Scripture and Michael Scott

September 07 2011, 12:58 pm | Blake Hudspeth

Michael Scott isn’t the first person I go to find good theology…but he isn’t the last.  The Office is one of my all-time favorite shows, and there was a conversation in season 2 that made me think about the way in which many of us look at Scripture. 

Earlier in the year, Michael (Steve Carrel) won over a client at dinner with his boss Jan.  Without going into too much detail…Jan’s crazy…which is seen when she made out with Michael in the parking lot afterward.

Later on (as seen in the clip below), she makes sure that Michael knows there is nothing romantically going on and that their relationship is purely professional.  She leaves him a voicemail saying, “Michael it’s Jan, I guess I missed you…when I come over today, we are only talking business.” 
Michael has a hard time understanding…he asks Pam to help.

(Click here to see the YouTube clip…sorry for the terrible quality!)

It seems that Jan’s message wasn’t too hard for Michael to understand…he just didn’t want to hear it.  The message was going to upset him.  It’s hilariously ridiculous watching how he tries to twist the message into something that will make him happier.
We do that with Scripture sometimes. 

For instance, take Philippians 3:9-10
and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith—  that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death.

We like the first part. “I don’t have a righteousness of my own! I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection! YEEEAAH!” Then we get to “and share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death” and we want to skip over it, or (like Michael) say, “those are just words, they don’t really mean anything.”  We don’t like suffering…it makes us sad.

Don’t twist the hard messages of Scripture so that they’re more palatable.  As AW Tozer writes, “Nothing less than a whole Bible can make a whole Christian.” 

Most of the time, the message isn’t hard to understand…it’s simply hard to embrace.
Just ask Michael Scott.

Comments

blog comments powered by Disqus