Taking in the news these days can be overwhelming in many ways, but it can also be very helpful. Various news sources present what they do, seemingly with tunnel vision. Whatever their political guy says or does is right and true regardless of any facts that may point in an opposite direction, either to the right or to the left. Partisan views do make the news, but there is one thing that should stand out in our minds any time of the year—especially now as the Spring Holy Days approach. As we reflect introspectively in our own lives, we can ask, “Do I look on my own spiritual rightness like some of the politician partisans do?” In that sense, news watching can be very helpful.
Christ describes the worldly type of tunnel vision that is a daily part of our living environment.“And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed” (John 3:19-20). Light is a type of Christ and it is a type of His word – which is truth. Those who have tunnel vision against the truth do not want to be exposed or corrected. In their determined desire to always be right in all things, they condemn themselves in God’s eyes.
The danger for believers is that we can be influenced by the worldly attitudes around us. It can happen anywhere in the Church today, just as it did at Corinth in the Apostle Paul’s time. “Your glorying is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?” (1 Corinthians 5:6). An obvious sin was apparent to many in Corinth and they chose to ignore it. They knew the truth and yet chose a tunnel vision approach to it. It amounted to sinning, that grace might abound. The obvious conclusion is that accepting wrong attitudes that are prevalent in our culture can separate us from God.
Here is the remedy that was needed in Corinth. “Therefore purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, since you truly are unleavened. For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us. Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth” (1 Corinthians 5:7-8). The solution is to be in a correctable attitude when God shows us our error, in whatever form it comes. Our forefathers in Corinth did purge out the old leaven – we know the rest of the account very well. Because they were correctable, their tunnel vision ceased.
So, you see, we can learn at least one good thing form political partisans. We can learn to ask ourselves the right questions.
Marshall Stiver
