Person-2-Person - June, 2021

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

It’s been a while but they’re at it again. A few months ago, a Chinese zoo once again misrepresented a domesticated dog as a wild animal. If you have a long memory, you might recall that I last wrote about a similar deception in October, 2013, after a Tibetan Mastiff had been disguised as a lion. This time, Xiangwushan Zoo in Xianning, Hubei province put a dog in a cage labelled as containing a wolf. A visitor to the zoo posted video of the dog, which appeared to be a Rottweiler, on Chinese social media. The visitor said a zoo employee had told him there had previously been a wolf in the cage, but it had died of old age. A Forestry Bureau official said the dog was there to prevent trespassers from sneaking into the zoo. It’s unknown whether there was any intent to defraud the public, and a dog is certainly closer to a wolf than to a lion, but the official said the zoo had been asked to remove the misleading signage.

The whole thing is a doggone shame. (Sorry, I won’t do it again—oh, yes, I will, and we all know it.) There are two or three things we might determine from these news items. First, it would appear that the folks running some Chinese zoos aren’t very honest. Second, it appears they have trouble obtaining or keeping actual wild animals. Third, they apparently don’t think zoo visitors know a dog when they see one. To be fair, it’s hard to generalize based on only a couple of data points over a period of nearly a decade but it still doesn’t look very good for some Chinese zoos, and we don’t know how many other incidents haven’t been reported in Western media.

A similar circumstance wouldn’t look good for us either. Paul warned his young friend, Timothy, about certain people in the church. “They will maintain the outward appearance of religion but will have repudiated its power. So avoid people like these.” (2 Tim. 3:5 New English Translation). Just as a sign might identify a dog as a wolf, such people identified themselves as believers, but they refused to claim the empowering of the Holy Spirit. They wanted to be seen as righteous without allowing the Holy Spirit to change their lives and behaviors. A dog might appear to be a powerful lion, but it would still be a dog.

Are we lions or dogs? Genuine disciples or pretenders? Does our bite match our bark? Do we roar the message of the cross or bark the philosophies of the world? We can either accept or reject the empowering of the Holy Spirit. But we can’t live the Christian life on our own terms. Instead, we must surrender to the Spirit’s transforming power (Matt. 16:24-25). Our external profession of faith must match what is within us.

Many years before Jesus appeared on Earth, the prophet Isaiah wrote that “A shoot will grow out of Jesse’s root stock, . . . He will not judge by mere appearances, . . . He will treat the poor fairly, / and make right decisions for the downtrodden of the earth.” (Isa. 11:1a, 3b, 4 NET). The promise was of someone who would have both the power and the will to implement justice, who wouldn’t be distracted by externals. This certainly sounds very much like Jesus.

He challenged the “‘experts in the law and you Pharisees, hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs that look beautiful on the outside but inside are full of the bones of the dead and of everything unclean.’” (Matt. 23:27 NET). A harsh rebuke but it shows the seriousness of the charge he was making. He told the so-called righteous people that even though they appeared to be righteous they were leading others astray (Matt. 15:14). They knew the scriptures but not the transforming power they reveal, and Jesus called them to account.

If our own conduct matches the faith we profess, we can be disciples for Christ. Only if we surrender to the Holy Spirit can we live lives of power and substance rather than illusion and pretense. Others around us will know if we are filled with the Spirit or with “everything unclean.”

“‘Watch out for false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are voracious wolves. You will recognize them by their fruit.’” (Matt. 7:15-16a NET.)