Biblically, you are hard-pressed to find theological ideas divorced from their relational context. There are, essentially, three dominant metaphors describing our relationship with God: sheep to a shepherd, child to a father, and bride to a bridegroom. The idea of Christ’s disciples being His mother and father and brothers and sisters is also presented. In fact, few places in Scripture speak to the Christian conversion experience through any method other than relational metaphor.
Contrasting this idea, I recently heard a man, while explaining how a person could convert to Christianity, say the experience was not unlike deciding to sit in a chair. He said that while a person can have faith that a chair will hold him, it is not until he sits in the chair that he has acted on his faith.
I wondered as I heard this if the chair was a kind of a symbol for Jesus, and how irritated Jesus might be if a lot of people kept trying to sit on Him.
And then I wondered at how Jesus could say He was a Shepherd and we were sheep, and that the Father in heaven was our Father and we were His children, and that He Himself was a Bridegroom and we were His bride, and that He was a King and we were His subjects, and yet we somehow missed His meaning and thought becoming a Christian was like sitting in a chair.
This passage was an excerpt from Searching for God Knows What.
I do get your point as to how shallow it seems to compare faith to sitting in a chair. I do. This concept of faith is not an easy one to put into a quick and simple metaphor — and when we try, I think, as this speaker did, we miss the point and cheapen it. All of the relational pictures used in the Bible show the nuance and complexitites of faith. When people push for simple answers, we do need to be prepared to dialogue on these things. But we (I!) also must resist the urge to give simple answers that dummy down the complexities.
To be fair, the chair illustration was more than that. It was about trusting in God enough to let Him carry you across a canyon while on a tightrope. Yeah, it’s silly in some way, but the point is about trust, not sitting. And trust is an essential part of a relationship, no?
Yes.
Gotta love them silly unsophisticated people.
May we never lose the simplicity that is in Christ. It is simple. The complexity is found in our immaturity and we all are still growing, but we should not compare our complexities to God’s simplicity because it is simple, we complicate things.
I’m also not saying there isn’t benefit in know the complexities associated with our humanity, but we should know the difference between that and God who is Simply Divine.
Yes. Yes. and Yes. We’ve taken that chair word picture WAY too far in the youth world. Thanks Don. Say hey to Sowers for me. (old friend)
last time i checked their isnt even a youth world im 18 im considered “youth” but frankly i happen to live in the world just like an 80 year old might. Im kind of sick of people thinking they have to teach the word to youth in a different way or just treating us like we are different in general because of our age nobody wants your sales pitch on jesus people we want the truth just like you… and i know the chair metaphor is a bit overused but at the same time its just a metaphor and metaphors arent perfect examples having faith is improtant and sitting in a chair you must have “faith” that it will hold you up just like when accepting god and his plans for you you must have faith that he will keep you up in hard times and situations… not trying to be condescending on your comment it was good i just wanted to point those two tings out
I think maybe the guy who was saying the chair thing had a different point in mind. Sort of like Kierkegaard’s leap of faith analogy. You can look at the chair and assent to it’s “holding people up” properties in an objective way. But faith is risk and action. When you sit in the chair, you are experiencing subjectively the qualities or abilities of the chair. I don’t think it takes away from the relationship we have with God. I think it strengthens it because it calls us to real trust. It’s Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego going into the fire.
Ditto!
I am a big fan of using biblical images. I’m not sure any comparison we try to come up with will do as good of a job as the pictures Jesus gives to us. He is just cool like that.
I agree too that pastors tend to dumb down the relationship between man and God to a good prop or the most recent movie clip that can be taken out of context to work for the message they’ve planned. This bothers me. We are encouraged to take a childlike mindset to Christ (not a dumb downed mindset, a childlike one.) He doesn’t have to be complicated, at least not for the relational level. Just as a child crawls into his/her father’s lap for comfort, love, and acceptance with no real thought as to why they are doing it so should we as children of Christ curl up his his lap and just take refuge in him. I find the chair metaphor particularly sweet in this context…Sheep to shepherd, bride to bridegroom, father to child…each find comfort in the embrace of their beloved–knowing that they are sturdy and reliable.
I like this thought. The biblical metaphor’s really do capture the sense of loving obedience God gives to us as we follow him. You can sit on a chair without loving it. It’s funny how people feel less inclined to use the metaphors God gave to us to understand the relationship He wants with us for some other simple idea and miss the fact that HE GAVE us these metaphors. However I know myself that I have, at times, treated God more like a chair than a Father or a King.
I’m taking a class right now at my church. We’re studying Ephesians and reading Watchman Nee’s Sit Walk Stand. We’re talking about this exact thing.
I will “undumb” what was simplified with the chair “metaphor” even though I believe, despite our need to satisfy our intellect, that we are only capable of handling so much (hence the need for metaphor in the first place) and that Jesus did in fact simply things to that degree as a gift to us.
The fact of the matter is this: sitting, as in a chair, is being a part of a kingdom. A kingdom, of course, has a king. So works the metaphor in our mind.
The instructor of the class started it all out by allowing us to reflect on Day 7. Meaning, the sabbath day God allotted for himself and later commanded of us. The point the instructor made with Day 7 is that before God sent Adam to do anything with God’s marvelous creation, God wanted a day for the entire entity of creation to reflect upon what had been done. He wanted Adam to know both who he was and who God was. To remind him that it was God who spent 5 days creating the earth before Adam was even alive, and that Adam had no part in it.
(Of course if you continue to read the bible all the way to the end, you understand that God wanted to use this time to show Adam who his father king and shepherd were, but that the father the king and the shepherd also wanted to make Adam all those things too as a gift…a gift of connection in my opinion.)
If you think about it from the context of the whole bible and the disaster in Genesis three, the whole day of rest, was to really immerse Adam intp who his father was, who his shepherd was, who his King was.
After we talked about Genesis for a bit, the instructor took from Nee’s book a little. He told us to close our eyes, and pay close attention to the chair we were sitting in. How much of our weight it was bearing, and, totally dependent on it, how we had no part in supporting ourselves at this given moment. The chair was doing everything for us. We were completely reliant and rested upon the chair.
Then we opened Ephesians. And we highlighted all of Christ’s attributes presented to us as a gift. Let me explain.
Ephesians 1:3 “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.”
From there Paul goes on and on and on about a lot of stuff but what you can do with what he is saying is you can start to highlight some of the “blessings” he is basically spelling out in his words. Things like being “chosen” “adopted” “predestined.” Things presented to us like “wisdom” “understanding” and so on and so forth.
Basically it spells out our (royal)family identity in Christ.
Ephesians 1 ends like this:
“I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.”
Then Ephesians 2 begins like this (among other things):
“And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus,…:
Notice it says seated. And not “prepared a place for us to be seated.”
That means, currently, from a Kingdom perspected, we are seated….
…with our King.
Like right now. Not later. But…right now.
Maybe it’s not a “predominant” metaphor. But it sure is one heck of a metaphor if I do say so myself.
the chair ain’t that bad. I don’t think jesus would have a cow.
It’s hard to get teenagers to relate to a sheep. Most have never seen one.
Let’s quit being preacher critics. Most people that are sharing the gospel are doing their best and God uses them even when others think that their metaphors are lame or unsophisticated.
And be careful when you put down something by using phrases like “Youth World.” God is doing some amazing things their as well.
Amen.
I don’t know if he realizes how insulting some of his posts can be to some of us systematically wired thinkers. I feel like he’s often judging me for how God wired me and saying he is better than me because he is wired differently, but I choose to give him the benefit of the doubt and leaning towards he meaning well.
And I will say that I feel I have a wonderful, beautiful, intimate relationship with the Lord and it is nothing I can personally boast about. I just share my heart with him, my life, because he told me he loves that, or I should say He let me feel how much He loves it.
I thought the chair analogy was great and I can see myself using it now that I am aware of it. It really hightlights how our Lord keeps us and our part of taking that leap of faith. Sure we should see the Lord as a Shepherd too and a Lover and a Father. For me the chair analogy doesn’t take away from that but accents it, but that’s me.
Well, not looking to tell you how to write bro, just sharing how it comes across from this end and for me I constantly feel judged and compared by you, but I love you in the Lord anyway and will continue to pray.
the chair analogy would probably also work better for my austic diagnosed relative too.
Last but by far not least, I have had some incredible, revealing, God moments with all my systematic thinking. No kidding. Incredible moments. The point is not on a system, but who one is trusting in. Are we leaning on ourselves or are we leaning on our Lord Jesus as we ask our Heavenly Father for help in growing and understanding?
there are lots of metaphores in scripture that describe the converstion our relationship w/ God etc but the one in the blog seems overly simple..after all we can see the Chair…and based on our experience by looking at the chair we can make a informed decision that the chair will hold us….so our confidence is more based on experience. With God our relationship is so much based on believing in the many mysteries of the Christian faith so I am not so sure the chair is a adequate analogy to our faith…but for some people this is what they need to help them on their journey to the more mysterious aspects of our faith
I heard that used a LONG time ago. Like when I was 12 and I will be 50 tomorrow. It was used in the context of trying to get one to see what “faith” was. And they said that it was as simple as sitting in a chair….you just know the chair will hold you but some how you knew that before you sat down…they called that “faith” and said that in the same way you take that same ‘just knowing’ to trust that Jesus is the Son of God and wants to have a personal relationship with you. I am not sure if I explained that well or not…just trying to recollect how I had heard it used at a youth service.
Sitting in a chair is a metaphor for faith, not for following Jesus. I think it’s a good one for faith, though. Helpful in explaining James 2, but not helpful is explaining what a relationship with Christ means. My favorite metaphor: sheep to a Shepherd. He knows our name, He’s numbered his flock, He leads us to green pastures, He watches over us at night. All we need to do is respond to His call.
With you, Don. I tend to mashup the King-Father metaphors and think about John-John Kennedy playing under Daddy President’s desk. You know that his Daddy plans to teach him everything he can about being a great leader, so John-John can take his turn. But he’s also going to let him play around his feet while Daddy’s about the business of leading.
Jesus did say that when we pray, the first thing out of our mouth should be “Our Father.” I love that! Its easy for a guy like me. To me, it means the primary way we should see Him, is as a Father. Even the Holy Spirit inside us says “Abba Father” or daddy too. So cool. Often times when I hear other christians speak, they see Him as king, or ruler or super exalted one etc.. Of course, He still is those things, and the next words in Jesus prayer was “Holy be your name.” But, it makes you wonder a little when people see Him as so far off and separated from them in their prayers and it makes me ache for them a little inside. Maybe people who grew up in church lean this way a bit more, not sure. When it comes down to it, I should run to him like a child, and expect from Him the way my children expect from me. And I am not even a good dad, so even more me of Him. I will leave the bride, bridegroom for another day:) That one is just beautiful.
I’ll say I was a preacher’s kid because dad passed away November past, WE had become close friends after many previous years of “battling” over my frustration with “legalist” Christianity. You know, believe in the historical Jesus and then in the Jesus of a christian belief system, resulting in….just really, really, really believe, then believe in the bible, obey what God says and serve Jesus more and more. This way you become increasingly like Jesus and and can take comfort in your Christlikedness as an affirmation of your relationship to Him because it is working (evidenced by the fruit).
I came to the end of myself through this formula and was lead into relationship with The Word become flesh (as opposed to the bible) and The Truth (as opposed to being focused on getting it all right).
I love that you are speaking about relationship and it is helpful to be reminded of the 3 you reference. Could I respectfully suggest a 4th that has been very meaningful and helpful in my journey, namely that of Jesus as my friend (and of course in consideration of the inseperability of the 3 in 1) relationship with all “3″. It is just that Jesus is the most easy to relate to because He became fully human and went through all I go through and goes through it all with me now.
I won’t go on into all the qualities of friendship I enjoy with Him and I remain in awe of God, but I also hope you get what I mean when I say that I’m so thankful that sometimes part of the “reality of the frienship” is that He is just my trustworthy, loving “buddy”….
Well, I think I’d have to agree with the reference to a chair and faith. The clearest comment I’ve heard is, to paraphrase Daniel Barrigen, faith is where our ass sits! Can’t mince those words!
My theology professor was talking about God metaphors once and how most of them just fall short. He went to explain one he heard comparing God to a cherry pie but he forgot the actual metaphor. In his frustration he exclaimed “God is not a cherry pie, okay?” That will forever be one of my most favorite quotes.
Bahahaha. This one cracks me up. Love it!
Boiling down the gospel into 5 points is another annoyance. Oh – and tracts. Bridges. etc. ugh. Black and white thinking doesn’t work with relationships. Try using that type of logic with a wife or parent. It often creates division instead of love. Which, come to think of it – is a reflection of a lot of churches. hmmm…
Jer
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You know i really like this post… i think that “converting” as you might call it is a bit of both the biggest thing being that we gain a relationship with christ then also trusting in him that he will “hold us up” like a chair it is a relationship and with a healthy relationship comes trust right… so yeah this post is awesome but I think the metaphor works from a faith outlook at the same time i think we need more than what some people refer to as faith we also need a relationship and one that comes with trust that God will do what is best right…
Don,
Thanks for being so real in your blog and taking stances on things you feel are important.
We Christians have become all too used to “making everyone happy” and forget to take a stand or we fear the repercussion of potential conflict that could come from our action.
I didn’t hear the guy’s talk so I can only express an opinion based on this post. I think the speaker is talking about how to act on a revelation. We can know Christ exists, but we only believe when we act on the revelation by inviting Him into our lives as Lord and Saviour. I think he is talking about how to act on a principle once it is understood, so that it becomes a reality in your life.
[...] Miller on christian faith as a relationship: “There are, essentially, three dominant metaphors describing our relationship with God: [...]
I actually think that by saying Jesus is a chair that person is talking about stability and support. We have to have faith the He will always be there and that He will not let us fall. We have to have faith that once we sit down(commit to Jesus) we will be safe and not fall to the ground. This person actually has a great point because I never thought about this. I think Jesus wants us to understand Him in the way that best makes sense to us and then once we are saved He will explain Himself in better detail.