5. Resist the Urge to Redesign the Wheel

Saying Five

Proverbs 22:28

Do not move the ancient boundary which your fathers have set.

Resist the urge to redesign the wheel.

There is, and always has been, a political spectrum. On the left side are those who wear their hair blue (because, c’mon man, it’s time for something new and edgy), and on the right are those who cover their lounge chairs with plastic (because don’t you realise the flower patterns will be spoiled by body sweat). We put people on this spectrum, rather than just their actions or ideas, because people tend to think in consistent patterns that lean towards either liberation or conservation — left or right. Yet, it seems obvious that the truth of any matter could lie either to the political right or left, depending on where the centre is generally assumed to be.

Controversial? Then consider the following.

Suppose the expectation of a particular culture is for women to wear shapeless, grey clothes and never smile, especially not on Sundays (my goodness). In this culture, biblical truth certainly lies in the direction of liberation — to the left. Christian women ought to present themselves like Christians, not Muslims, and (not that I am an expert in these matters) this involves shape, colour, and a liberal helping of smiles.

On the other hand, if a culture is quickly moving away from its expectation of monogamous, heterosexual marriage — this is purely hypothetical, of course — then biblical reformation must push to conserve. Culture is not always this tidy, of course, but the general pattern is true.

 With this in mind, we ought to remember that there are Bible verses that encourage the guardianship of old ways (Jer 6:16, Deut 32:7, 2 Thess 2:15), and those which require the breaking of ancient cultural chains (Mark 7:7-9, Col 2:8).

Saying Five is one of the former.

Before you existed, you had a father. Before he existed, he had one too. Going all the way back, we reach Adam, who, as the gospel of Luke so deftly puts it, “was the son of God.” Every family lineage, therefore, has something to conserve, if only the fatherhood of God.

The Proverb can and should be obeyed on a naturalistic level, therefore. Even first generation Christians should strive to identify traditions handed down from their biological fathers which, by common grace, happen to glorify God, and obey them. Did your unbelieving father make a point of telling his children he loved them every night? Did your unbelieving grandfather insist that growing boys should get out in the sunshine every day? These are traditions well worth upholding. We honour God when we say things like “as my Dad always said to me”, because in doing so, we show respect for the way He set up the world.

On another level, Christians are part of a spiritual family in Christ, and should therefore honour their spiritual fathers. What is the Christian history of your home town? Have you ever looked it up? Find this out, and then actively honour those forefathers for their godliness. More broadly, which protestant martyr do you admire? Which reformer do you respect? Paradoxically, it is the liberation achieved by these men that we seek to conserve. They pushed left against an unbiblical tradition machine. And today, informed protestants find themselves leaning heavily right in order to guard this liberation from a dissolution into utter licentiousness.

The eternal necessity for liberators, therefore, does nothing to temper the importance of Saying Five. We must always conserve; we must always liberate. The question is: what must we conserve? In answer: that which has stood the test of time after a good few divine earthquakes. Once the things that cannot be shaken are shown to have remained, it is our duty to preserve them from intentional deconstruction.

In short, don’t be the 'reformer' who sophomoronically redesigns the wheel. No, they wouldn’t work better if they were square.

Scriptures for Comparison

Jeremiah 6:16

Deuteronomy 32:7

2 Thessalonians 2:15

Proverbs 23:10

Malachi 4:5-6

Psalm 78:5-7

Jude 3

Mark 7:7-9

Colossians 2:8

Hebrews 12:26-27