Matthew 22:29 - The Word of God & The Power of God

Rarely has a single verse of the Bible stayed with me for so long, and been so instructive to me over time as has this one recently:

Jesus replied, "You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God." (Matthew 22:29)

2 things to think about:

1. Jesus identified doctrinal error. A spade was, and is, a spade, and "gentle Jesus, meek & mild" wielded his to unearth falsehood. From the Greek text of Matthew, it can be deduced that the error of the Sadducees here was not so much caused by not knowing the Scriptures or the power of God, as it was this lack of knowledge itself that was the error. Not knowing the Word or the Power of God will not just lead us into error: this itself is the most signifcant of errors we can make.

Our particular issues will be different from the Sadducees', but whatever questions we bring to Jesus, we are also liable to be admonished in the same way. As in their case, it may even be that our very questions are wrong.

This is the case whether our issue is one of doctrine or of practice. If the former, the Word of God will correct; if the latter it will rebuke. But the flipside of the coin is that it will go on to teach right thesis, and to train in righteousness for right praxis (all in 2 Timothy 3:16).

Of course, it's possible to have an intellectual knowledge of the Word without really knowing. In a sense the Sadducees were like that. So were the people Jesus spoke to in John 5:37...

You have never heard [the Father's] voice nor seen his form, nor does his word dwell in you, for you do not believe the one he sent. You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life.

As for the Power of God, surely this is a question of our experience. God has shown himself one way in the past, and he is not a man, that he would change his mind. He is the same: yesterday, today and forever.

So what, then? The implication of all this is that we must act in order to know. Knowing God is an action, a relationship in dynamic. It is not a state of being or the mental assent to a series of philosophical propositions.

Is this relationship - the dynamic between you and God in word and power - part of your daily experience? Or would Jesus, lovingly but firmly, point out your error if you brought to him your unformed and uninformed questions?

2. It's no ultimate use asking non-believers for guidance in life. Their paradigm is not based on knowledge of either Word or Power, and it will only lead you astray.

It is sad to see so many people live their lives in error. This much can be said for them: they do not know the Scriptures, or the Power of God. They are blind guides.

They may be very wordly-wise, intelligent, successful. They are probably rich and satisfied. But they do not know God, and this error sadly makes all else in vain. Christians need to keep this in mind when we make decisions and judgments.

"People who do not know the Lord ask why in the world we waste our lives as missionaries. They forget that they too are expending their lives ... and when the bubble has burst, they will have nothing of eternal significance to show for the years they have wasted." -- Nate Saint, missionary martyr

Foolish the wisdom of the world - its certainties denied
By wisdom of God's foolishness, which is Christ crucified. (paraphrase of 1 Corinthians 1:18-25)

Postmillennialism, and the Bible as you've never see it before...

I'm grateful to my friend James for 2 interesting links here that are keeping me occupied on the hottest day of the year!

First, do check out http://www.thebricktestament.com/ if you are prepared to laugh (at yourself, if you're a Christian). Someone evidently has too much time on their hands...

Second, I've been directed to the webpage of a guy going by the name of the Rev Ralph Allen Smith, who's in Mitaka in Tokyo. He's very much a Calvinist, and he has some fascinating stuff to add to the discussion on eschatology.

I'll leave anyone with interest to go and take a look (www.berith.org) but I just wanted to quote one section from the good Rev. that might contribute something to previous issues raised on this blog, about the Christian's commission, here. I had always thought postmillennialism was a bit off-the-wall, pre-WW1, but Smith does a good job of making it look biblical/convincing, and I like this: [sorry this isn't short but it's worth the read, I think]

"If it is really true, as [some] teach, that Christ is coming soon, perhaps by the year [2007], then Christians should be in the streets witnessing. One's job future, the children's education, political concerns, investments in real estate, stocks and bonds, in short, anything that concerns life in this world should be put aside as we prepare ourselves for the imminent end. If you believe in Christ's soon return, live like it. Like James said, "faith without works is dead" (Jms. 2:17). Show your faith by your works.

Some premillennialists, of course, disagree with the date-setting type of teacher. They believe that Christ may come any minute and so they must be prepared for His coming today. They also believe that Christ may not come today and so they must live for tomorrow. Cultural labor for God's glory may be meaningful, if Christ does not come soon, for it is a means of evangelism and a form of worship. But if Christ is coming soon, it may also be a waste of time since it takes years of education and labor to accomplish anything important in cultural evangelism. It might be good to invest money in the future since Christ may not come for another hundred years and children are important. But if Christ is coming soon, that money would be much better spent on evangelism. On the other hand . . .

Rather than go on like this, let me say it to you directly: if you believe in this type of premillennialism, you are in intellectual limbo. The best thing you can do is switch your theology. Can an eschatological doctrine that speaks with a "forked tongue" be true?

If you are an unpersuaded amillennialist, you will have to decide whether or not you agree with the date-setting premillennialists, like some amillennialists apparently do. If that is what you believe, live like [that]. If, on the other hand, you think that history may go on for a few centuries and that there may be some real benefit in Christian cultural endeavor, live like a postmillennialist.

If you are persuaded of postmillennialism, then you believe that Christ has called us to build His kingdom by the power of the Holy Spirit. You should be enthusiastically pursuing distinctly Christian cultural advance either by your own efforts or by financing others who are gifted by God. You should be dedicating yourself to training the next generation to be better and wiser Christians than the present one. If you have children, make certain that you provide a Christian education for them. Political concerns and financial investments, too, are part of your responsibility as a citizen of the heavenly kingdom. Evangelism must not be less emphasized, but actually more emphasized, for the Holy Spirit will only save the world through the preaching of God's people. Rather than relegate evangelism to the few hours a week that one has time for witnessing in the streets, the postmillennialists sees evangelism in broader terms. Witnessing in the street is fine in its place. But it is more important to develop a worldview and lifestyle that are so distinctly Christian that one is evangelizing in all that he does, for "whether we eat or whether we drink," we are to do all "for the glory of God." When the non-Christians see that we live to the glory of God, they will be converted.

Whatever we believe about the millennium, we should seek to live consistently with our faith. Lukewarm, lazy Christianity is an abomination to God (Rev. 3:16). Christian debate over doctrine is not a hobby or a game, nor can it be carried on as an academic exercise. It is serious pursuit of the truth conducted in the fear of God. We are seeking an answer to the most important question we face in our daily lives: "How must I live to glorify God?""

Thoughts on the Bible

I've had quite a lot of "thoughts" recently, which aren't terribly systematic, I'm afraid... Hopefully that should be an invitation to contemplate (or to post a comment!)

One of the most common questions I am asked when people hear that I'm a Christian is, "Do you believe the Bible is literally true?"

Now I think this question reveals a lot. It shows what those who either (1) would not identify themselves as Christians, or else (2) would say they were Christian, but don't identify themselves with me, think you have to do in order to be the kind of Christian I am : i.e. they think you "have to" believe the Bible is literally true.

It is - at least as far as I can see - almost always a hostile question. The thrust of it, and the implication behind it, is: There is no way I am going to believe that - in fact I think that believing that is intellectually/morally irresponsible/stupid. And so I certainly couldn't become a Christian [of the type that you are].

And I always answer no to the question anyway. Which tends to throw people a bit.

Let me ask some questions of my own: Do you believe that the phone book is "literally true"? Do you believe that your marriage certificate is "literally true"? Do you believe that your grandmother's autobiography is "literally true"? Do you believe that what your wife said to you this morning before you went to work is "literally true"? Do you believe that this blog is "literally true"? [of course it is ;-)]

Now that's put the cat among the pigeons, hasn't it? Except that it hasn't. It's not literally true.

But what do I believe about the Bible? If it's not "literal", whatever that means, what is it? Why is the Bible important?

Well, first of all, the Bible is my book as a Christian. Christians who don't - for whatever reason - much read or much care to align themselves with - the Bible, miss out on their heritage and their possession. As a Christian I am part of the people of God, and the Bible is my charter, my ancenstral record, my lineage, my cultural reference, my family story. Abraham, Moses, David, Ruth, Rahab and Mary matter to me because they are part of my history. We are the people of the Book.

And the God of the Bible is my God. In that sense, the Bible wasn't written to me, but it was written for me. I get to know God through the Bible, as three persons in interaction with others, and in involvement in the world. I find my own place in space and time in the Bible's story and its spirit, and I understand myself to be part of the story as it continues to unfold. I see past, present and future in perspective. The Christian who neglects the Bible cuts herself off from her past - she is disconnected and rootless.

Sometimes people are fearful that they need to accept (whatever they mean by that) the whole Bible before they can become Christians. But most Christians have never even read the whole Bible. God doesn't ask us to fully read and understand the terms & conditions before we click 'OK': he asks us to join his redeemed family as those in desperate need of being rescued from sin and death, and then to become in a community of Bible-readers or Bible-listeners.

Or - conversely - some people don't want to become Christians because they feel that they can't accept the whole Bible. This usually means there are bits of the Bible they (think they) know about that they feel they can't take "literally". There are two aspects to this - (1) the Sodom and Gomorrah factor ["how can God destroy 'innocent' people, and say he hates homosexuality?"], and (2) the Dinosaurs in Genesis & Jonah in the Big Fish factor ["what a load of rubbish.."]. Supplementary to this, there's the whole thing about the Bible "contradicting itself."

Now this is difficult to respond to.

Let me try.

The standard evangelical "answer" to these questions in the last hundred years or so has been to begin with the doctrine of inerrancy. This says (in summary) that the Scriptures as originally given are true in everything they affirm. There are no "errors". But the problem with this "answer" is that it doesn't really deal with objections. It's a put-up-and-shut-up, Go-to-hell-and-do-not-pass-serious-thinking response: The Bible doesn't contain "contradictions" because by definition it can't. Sex outside of marriage is wrong because the Bible says so. Thank you and goodnight.

Traditional Protestant and Evangelical systematic theologies have almost always started with the doctrine of Scripture. We set out our stall with this as our main selling-point. And we're surprised when people don't buy it. That doesn't mean that I haven't found it helpful in the past, but as a Christian, and as an apologetic to myself.

At this point I need to stop and say I am extremely wary about moving away from inerrancy. I recognise here more than anywhere else in theology the danger of starting off a slide into a liberalism, whereby Christianity ends up watered down to nothing more than happy humanism with a bit of God-talk thrown in. I've been there. For Christ's sake, let's not go there.

But I have to wonder if we really need inerrancy - formulated (as it was) as an anathematizing response to those with a liberal agenda, to bat over the heads of those who come to the whole question of God and Jesus Christ with a liberal approach.

I think I would rather begin with tension - with plurality of voice - with (and OK, let's use the word) "contradiction" and seek revelation there - in contemplation at least as much as in systematization.

Sometimes I've thought that the concept of perfection can be more helpful than inerrancy for explaining Scripture and what our approach to it should be. Inerrancy just needs too many qualifications - it's based on original manuscripts that don't exist, and most of us couldn't read even if they did, it allows for unquantifiable theological bias and "spin", it permits the conventions of unspecified different genres... all to the point that you end up wondering what inerrancy actually stands for. I'm happy to accept that God does not err, but the danger with teaching Bible inerrancy is that all Bible-readers [you & I] do err from time to time, no matter how much we pray for God's Spirit to teach us.

The Bible is perfect. This has nothing to do at first with the vexed [modernist] question of whether the Bible has any factual "errors" in it or not: it's to do with source and spirit. The Bible is given by God to his people, and is breathed out by him. The Bible is perfectly human, perfectly divine.

The Hebrew word perfect describes something that is complete, something that totally fulfills its purpose. Like the Bible: intended thoroughly to equip us for every good work, it will not return empty to God, but will achieve the purpose for which he sent it. As befits Christian theology, Christ is the paradigm: perfect human, perfect God. Getting sick, stumbling over his words, telling bad jokes, getting misunderstood, treading on Peter's foot, apologising for making a bad smell... If any of these things run against our understanding of perfect humanity, we have surely misunderstood what redemption means, for none contradicts the perfect love of one who is fully entered into the human condition.

Here is the authority of the Bible: its voice the polyphony of human authors perfectly attuned to the words of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit spoken "at many times and in various ways" (Heb.1:1) and yet for us, that we should hear, respond, and be saved.

Returning to the questioners, have I anything better to offer them than have the proponents of inerrancy? I believe so.

Contradiction is part of life and is the situation into which God speaks. The God who declares his hatred of sinners nevertheless loves them with an undying love, which in the end proves to be ("literally") a dying love. The "literality" of Jonah's experience in the Big Fish is not a sine qua non of my faith in God, so much as its truth is a part of my story which only has meaning if it is perfect, and appropriated as such by me. If we doubt the Bible, rather than being pushed away from it, we are invited into it, with all our fears, questions and pain, to add our voice to the covenant community and to grow in faith. This approach is a "Come and see", "Faith seeking understanding", way into the Bible. It allows doubts and questions, and suggests that the Bible meets them, not necessarily that it resolves them. And above all, it takes us past any possible narrow biblicism to relationship, engagement, and the prospect of growth.

Towards a Trinitarian view of the Christian's Commission

Recently I've finished reading through Rick Warren's multi-million selling The Purpose Driven Life (Zondervan: 2002, see http://www.purposedrivenlife.com/).

And I like it. That's the second time I've read it through over the prescribed 40-day period, with a different group this time, and I found it refreshing, challenging and helpful. This time I took Warren's advice and spent time working out my own "Life Purpose Statement".

But there are still parts of the book - and parts of me - that don't sit well with one another. And this is not just a critique of Warren, because Warren represents (well, I think) the thinking behind the kind of evangelical theology and spirituality I have come to know.

Let's take an example. On p.295 Warren says this:

The eternal salvation of a single soul is more important than anything else you will ever achieve in life. Only people are going to last forever.

Back a few pages he writes on p.284:

Your mission has eternal significance. [Warren defines "mission" as your service to unbelievers (p.281)] It will impact the eternal destiny of other people, so it's more important than any job, achievement, or goal you will reach during your life on earth. The consequences of your mission will last forever; the consequences of your job will not.

Finally on p. 304 Warren concludes:

The Great Commission is your commission, and doing your part is the secret to living a life of significance.

I think I know why Rick Warren argues like this, but I believe some of his assumptions to be wrong, and I think they can lead to some rather confusing problems. I'll explain what I mean, and then see if I can present something more satisfying (theologically, practically) as an alternative.

First, Warren is entirely right in his insistence on the importance of evangelism as proclamation. His concern for people's eternal destiny comes - I would argue - from a faithful reading of the Bible's teaching on sin, judgment, and the salvation available only through faith in Jesus Christ. We - Christian and non-Christian alike - need to hear this.

But is it faithful/biblical/practical to suggest that proclamation evangelism is mission, and that mission so defined is more important than anything else we do? Indeed, is Warren correct to say that it is the only thing we do that is of eternal value?

It is interesting that although Rick Warren does say this (see my quotations above), he gets himself in a bit of a stitch when he starts to work out its implications. It's almost as if something inside him can't really believe it either. Because if Warren is right, then (a) most of what everyone does all day long is irrelevant/meaningless from an eternal perspective, and (b) full-time "missionaries" and "evangelists" get to do more of what's really important, and the rest of us just chip in with our evenings and weekends, our cash and our "quiet-times". Everything else is just part of the preparatory "test" that Warren wants us to see ourselves as being examined by in life.

It's just possible that Warren would say yes to (b), and that he would respond to (a) by saying something about us using our abilities and gifts, at work and at play, as evangelistic "opportunities". Certainly he spends several chapters encouraging us to develop our God-given shape for service, and this includes all kinds of aspects of our human life and culture. In fairness to Warren, he is motivated by the social action imperative, and he and his wife are noted philanthropists - not just in the direction of "missionaries" doing proclamation evangelism.

But there's something going on here that sets up contradictions, and works out in real life as frustration for an awful lot of Christians. If Warren wanted to say we should all do more proclamation evangelism and we should all consider doing it cross-culturally (he does say this, and I for one think he's right to say so) then I believe he could have done so in a much better-supported and carefully-nuanced way.

Let me try to outline such a way. I can't claim original credit for it: most of the ideas come from an article in the journal Vocatio by Siew Li Wong (Fall 2005: 41-42) and some supporting thinking from Darrell Cosden, The Heavenly Good of Earthly Work, (Paternoster, 2006). But I am drawing the threads together in a slightly idiosyncratic way: the blame for any obscurity is mine alone.

Wong's article (which is a summary of something she co-authored and available here: http://community.gospelcom.net/lcwe/assets/LOP40_IG11.pdf) identifies a "gap" in the Church's theology when it comes to the Christian's Commission (or in layman's terms, what the heck we're all supposed to be doing down here...).

A Trinitarian understanding of God, she writes, gives equal importance to the work of each person in the Godhead as well as equal weight to the three commissions to which we are called [emphasis mine]: the Creation Commission of the Father (Genesis 1:26-28), the Evangelistic Commission of the Son (Matthew 28:18-20) and the Relational Commission of the Spirit (Matthew 22:37-40). Often, she goes on, the Creation Commission is also the Great Omission. The church needs to recognise and act on all three commissions.

This is dynamite. And I love it.

What it does, first and foremost, is bring God's being as Trinity right to the centre of the questions of commission and mission. And then its great strength is that all of life becomes the stage for playing our part as ministers of the New Covenant. There's no hierarchy of things to do anymore - I'm not being more holy, or even more eternally important - when I preach the gospel than when I type this blog. Everything we do - in ruling the world and subduing it, in winning it for Christ, and in loving God and neighbour in fulfilment of the law - everything is fulfilling our purpose of imaging God and being his representative on earth, when it is done to the glory of God and in his name!

Wow!

The age old divide between the sacred and the secular - which Cosden persuasively argues is simply not biblical - comes down, and Christians are liberated to live significant, coherent and integrated lives. And what we do, Cosden demonstrates, is always of eternal importance, because God, in making everything new, is not tearing up the prototype and starting again (as a reading of Warren might lead us to believe) but, biblically, re-newing what is already here. The good fruits of our labours, of whatever sort, are eternal.

And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. Colossians 3:17

"Simple" lifestyle...?

The Lausanne Covenant of 1974 is a foundational document for contemporary evangelical understanding of what the Church is and what it ought to be doing. (Check it out at www.lausanne.org)

But it's interesting that Billy Graham's wife wouldn't sign it.

She objected to one particular clause that calls rich, western Christians to a "simple lifestyle", principally because she argued that it was beyond definition. Mrs Graham preferred the wording, "simpler lifestyle" - she didn't get her way, refused to sign up to the Covenant, and the rest is history.

But what's really at stake here? Issues of poverty and equality have taken backstage somewhat for evangelicals over much of the last century. But recent emphases - particularly the Make Poverty History campaign - have marked something of a sea-change in thinking as evangelicals have 'rediscovered' their social conscience, at least in Britain. Responsibility for the environment is back into our theologies of creation, and may be filtering slowly down into our churches as well.

But what is the situation in the US? Or in China? My uncle - a naturalised American citizen - remarked to me last week that most American Christians have never even heard of the Kyoto treaty, and have little or no idea what was at stake at the G8 summit last year. Narrow, dispensational theology, and a focus on 'personal' moral issues such as abortion and homosexuality at the expense of global injustices and issues such as climate change, have perhaps taken some of the edge off the gospel's radical call. I was part of a church in Japan for 3 years and never once heard (or preached) a sermon that got beyond salvation as something essentially personal, private, and ultimately world-denying. The emphasis on sharing faith was essentially a call to get into the lifeboat in time to jump the sinking ship. It didn't really strike me that tithing (while it no doubt had value as an expression of obedience) was basically just giving to my own little group, to serve our own little interests. Never was a challenge issued to western (or Japanese) affluence per se. In fact, most would probably have thought it wrong to issue any such challenge.

Does Jesus call us to a 'simple' lifestyle? Would you sign the Lausanne covenant? If so, what does it mean, for God's world and not just for you, to lead a simple lifestyle?

How does God guide us?

I used to think I knew the answer to this one quite clearly: God's got a plan for our lives which is set in stone because it's there from all eternity, and so all we've got to do is find it out - by prayer (understood as getting us to conform to God's will), reading the Bible, and "circumstances" (along with a bit of 'prophecy' if you're a charismatic) - and then just do it.

This has never sat easily with me. The trouble is that it can't ultimately matter whether we "find it out" or not, if it's going to happen anyway. I've never been philosophically happy with explanations along these lines that still try to give us "freedom" of choice, or even "responsibility" - because no matter how I look at it, it's just not real.

When I've voiced these doubts to others schooled in the same nursery, the standard response I get is along the lines of "you're just trying to gain autonomy from God - it's just your sinful tendency to resist submission - it's just man-centred Arminianism in another form - etc..." But is this all right?

What I've been learning recently about God as Trinity and his relationship with space and time, suggests a different possible paradigm that may be more faithful to the Bible's testimony, and philosophically more satisfying as well.

God does not know everything about the future, because he only knows what is knowable. This is not to diminish the omniscience of God or his glory. The glory of God is seen in his turning everything to the good of those who love him; his omniscience is seen in his knowing everything that there is to know. But we need not limit the freedom of human agents which God has condescended to give us. Yes, God has plans for us. Yes, God works in us to will and act according to his purpose. But we can always refuse him. He gives us that choice.

I'm not sure how this works out in all its implications. But if it's correct - even if it's heading in the right direction - it means we have responsibility that's deeper than I ever thought we had before. Before, the universe as I understood it was just working itself out like a book that was already written and published. Now it's a drama, and the script is not finished.

What if we realised - just as an example - that our progressive destruction of the earth is not an inevitability? Now, OK - I recognise we all have a natural bent towards sin, but are we taking seriously what the Bible says about our redemption? And about the earth to be redeemed along with us, for that matter? It's not all about "going to heaven", after all, is it...?

I'm beginning to see that God's "destiny" (if I can talk in these terms) is bound up with ours, and ours with his more than ever. We are his fellow-workers. Wow...

How does that relate to guidance? Well, for one thing, nobody knows what I'm going to do tomorrow. God may know every single possible thing I might do, but he hasn't pre-ordained any particular one of them. He may well have particular purposes for me tomorrow (I guess he does) but I don't have to go along with them. But if I don't, and I sin instead, I've no-one to blame but myself.

But what if a choice presents itself that's not between good and evil, or good and better, but between good and good? Or if I really don't know which one is better? Surely that's where the Bible, and circumstances, and prayer come in - only prayer is something different, because there's a possibility (and it is only a possibility) that God might actually change his mind and do it my way.

I can see the Calvinists rising up in horror... but Moses did it. Oh, that's just an anthropomorphism - God doesn't really change his mind.

But only because your hermeneutic (and philosphical view of God) says he can't. Now who's limiting God?

Incarnational mission...

I'm struck by something I heard this week: missionary humility should be demonstrated by seeking the privilege of joining someone else's group, not by offering the 'privilege' of joining the ours.

Too often we Christians have been afraid of contamination, afraid of 'wasting time', afraid of having nothing to write home about (literally). But surely it's only when we learn where people are and become that (not just study it) that mission is done on the right basis.

This fits with what I'm learning right now about a new paradigm for mission: post-colonial, post-modern & incarnational.

How does this fit with the Great Commission? It fits because every Christian is commissioned to the same work - "we have this ministry" - not just the 'missionaries', but everyone. It fits because fulfilling the Great Commission is not just about 'going to heaven' but about right here, right now. And it fits because God is not calling his Church out of the world but into it, into a world which itself is being made new and will be redeemed, along with everything we do in it that reflects God's image and his glory. [these ideas come from Darrell Cosden: The Heavenly Good of Earthly Work (Paternoster: 2006), but he claims - with some justification - a higher authority...]

So where does preaching the gospel fit in? Don't worry, I haven't given up on that. But I wouldn't do it in a vacuum, lest I suck all the life out before I even begin.

As a Christian, I am a missionary, an evangelist and a theologian. This is not so much my choice: anything else would be a contradiction in terms.

David Smith, a lecturer at the International Christian College http://www.icc.ac.uk/, where I'm a student right now, writes this:

"Missionaries, evangelists and theologians who seek to break new ground at the frontiers of cultures and religions must also seek to cope with the tension between the new and the old, encouraging the emergence of fresh forms of Church while remaining in fraternal dialogue with the congregations from which they have come, always seeking to remind brothers and sisters at both ends of this spectrum of their primary and overarching identity as members of the new humankind brought into existence by the redemptive love of God revealed in Christ."
[Mission After Christendom, Darton Longman & Todd 2003]

Here is where I see myself - a member of redeemed humankind at the cusp of shifting paradigms without and within. On the Way, for there is only one; On the Way, for life is a journey, On the Way, for I certainly haven't arrived there yet.

How do I know the Way? I don't - a lot of the time - if by that you mean all the answers, or even all the questions... But I know one who is the Way. And he'll get me there, wherever I'm going.