, as the late Thomas B. Warren was wont to say, on the “mountaintop of Bible authority.â€
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