Back to Basics

At age 45, Vince Lombardi became a head football coach in the NFL for the first time in his life. It was 1959, and he had the challenging task of leading the Green Bay Packers, coming off their worse season ever with a 1-10-1 record. He clearly had his work cut out for him.

But Lombardi wasn’t going to let the previous year’s record shape his expectations. This was a new season, after all—just as this year or this day can be a new season for each of us.

When the discouraged group of players gathered for their first preseason meeting, I’m sure they wondered how their new coach was planning to turn things around.

Coach Lombardi entered the locker room and stood silently for several seconds. Then said, “Men, we’re going to get back to basics.” Then holding out a football in front of these professionals, he spoke one of the most famous quotes in football history:

“Gentlemen, this is a football.”

Legend has it that the Hall of fame punter and tight end, Max McGee hollered out from the back of the locker room “Hold on a minute, Coach! You’re going too fast!”

Not only does football have its basics, so does every sport. The basics must be learned first. That’s true in business. Education. Or any discipline. That’s also true when it comes to religion. To Christianity. And to the Bible.

This year our preaching and writing theme is “Fundamentals of Faith.” Every Monday our column will feature basic beliefs that are fundamental to Christianity. To our faith. To our relationship to the Lord.

If we’re not careful it’s easy to get away from the elementary principles of our faith. To neglect them. Forget them. Or fail to develop them. This was the Hebrew writer’s warning to a second generation of Jewish Christians who were in danger of spiritually drifting away.

“For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God” (Heb. 5:12).

While these Christians should have been eating the “meat of the Word,” the writer said they needed to return to drinking the “milk of the Word.” To the elementary truths that God has revealed. The rudiments of faith. Bible basics.

The writer’s warning is not just appropriate for those who are drifting away and neglecting their faith, but it’s a good admonition for all of us to return to those foundational elements on which our faith is based. To be sure that we are not straying away from the essentials and drawing conclusions apart from the doctrine of Christ.

When I was student at Florida College, Harry Pickup, Jr. offered me and a friend of mine some excellent advice. He observed that young preachers often fall into one of two extremes. He said not to accept everything that older preachers teach without our own personal study and conviction. However, he warned of rejecting everything older men taught in the quest to uncover some new truth that no one else has discovered.

Brother Pickup then took a pencil and balanced it on his finger. Then said, “Boys, the key is balance.”

The key is also basics. It’s good to ask, “Does what I’ve been taught conform to the principles of God’s Word?” And when I think I’ve discovered some new truth, to ask, “Does this idea or application violate any basic Bible principle?”

In the spirt of Lombardi, we want to hold high “The Book,” and say…

“This is a Bible!”

–Ken Weliever, The Preacherman