David Lipscomb College in 1979, the campus I remember.
It seems like the Church of Christ discovered Grace when I was growing up. When I went to Lipscomb, Dr. Harvey Floyd's class on Romans was what folks were oooohing and ahhhing about. It's funny, I just googled "Romans and Harvey Floyd" and a lot of interesting stuff popped up. Including this from an essay by Jay Guin entitled, Do We Preach 'Another Gospel'?:
I remember sitting in Bible class at David Lipscomb College. While I owe a lot to DLC, including meeting my wife, the fact is that most of the Bible classes were boring and badly taught -- little better than poorly taught Sunday School classes. But the class I was in was different. Dr. Harvey Floyd was teaching a class on Romans, and for the first time in my experience, a college Bible teacher was actually teaching on the college level.
Dr. Floyd was a brilliant man. Some of us spent weeks trying to find the same translation he was teaching from, only to learn that he taught straight from the Greek and translated as he went along.
That day's lesson was on grace. I knew what grace meant: "unmerited favor," and in more practical terms, that if I attained a certain level of holiness, God would make up the difference and treat me as perfect and so saved. But I could never figure out just what level I had to attain to earn God's grace. And I couldn't tell from reading the Scriptures why some doctrines, like instrumental music in worship, would damn you if you were wrong; while so many other doctrines, such as the indwelling of the Spirit, permitted differences of opinion.
That day Dr. Floyd explained that grace is a gift, not something you earn. And gifts are by very definition free (Rom. 7:23). They may have conditions attached, such as faith, but nothing of intrinsic merit, such as works, or else grace and salvation just wouldn't be gifts.
As he led the class through Romans 3 and 4, for the first time in my life I felt 100% ironclad, totally saved. I had been baptized when I was eight! And yet for over a dozen years had never felt saved! But I did that day. Indeed, it was the only day in my life when I felt like my feet didn't touch the ground. I felt as though physically lifted six inches off the ground -- as though the heaviest of all possible weights had been lifted off my shoulders."
- p. 15, Do We Preach "Another Gospel"? by Jay Guin [Here's a link to his blog, One in Jesus and a pdf of the entire essay, Do We Preach "Another Gospel"?]
No offense to Dr. Floyd or Jay Guin -- I enjoyed Harvey Floyd's teaching as well and I'm thankful we finally discovered grace -- it's just I'm always amazed how we land on a teaching and go off on it and celebrate it and pronounce it's singular truth and proudly congratulate ourselves for having recognized it. Grace has been there from the beginning. Other religious groups, other people have recognized this before us. The truth does not exist because we find it or because it's suddenly vogue. It is and always was and will be. I think love of doctrine is a problem. It is part of the Pharisee's dna. It creates pride in self for seeing and understanding. I'm talking about the love of doctrine. I'm glad, too, that Jay felt saved. But I'm not sure his teaching is any more advanced than those Lipscomb Bible classes he criticized as "boring and badly taught -- little better than poorly taught Sunday School classes." I cringed when I read that. Jay, someone could be reading your teaching and thinking the same thing. Sometimes I think we've traded in works for I.Q. Jay's attitude about those teachers says more about his teaching than his well-worded arguments. And I know and confess my own sin of pride and that what I've said about Jay could be said about me and my questioning in this blog.
It's not about doctrine. It's not even about the Bible or grace or works. It's about Christ and knowing and celebrating and telling the world about Him. All Paul does. All any scripture does is point us to the essential truth the "yes" of Christ. We have only to look to our hearts to find the heart of that message. It is that completely evident in my way of thinking. There is too much talk. Too much doctrine. Too little Christ.
How much do we really need to know to know God? Paul writes that God is made plain to everyone.
"...Since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities -- his eternal power and divine nature -- have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse."
And then:
"For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God's sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous. (Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law, since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them.)"
Don't get me wrong. I'm thankful for scripture and God having made himself known and plain. I just grieve what we do with it. With knowledge and understanding and promoting our understanding to others. Instead of introducing them to Christ and let Him do the talking.
All I ever need to know is all around me and on my heart. Yes, scripture helps me to see, but it's not the thing I am to see.
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