Person-2-Person - December, 2019

“Do not wait for leaders; do it alone, person to person.” – Mother Teresa

A few weeks ago I was reading the scripture for The Upper Room daily devotional when I ran across something that caught my eye. The passage was Colossians 4:2-6, from the Common English Bible. Verse 3 read, “At the same time, pray for us also. Pray that God would open a door for the word so we can preach the secret plan of Christ—which is why I’m in chains.” The “secret plan of Christ”? Christ has/had a “secret plan”? I was used to the way the King James Version and most modern translations render it, “the mystery of Christ”. To me, at least, there’s a difference between a “secret plan” and a “mystery,” and it changes the meaning of the verse depending on which wording the translators use.

The original Greek word is “μυστήριον” or “mustérion” (moos-TAY-ree-on), from the root “μυέω” or “mueó,” meaning to shut the mouth, as in a vow of silence for religious purposes. As you’ve probably guessed, “mustérion” is the root of the English word “mystery.” But in English, Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary says a “secret” is something “kept from knowledge or from view,” while a “mystery” is “something not understood or beyond understanding.”

This is one of the problems with reading the scriptures in a language other than the one in which they were written. My preconceptions about English words caused me to be confused when they were translations of Greek words. A surprise party is a secret, not a mystery. Some of you will probably be involved in a “Secret Santa” program at work or school. The identity of the “Santa” or gift giver will be unknown, hidden. But it won’t be unexplainable. For example, Jim will receive a gift from Mary because she drew his name.

Meanwhile, a “mystery” in the Bible isn’t something hidden because God is keeping it from us but something that can only be known because God has revealed it. Our tiny, limited human minds are simply insufficient to comprehend an infinite God, which is why God sends the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 2:10-12). Paul wrote to the church in Corinth, “Now the natural person does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.” (1 Cor. 2:14 New Heart English Bible). But we are not called to be “natural” persons who are in tune with the world’s ways of thinking and doing but supernatural persons who are in tune with the mind of Christ (1 Cor. 2:16, Rom. 12:2).

In the second century AD, a heresy called “Gnosticism” emerged, which said that salvation was the result of secret knowledge. Gnosticism predates Christianity by some centuries, going back to the time of Cyrus in the sixth century BC, but the idea took hold in Christianity as well. The central tenet of Gnosticism is that its adherents know things others don’t, which allows them salvation and makes them somehow superior. According to Gnosticism, Christ brought obscure knowledge that enabled the recipients to be redeemed.

There’s an old saying that, “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know.” The same thing applies to us as followers of Christ. Paul wrote to the Philippians, “More than that, I count all things to be loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord,” (Phil. 3:8a NHEB).

Paul wrote to his friends in Corinth that he and his fellow workers did not behave selfishly, “But as of sincerity, but as of God, in the sight of God, we speak in Christ.” (2 Cor. 2:17b NHEB). If we keep the message of Christ a “mystery,” a “secret,” it doesn’t benefit anyone. If someone is a “secret Santa,” it only matters if he or she actually gives a gift. We have already received the greatest gift of all (Eph. 2:8-9). As we enter into the season when we celebrate the gift of God in human form, as a baby in a manger, we know who our “secret Santa” is. God’s motivations might be a mystery but the “plan of Christ” shouldn’t be a secret. We are called to tell the secret to anyone who will listen, wherever and whenever we can.

“Continue steadfastly in prayer, watching in it with thanksgiving; praying together for us also, that God may open to us a door for the word, to speak the mystery of Christ, for which I am also in bonds; that I may reveal it as I ought to speak.” (1 Cor. 2:2-4 NHEB.)