A while ago I was trying to fix our garage door. I came to that one screw I had to get loose, and the more I worked to loosen that screw the tighter it seemed to get. A neighbor came over and saw my plight. He looked for a moment or two and said, "Oh, this has a lefthanded thread. It's a reverse screw. You have to tighten or loosen it going in the opposite direction." It took me fifty years to find out how screws work, and now they change the rules.

There's a sense in which all the Bible is kind of a reverse screw. Everything in the culture that seems right, in the Bible comes out wrong. The way up is the way down. The way to spiritual wealth is to acknowledge your spiritual poverty. The way to live is to die. The way to rule is to serve. I mean the screw just doesn't work right. It's just incongruous.

But unless you understand the reverse nature of the screw, you never do anything. The more you try to work it according to the values of the culture, the tighter the screw gets and the less you accomplish.

The whole Bible is that way. Everything is upside down. When you come with the values of the culture and read the New Testament, it seems crazy. You spent fifty years learning how to play the game, and now they change the rules. God's always doing that.