Playing with Fire and Theology

How many fuses could I tie together? The real challenge didn't concern how many but how long I could restrain myself before lighting the flame.

If I grouped them in threes and then bundled those groups into clusters, I could control them—maybe. Even if I couldn't, safety wasn't a priority—bigger was.

It started with a forgotten box of fireworks—bottle rockets, mostly. The kind that zips and pops but never impresses. We weren't looking for a show. We wanted to play with fire.

So we did.

Me, my best friend, and his brother.

We pulled the fuses individually, twisting them into a tangled green web. Nine rockets became eighteen. Eighteen became thirty-six. Soon, we had a knotted ball too chaotic to aim. The uglier it looked, the more my heart pumped.

Without a word of warning,  I lit it.

Our balled-up tangled fuse caught into a flame rather than flickering.

"We can't aim that at the street!" Brad yelled.

Too late. The fire raced down the thick rope of fuses.

Brad grabbed the bundle, panicking. Where do you aim the chaos? Toward the house? The yard? The street? The porch?

He chose sideways. Brilliant!

I leaped over the porch railing and scrambled behind a parked car. Brad curled into a ball on an old couch.

And then—the explosion.

A blur of sparks. The rockets zipped in all directions. Some bounced off porch walls. Some launched straight into the air. Some exploded inches from Brad's curled-up body.

Silence.

Then, laughter.

"Bradley!" His mother's voice called from inside the house.

We scrambled to clean up the mess, sweeping away the ashes and piling up the wreckage.

Then we slipped inside to play Halo, thinking the worst had passed.

Until the smoke came.

At first, just a haze. Then, an orange glow.

"We should check on that," I thought.

As we lifted the couch cushion, the flame within them darted towards us.

One of the rockets—maybe more—had wedged itself between the cushions, smoldering while we played. Brad ran for the hose while I stomped and slapped.

The burn marks remained. Melted fabric, charred edges, blackened siding—the unmistakable evidence of our recklessness.

We didn't mean to burn the porch down.

We played with fire without understanding.

What we did that day felt harmless, fun, even clever. But what seemed like a good idea at the time led to destruction we couldn't control.

Scripture warns, "There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death" (Proverbs 16:25).

And this applies beyond fireworks.

Israel did the same thing. Their decline wasn't immediate. They didn't wake up one day and say, "Let's abandon God." It started small. Tiny compromises. Twisting God's words. Playing with fire. Until one day, the flames consumed them.

Hosea saw it coming as God declared, "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge" (Hosea 4:6).

They stopped learning. They stopped caring. And they paid for it.

Too many Christians treat theology like I treated those fireworks. Something trivial. Something to tinker with but never take seriously.

Handled rightly, theology brings warmth and light.

Mishandled, it burns homes to the ground.

We focus on spiritual formation, heart issues, and loving Jesus—but how can you love someone you don't know? How can you follow a God you refuse to understand?

Bad theology doesn't always explode immediately.

Sometimes, it smolders in the background, creeping beneath the surface until the damage cannot be contained.

We need to learn, we need to study. When the flames rise, the only faith that will stand is one deeply rooted in truth.

There's a chasm between playing with fire and tending the flame.