Chasing Your White Whale - Mike Chipman

    Inspired by RC Sproul, I started reading Moby Dick every year. The book is so rich and full that it has kept me satisfied each time I read it. Moby Dick himself, the white whale, has been used to symbolize many things over the years. As I read it, Ahab’s pursuit of the white whale has made me think of many conversations I’ve read, listened to, and participated in over the years. The conversations are typically over some seemingly controversial issue, and that issue has multiple seemingly correct expressions. For some, they are happy to let those differences remain, as they are “non-essential” differences. Yet for others, the issue is their white whale. They’ll pursue it even if it costs them everything

    I once talked to someone who was planting a church. He had a great core group of people excited to see God work in their location. He was a faithful preacher of God’s Word, and he believed that God’s Word was only contained in the King James Version of the Bible. He was fine with the original languages being used, but when it came to the English version, only the King’s Bible would do. This became a central issue in his fledgling church. Sure the gospel was important, but rather than talk about Jesus, talking about why the KJV was important even leaked into his sermons and most issues in the church. Just as Ahab started every gam with, “Have you seen the white whale?'' this pastor made sure everyone knew which version of the Bible he used. The church shrunk, and the pastor took his chase to another unsuspecting flock. Unlike Ahab, he’ll have more chances to recruit others to his crusade to catch a non-essential issue.

    There is nothing wrong with the KJV. There is nothing wrong with thinking it to be a superior version of the Bible. There is something wrong with replacing the pursuit of it with the pursuit of Christ. If you are more interested in recruiting folks to the pursuit of your white whale than you are in converting them to pursue Christ, you are leading them to their doom. For some of Paul’s audience, that white whale was circumcision. Circumcision wasn’t a bad thing, but when it became the gospel to one group, Paul had to address it. The Judaizers were preaching Christ. They were also adding to Christ. Paul writes, “O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?” (Gal 3:1-3) The Galatian churches began with the Spirit, yet now they were being convinced that to have a better faith, they must add circumcision to it. The same Christ who saved them using their nothing would perfect them with the same nothing.

    This doesn’t mean we aren’t doing good work. Peter gives us a list of things for which we are to “supplement our faith” to make our “calling and election sure” (1 Peter 1) It’s totally fine to love your KJV, or sing your acapella psalms, or read your Puritans. When those things become the measure by which you look at your faith and the faith of others, you have become bewitched. You are like Ahab sending himself and his whole crew to their doom in the pursuit of something that will never satisfy.

    Dear brethren, spur one another to good works but don’t forget to spur one another on to Christ. He alone is the author and perfecter of our faith. Lead yourself and your people away from the foolishness of adding to Christ, and back to Christ alone.