I was thinking about the saying today, “don’t burn your bridges”. The idea essentially being, don’t go and ruin relationships you don’t think you’ll need anymore. What if you have to go back, you can’t cross a burnt bridge.
But, in true Christianity, it’s not only necessary, it’s fundamentally inescapable.
When we become believers, we must leave our relationship with sin and burn the bridge. Not because dogmatically we must in order to go to heaven, but rather, because if we truly believe we will out of love.
I think the inverse of the same idea is illustrated in a confusing verse in Hebrews 6:4-6:
For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt.
Although I think the author is speaking about a hypothetical person, the idea that’s communicated is that as a new believer, must cut his ties to his former life with sin. It’s the only way of true belief. So much so that should a true believer decide to recross that bridge, there would be no sacrifice left for him.
Now, again, the discussion around that verse is extremely long. But, for my point today, I say that it nicely illustrates this idea.
So lets change the saying. “Don’t burn your bridges… unless it’s a bridge to your former life in sin—in which case, get the matches.”
September 24th, 2008 at 1:16 am
Very true, Jesus also said, Matthew 10:34 - “I come not to bring peace, but to bring a sword”
Which is very much along the same lines. If someone we share the gospel with burns a bridge. That’s just how it is.