Mr. Holland’s Opus

Read: Luke 12:16-21

One of my favorite movies is Mr. Holland’s Opus, starring Richard Dreyfuss. It tells the story of a talented young musician who dreams of creating a masterpiece, his magnum opus, his legacy of genius for history.

Unfortunately, his family needs food and a place to live while the masterwork is in progress, so Mr. Holland takes a job as a public school band director. He is good at the job, but often frustrated as he finds that its demands, and the needs of the young people in his classes, take so much time and energy that he has little left over for composing.

The movie follows Mr. Holland throughout the ups and downs of his adult life, until, at the end [spoiler alert], his dreams of composing fame never realized, he comes to understand that these people were his real opus. The students and family into whom he poured himself over the years were the lasting treasure, the mark of a successful life.

The story rings true for lawyers and, I’m sorry to say, law professors. Many of us dream of making partner, winning the record-breaking verdict, arguing the landmark case in the Supreme Court, being elected to high political office, or appointed as an appellate judge. We tend to assume that our legacy, our mark on history, is found in our achievements within the legal profession.

There’s nothing wrong with those things, but in terms of priority, Luke 12 tells a different story. Not only money, but all the achievements of this world are temporary. They will soon be forgotten by everyone. There is only one thing of permanent, eternal value into which we can invest ourselves: relationships, with God and with other people. Long after our office achievements have been forgotten, the people whom we impacted will be impacting others, who will impact others, and so on.

So the next time you are tempted to think that the “important work” of your day is being interrupted by the annoying client who calls for no real reason, or the secretary who requires way too much hand-holding, or the spouse whose needs are never met, or the children who just can’t understand that you’re too busy, or the waitress at your favorite diner who won’t shut up – take a moment to realize that those people are your important work for the day. God is much more interested in how you impact their lives than He is in one more rewrite of the brief or contract.

~ Prof. Brad Jacob, Regent University School of Law

Relationships and Priorities: Master, Mate, Mission

When Christ reminded the expert in the law with “the greatest commandment in the Law,” He was spelling out for us all how to live our lives.

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” Matthew 22: 37

This passage lays out the priorities of life, or what I call Master, Mate, Mission. And a new year presents a perfect opportunity to readjust yours, if needed. Every day presents challenges in keeping the proper priorities in every area of our lives. For each of us, regardless of calling or position, the very first priority in our lives needs to be Christ, our Master. That means spending time with God as the priority above all others, keeping Him above all else, indeed, “loving Him will all your heart, all your soul, all your mind.”

The second part of the greatest commandment deals with the rest of our priorities: “loving your neighbor as yourself.” These could be characterized as the other relationships in your life. Included in these are those in your family (spouse, children, parents, siblings) and your mission (calling, vocation, church, etc.), or Mate and Mission.

The key to all of life is having your priorities in order. For lawyers who work from 6am to 11pm to meet billable hours, or to achieve the best outcome in the case, and for law students inspired by their calling, this warning should be taken all the more seriously.

If you are married, your order must be Master, Mate, Mission. This means God is first in your life, your spouse and children are next as your first neighbors, and your calling is your third – in that order. Too many lawyers and law students fall prey to being consumed by their mission, to the detriment of their master and mate. A married individual must keep this order of priorities, in obedience to Christ as the greatest commandments, and to thrive in life (I Corinthians 7:33-35). When children come along, the order is even more important – Master, then Mate, then children, then mission. As a woman and a lawyer I know how easy it is to put your children above your husband, a sure mistake in priorities, or to put work before family. Women are good at multitasking, but we must keep these priorities. It is equally if not more important that men guard these priorities, keeping certain that family, wife then children, come before work. Men and women know how easy it is to let mission crowd out master and mate. Guarding these priorities is the key to thriving.

A single person, by contrast, is not (yet) weighed down with family concerns (again I Corinthians 7:32-35), and can keep a different order: Master, Mission, Mate. This means that as you keep your Master first, you are free to make your neighbor the mission. And, as you are carrying out your mission, if God desires He will bring along your mate in the process of your mission, in His perfect time, as part of His perfect plan for you. This means that as a single you are free to thrive in your mission, not needing to “look for” that mate, knowing God will choose a mate for you, if it is His will, in His perfect timing, as you are carrying out that second commandment, “loving your neighbor as yourself.” This is the secret to thriving in obedience to Christ.

Relationships and priorities: Master, Mate, Mission or Master, Mission, Mate. The key to all of life is having your priorities in order, the Greatest Commandments.

~ Professor Lynne Marie Kohm, Regent University School of Law

Building God's House (Haggai 1:1-15)

Zerubbabel and Joshua and the rest of the people of Jerusalem were able to avert God’s anger and receive His blessing because they redirected their energies and refocused their priorities. They did not give up rebuilding their homes and the rest of the city, but they gave top priority to completing the work on the temple, which was God’s top priority. This is one of the most encouraging passages of Scripture. Praise God if it can be said about us: “The people obeyed the voice of the Lord their God . . . . And the people feared the Lord.”

And how did God respond to this change of heart and mind? “‘I am with you,’ declares the Lord.” What greater encouragement and affirmation could we ever desire?

All of this is well and good, but it does not give us much guidance on making Christ-honoring changes in our own lives. Assuming that we want to stop working on our own metaphorical houses and focus on the Lord’s house – that we want to give our first attention to His top priorities and not our own – how do we know what God’s top priorities are?

Priority Number One is the same today as it was in Haggai’s day. We are to build God’s temple. Today, of course, the temple of God is not a building or structure; it is the bodies and lives of Christians. I Corinthians 3:16-17 says, “Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him; for God’s temple is sacred, and you are that temple.”

The first step in building a temple pleasing to God is to have a personal relationship with Him. Christians come in many styles and flavors: we may be Presbyterian or Baptist, Methodist or Lutheran, Catholic or Orthodox, Pentecostal or fundamentalist, Calvinist or Free-Will. Some of us worship by singing hymns; others sing contemporary Christian music and choruses. Some churches baptize infants; others baptize only believers. There are legitimate areas for Christians to differ on these issues, and room for diversity within the Kingdom on non-essential doctrines and preferences.

But one point is clear: no one ever attained salvation by merely belonging to a church, or being baptized, or singing in the choir, or serving on a committee, or doing good to the poor. All of these things are good, but God demands more. He demands a personal, heart-felt acceptance of Jesus’ substitutionary death on the Cross, and a recognition that only faith in Him, and not any merit on our part, can make us acceptable to God. If we have not reached that level of personal faith, then we have not even begun to “build God’s temple.”

What about those who have accepted Christ as Savior, but are not really giving that relationship much time or effort? That may describe many Christian lawyers. Our salvation is secure, but we are so consumed with our lawyering and the tremendous demands on our time that God more and more fills the role of a comforting after-thought. We focus on Him Sunday mornings in church, but during the rest of the week He slips from our consciousness. We don’t deny Him, but we ignore Him.

In doing so, we have duplicated the mistake of Haggai’s day. We have neglected the repair and improvement of God’s temple in order to do things that are good, but not God’s best. “Good enough” is always the enemy of the best. Like the people of Jerusalem, we must hear God’s call and make our daily focus on Him and His word to be our top priority. We must obey the voice of the Lord, so that God can say, “I am with you.”

~ Prof. Brad Jacob, Regent University School of Law