LABELS

From My Perspective - - - 

The technological progress made in this generation allows for media use of commercials about various products that are available. Almost one-third of a television hour is given over to the promotion of various products. There are claims and demonstrations of what a particular product can do. However, to learn more about a product, one needs to locate it in a store and read the Label of that product. This enables one to learn both the positives or negatives so a potential buyer can reach a determination to either buy and try or to replace it on the shelf. Obviously, labels serve a useful purpose. They disclose who produced the product, the location where the product was prepared, the weight of the content and the various ingredients within.  Some products, such as tobacco or over the counter medications,  are required to issue a warning on their label that indicates use or misuse of a product can be harmful to the user.

In the area of politics, every community is beleaguered with signs everywhere advocating one should vote for the person named for a particular position. With the use of other media, politician A will attempt to define politician B. It has become an expensive process and millions of dollars are raised and spent to convince or persuade the voter how they should mark their ballot. It has become and is a time of considerable negative advertising and circulation of a narrative that besmirches one’s opponent or contrary cause. Amendments are usually written in such a way that they confuse rather than inform. As a result, it has become difficult to ascertain the truth about a candidate or cause.

When we traverse into the realm of religion, there is also a similar confusion. Labels abound when it comes to media communicators and the various churches they represent. The labels used are along the line of Liberal versus Orthodox, Modernist versus Fundamentalist, Evangelical versus Neo-evangelical, etc. On November 4, 1935, J. Gresham Machen wrote in The Presbyterian Guardian the following: “However, it is a different matter when we are choosing terminology that we shall actually use about ourselves. When we are doing that, I think we ought to be just as careful as we possibly can be. The term Fundamentalism seems to represent the Christian religion as though it had suddenly become an “ism” and needed to be called by some strange new name. I cannot see why that should be done. The term seems to me to be particularly inadequate as applied to us conservative Presbyterians. We have a great heritage. We are standing in what we hold to be the great central current of the Church’s life—the great tradition that comes down through Augustine and Calvin to the Westminster Confession of Faith. That we hold to be the high straight road of truth as opposed to vagaries on one side or on the other. Why then should we be so prone to adopt some strange new term?” His preference was to champion being Orthodox. He added: “Orthodoxy means, as we have seen, “straight doxy” [or "straight teaching, straight doctrine"]. Well, how do we tell whether a thing is straight or not? The answer is plain. By comparing it with a rule or plumb line. Our rule or plumb line is the Bible. A thing is “orthodox” if it is in accordance with the Bible.”

On a personal basis, Paul wrote about the importance of a Label in II Corinthians 3:2-3 (NKJV), “You are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read by all men; clearly you are an epistle of Christ, ministered by us, written not with ink but by the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of flesh, that is, of the heart.” If we substitute one word, the verse would read: “You are a LABEL known and read by all men.” The ingredients of one’s life has been “written by the Spirit of God.” The product of one’s life will be a statement of the Fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23) that is easily read and known by all people. When people look at the Label of your life, do they see favorable ingredients that are desirable and beneficial or do they read a Warning that emulating you could be hazardous to their spiritual health and well-being? You are a label that others see and observe. May they see in you that which is favorable and desirable for spiritual nurture and benefit. Consider these things with me.