The Principle of Proximity

One of the great things about living in 2022 is we can read, listen to, and follow the best. If you want to hear the best preachers around the world, you can go on youtube and listen to them for free. If you want to read the best theologians, you do not need to ship your family off to seminary to study under them. You can download their latest ebook on your amazon kindle. With wonderful websites like gutenberg.org you can access the greatest written works of all time and read them for free! Other sites like monergism.com have vaults of Christian writings that are time tested to be invaluable to your Christian walk. Though it is not without its problems, 2022 is an amazing time to be alive.

With all this at our fingertips, there is a tendency for us to defer to the specialist. The industrial revolution brought about increased specialization through innovations like the division of labor. Workers were specifically trained and suited for their unique jobs, jobs that the now untrained, lower-tiered workers could not do. This is not unlike the current content space online. If I want to listen to a psychologist talk I will click the clinical psychologist. If I want to listen to a sermon, I will get one from the degreed scholar--who has studied for years and written book after book. 

And that makes the rest of us a little tentative about entering that content space. Why would I offer my thoughts and opinions to a place where so many can do it better? Why post a blog about something when there are books (plural) on the matter that hit the ball out of the park? No doubt God has especially equipped certain individuals for this sphere of Christian religion, and I think we should be thankful that we can access their books and sermons at such minimal costs. Far from fostering a jealous spirit at the abilities and gifts of others, this is a good thing that we should celebrate. The more access we have to them, I say the better!

But there remains something I have, and something you have as well, that the well-known specialist lacks. There is something you have that the greatest preachers of the past and the most acclaimed pastor-theologians of our day do not. They are not where you are. You have a time and a place that is different from them. A circle where you are not only valued more, but needed more. Certainly anyone can pick up a John MacArthur book to great benefit. But John MacArthur is not here. He does not know the people in my local church. He does not have a 10 year friendship with my neighbor or all the experiences I have so far shared with my son. And this goes back to the idea of Going Local, and why it is undeniable that an up close, breathing human being has potential to impact me far more than the greatest podcaster. It is why I will say I have been more influenced by my Dad than any of the incredible books I have read, excepting the Bible. Those books didn't know me. They did not, over the course of years, love me and care for me and discuss with me and provide for me. The truth these books testify about is precious and unchanging, but the medium is hardly as forceful as a real life person who knows me.  

This fact is illustrated by the incarnation of Jesus Christ. Certainly the Son was born of a woman in order that He could be our great High Priest and represent us before God. But He also is the exact image of the Father, the highest pinnacle of God's revelation. In times prior God sent prophets and messages from on high, but in these latter times He sent His Son, an up close, warm-blooded, exact representation of God. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. In the incarnation we could say in a sense, the Son of God "went local". He was not content with having an impersonal contact, merely lobbing messages second hand. He travelled that immeasurable distance from heaven to earth and came in close, to the point of immeasurable suffering and humiliation to himself. He entered into our place and revealed nothing less than God to us, in the most intimate way. And we have seen His glory, the glory of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.

In the places God has sovereignly placed us, we have a profound opportunity to get planted and grow deep. There are people specifically placed around us that we have a blessed occasion to serve, perhaps better than anyone else. These opportunities are too precious to miss scrolling through our phones. While technology offers us opportunities to help people the world over, it is my suspicion that we can impact people closer to us more deeply than those further from us. We can long for that online reach or to one day publish a book that may help reach others, but the fact remains those efforts probably will not change lives in the same way our relationship with our children will change lives, or that conversation with that single mother will change lives, or that meal with that young couple can change lives.

Going local is sure to be less celebrated and more risky. It will likely open you up to pain, difficulty, and all sorts of other frustrations; but that should only be another indicator that it is worth doing.